HMCS ACADIA
HMCS ACADIA
The History of HMCS ACADIA
Acadia is a former hydrographic and oceanographic research ship of the Hydrographic Survey of Canada and its successor, the Canadian Hydrographic Service. Acadia for 56 years, from 1913 to 1969, charting the coastline of almost every part of Eastern Canada, including pioneering surveys of Hudson Bay. She was also twice commissioned into the Royal Canadian Navy (RCN) as HMCS Acadia, the only ship still afloat to have served the RCN in both World Wars. It is also the last remaining ship afloat that was present at the 1917 Halifax Explosion.
The ship is now a museum ship, designated as a National Historic Site of Canada, moored in Halifax Harbour at the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic.
HMCS ACADIA Statistical Data
- Pendant:
- Type: Hydrographic survey ship
- Class:
- Displacement: 1350 tonnes
- Length: 170 ft
- Width: 33.5 ft
- Draught: 19 ft
- Speed: 8 kts
- Compliment: 59 Officers and Crew
- Arms: 1 - 4", 1 - 12 pdr.
- Builder: Swan Hunter & Wigham Richardson, Newcastle
- Keel Laid:
- Date Launched: 1913
- Date Commissioned:
- Paid off:
Remarks
HMCS Acadia is also the name of a Cadet Summer Training Centre located in Cornwallis, NS.
Additional Information
Acadia 's well-preserved decks, cabins and engine room have attracted numerous film makers who have used the ship to depict a wide variety of vessels. These include:
- A Japanese destroyer in the 1982 Salter Street Film production South Pacific '42
- A Scottish immigrant vessel in the 1990 film Little Kidnappers
- The SS Mont-Blanc in the 1992 Halifax Explosion film Morning of Armageddon
- A World War II merchant ship in the 1992 television show Lifeline to Victory RMS Lusitania in the 1996 docudrama Lusitania
- The liner RMS Republic in the 1996 PBS American Experience show Rescue at Sea
- A hospital ship in the 1998 short film Halifax 1917
- A 19th century ocean liner in Alexander Keith's Brewery beer commercials in 2000
- HMS Beagle in a 2009 NOVA/National Geographic docudrama Darwin's Darkest Hour
- A San Francisco ferry and steam-powered sealing ship in the 2009 miniseries Sea Wolf
- As both RMS Titanic and the cable ship CS Mackay-Bennett in the 2011 docudrama Waking the Titanic.