CSS Acadia

The former hydrographic and oceanographic research ship Acadia was built by Swan Hunter & Wigham Richardson at Newcastle-on-Tyne, England for the Hydrographic Survey of Canada (later renamed the Canadian Hydrographic Service).  Launched on 8 May 1913, Acadia was the first ship specifically designed to survey Canada's northern waters and featured strengthened framing and additional 22mm steel plating.  After arriving in Canada, Acadia was further strengthened for ice operations and entered service in July 1913.  She initially carried the prefix CGS for 'Canadian Government Ship' and, after the Second World War, CSS for 'Canadian Survey Ship'.  Acadia was the Canadian Hydrographic Service's first ship to be fitted with wireless telegraphy, while in 1928 she received a gyro-compass and in 1929 a British Admiralty echo sounder system.  In 1956, a DECCA navigational system was installed on Acadia.

Over her 56-year service life between 1913 and 1969, Acadia charted the coastline of nearly every part of eastern Canada.  In the years before the First World War, she carried out the first Canadian surveys of Sable Island, charted the western Hudson Bay region, conducted tidal charting and depth soundings for various east coast ports, and performed ocenographic research.  Further hydrographic work continued in the 1920s and 1930s, including in the Gulf of St Lawrence and up into the Saguenay River, as well as surveys during 1929-31 which helped establish the Hudson Bay port of Churchill, Manitoba.  In 1939, Acadia was tasked to re-chart the coasts of the Canadian Maritimes and Newfoundland, with a further assignment to update and expand the nautical charts of the waters around Newfoundland and Labrador following that British colony's decision to join Canada in 1949.  In addition to surveying work, CSS Acadia was involved in several rescue operations over its career, including the evacuation of 600 people from eastern Newfoundland in 1961 as a result of forest fires.

During both World Wars, Acadia was commissioned into the Royal Canadian Navy (RCN) as HMCS Acadia, equipped with guns and depth charges, and used as an anti-submarine patrol and escort vessel; however, her slow speed of only 8 knots (15 km/h; 9.2 mph) limited her usefulness.  Commissioned into the RCN on 16 January 1917, Acadia was serving as a guard ship at the entrance to Bedford Basin in Halifax, Nova Scotia on 6 December of that year when the Halifax Explosion devastated the city; however, Acadia suffered only minor damage and she continued to escort local merchant convoys through Canadian waters in 1918 before being decommissioned in March 1919.  Upon the outbreak of the Second World War, Acadia was commissioned into the RCN on 2 October 1939 and served as a patrol vessel, anti-aircraft training ship, and gunnery training vessel before being decommissioned on 3 November 1945.  Acadia remains the only surviving vessel to have served the RCN in both World Wars.

By the 1960s, the ageing CSS Acadia and its coal-fired boilers and steam engine was limited to a speed of approximately 9 knots (17 km/h; 10 mph) and the Canadian Hydrographic Service took the decision to retire her on 28 November 1969.  Transferred to the Bedford Institute of Oceanography as a museum ship, Acadia was designated a National Historic Site of Canada in 1976.  In February 1980, she was transferred to the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic in Halifax, Nova Scotia for preservation and interpretation.  Berthed at the wharf behind the museum since 1982, Acadia is open to the public from May to October annually.  Every five years, Acadia is towed to a nearby drydock for a hull inspection and repainting.


Specifications: CSS Acadia
Tonnage: 846 gross register tons
Length: 55.4 metres (181 feet 9 inches)
Beam: 10.2 metres (33.5 feet)
Draught: 5.8 metes (19 feet)
Propulsion: 2 x coal-fired Scotch boilers feeding a triple-expansion steam engine driving a single screw at 1,715 shaft horsepower
Speed: 14 knots (26 km/h; 16 mph)
Wartime armament: 1 x Quick Firing 4-inch gun forward; 1 x Quick Firing 12-pounder gun aft; 8 x depth charges 
Complement: 60 (including 10 dedicated to hydrographic research)


Photos taken 1 and 4 July 2009

CSS Acadia moored at the North Wharf of the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic in Halifax, Nova Scotia, 1 July 2009.  Acadia is named after the early French colonial name of today's Nova Scotia.

A port bow view from the North Wharf, photographed on a foggy 4 July 2009. 

A starboard beam view of CSS Acadia, 4 July 2009.  One of the survey launches has been lowered from the davits into the water.

Looking aft from Acadia's forecastle, 4 July 2009.  The enlarged bridge was added during a 1955 refit.

Looking forward along Acadia's starboard side from the quarterdeck, 4 July 2009.

Visitors tour CSS Acadia, berthed behind the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic in Halifax, 4 July 2009.  As a product of Edwardian-era shipbuilders, Acadia's interiors featured fine mahogany and oak panelling and brass fittings more suited to an elegant yacht than a government surveying vessel.

CSS Acadia, photographed on 25 April 2018.  The retired survey ship is the largest single artefact in the collection of the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic and the only vessel still afloat to have been present during the 6 December 1917 Halifax Explosion, the largest man-made detonation until the atomic bomb in 1945.

A view of CSS Acadia's counter stern, a design popular in the Edwardian era when the ship was constructed.

A diorama in the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic depicting CSS Acadia early in her career during a surveying mission in Arctic waters.  A launch is slung from Acadia's starboard forward davits and members of the crew explore the pack ice on foot.  Photographed 3 November 2019.

A 1:96 scale model of HMCS Acadia in the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic depicts the vessel as she appeared in 1940-41 while defending the approaches to Halifax Harbour.  Photographed 3 November 2019.
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