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Navy enters new era by welcoming long-awaited Arctic warship into fleet

Jul 31, 2020 | 2:03 AM

OTTAWA — The Royal Canadian Navy is entering a new era today as it officially welcomes the long-overdue HMCS Harry deWolf into its fleet.

The deWolf is the first armed warship to have been finished through the federal government’s multibillion-dollar shipbuilding plan.

It is also the first of six new vessels purpose-built for the navy to conduct military operations in the Arctic in decades.

Rob Huebert, an expert on the Arctic at the University of Calgary, says that heralds a significant shift for the navy, which has tended to focus on the rest of the world and leave Canada’s Far North to the Canadian Coast Guard.