H.M.C.S. “Margaret Brooke”

The Royal Canadian Navy’s Arctic and offshore patrol vessel H.M.C.S. Margaret Brooke is named in honour of Lieutenant-Commander Margaret M. Brooke. The ship was launched in 2019 in Halifax and joined the Navy’s fleet  in 2022. The ship is designed for use in the Arctic and is a capable icebreaker with a length of 103.6 m. She will have a crew of 65 and is armed with a 25 mm cannon and two .50-calibre machine guns. She is equipped with a helicopter landing pad and hangar. Her diesel-electric power system provides a maximum speed of 17 knots (31.5 km/hr) and a range of 12,600 km.

Lieutenant-Commander Margaret Brooke served as a Navy Nursing Sister in World War II. She survived the sinking of S.S. Caribou and was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire for her heroic attempt to save her friend and colleague Nursing Sister Agnes Wilkie. She retired from the Canadian Forces in 1962. She then obtained her Ph.D. in paleontology from the University of Saskatchewan, where she became a researcher. She passed away at 100 years old in Victoria, BC in 2016.