The Canadian Coast Guard is the coast guard of Canada. Formed in 1962, the coast guard is tasked with marine search and rescue (SAR), communication, navigation, and transportation issues in Canadian waters, such as navigation aids and icebreaking, marine pollution response, and support for other Canadian government initiatives. The coast guard operates 119 vessels of varying sizes and 23 helicopters, along with a variety of smaller craft. The CCG is headquartered in Ottawa, Ontario, and is a special operating agency within Fisheries and Oceans Canada.
CCGS Amundsen is a Pierre Radisson-class icebreaker and Arctic research vessel operated by the Canadian Coast Guard. The vessel entered service in 1979 as Franklin and was renamed Sir John Franklin in 1980 and served as such until 1996. Declared surplus, the vessel was used as an accommodation ship in Labrador in 1996 and placed in reserve in 2000. In 2003, the ship was reactivated and underwent conversion to an Arctic research vessel. The ship recommissioned as Amundsen.
CCGS Frederick G. Creed was a hydrographic survey vessel operated by the Canadian Coast Guard on behalf of the Canadian Hydrographic Service, a scientific agency of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. The ship was built in 1988 by Swath Ocean Systems Incorporated of San Diego, California and entered service the same year. The ship was taken out of service in March 2020 and sold for scrap.
CCGS Labrador was a Wind-class icebreaker. First commissioned on 8 July 1954 as Her Majesty's Canadian Ship (HMCS) Labrador in the Royal Canadian Navy (RCN), Captain O.C.S. "Long Robbie" Robertson, GM, RCN, in command. She was transferred to the Department of Transport (DOT) on 22 November 1957, and re-designated Canadian Government Ship (CGS) Labrador. She was among the DOT fleet assigned to the nascent Canadian Coast Guard (CCG) when that organization was formed in 1962, and further re-designated Canadian Coast Guard Ship (CCGS) Labrador. Her career marked the beginning of the CCG's icebreaker operations which continue to this day. She extensively charted and documented the then-poorly-known Canadian Arctic, and as HMCS Labrador was the first ship to circumnavigate North America in a single voyage. The ship was taken out of service in 1987 and broken up for scrap in 1989.
CCGS Hudson was an offshore oceanographic and hydrographic survey vessel operated by the Canadian Coast Guard. The ship entered service in 1963 with the Canadian Oceanographic Service, stationed at the Bedford Institute of Oceanography, called CSS Hudson. The ship made several significant scientific voyages, among them the first circumnavigation of the Americas in 1970. The ship was transferred to the Canadian Coast Guard in 1996 and decommissioned in 2022. A replacement is not scheduled for delivery until 2024–2025.
CCGS Alfred Needler was an offshore fishery science vessel operated by the Canadian Coast Guard. The vessel entered service in 1982 with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, stationed at the Bedford Institute of Oceanography in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. In 1995, in order to reduce the number of ships and combine tasks, the Fisheries and Oceans fleet and the Canadian Coast Guard fleets were merged under the Canadian Coast Guard.
CCGS Limnos is a Canadian Coast Guard coastal research and survey vessel and it is named after the Greek island of Limnos which itself derived from "limni", the Greek word for lake. The ship entered service in 1968 and is currently active. The ship is based on the Great Lakes at the Coast Guard Base in Burlington, Ontario and is used for hydrographic and limnological research.
CCGS John G. Diefenbaker is the name for a Canadian Coast Guard icebreaker that had been expected to join the fleet by 2017 but has been significantly delayed. Her namesake, John G. Diefenbaker, was Canada's 13th prime minister. It was Diefenbaker's government that founded the Canadian Coast Guard in 1962.
CCGS Ann Harvey is a Canadian Coast Guard buoy tender and SAR vessel with light icebreaker duties. She was constructed in 1987 by Halifax Dartmouth Industries, in Halifax, Nova Scotia. The vessel was named after Ann Harvey, the daughter of a local Newfoundland fisherman who helped rescue 185 people during her lifetime. Ann Harvey's home port is St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador and is stationed there with other Coast Guard ships.
CCGS Captain Molly Kool is a Canadian Coast Guard converted medium class icebreaker. She was originally built as an icebreaking anchor handling tug Vidar Viking for Trans Viking Icebreaking & Offshore in 2001. The vessel was acquired by the Canadian Coast Guard in August 2018 and was commissioned in May of the next year after refit.
CCGS Pierre Radisson is the lead ship of her class of icebreakers. Constructed and operated by the Canadian Coast Guard, the vessel is based at Quebec City on the Saint Lawrence River. The ship was constructed in British Columbia in the 1970s and has been in service ever since. The vessel is named for Pierre-Esprit Radisson, a 17th-century French fur trader and explorer.
CCGS Teleost is a Canadian Coast Guard fisheries research vessel. The ship was originally constructed in Norway in 1988 as a commercial fishing trawler named Atlantic Champion. In 1993, the Canadian government purchased the vessel and after a competition among schoolchildren, the vessel was named Teleost by the winner. The vessel was converted to an offshore fisheries research vessel in 1994–1995 and entered service in 1996 with the Canadian Coast Guard. The ship is currently in active service.
CCGS Vector is a hydrographic survey vessel in the Canadian Coast Guard. The ship was constructed in Canada and entered service in 1967 as a coastal research vessel on the West Coast. The ship is currently in service, based at Canadian Coast Guard Base Patricia Bay in Sidney, British Columbia.
CCGS Jean Goodwill is an icebreaking anchor handling tug supply vessel (AHTS) converted to a medium class icebreaker for the Canadian Coast Guard. She was originally built as Balder Viking for Trans Viking Icebreaking & Offshore AS in 2000. The vessel was sold to Canada in 2018 and was initially expected to enter service in late 2019 following a refit. However, due to delays the conversion of the vessel was not completed until November 2020.
CCGS Vincent Massey is an icebreaking anchor handling tug supply vessel (AHTS) converted to a medium class icebreaker for the Canadian Coast Guard. She was originally built as Tor Viking for Trans Viking Icebreaking & Offshore AS in 2000 and has also traded under the name Tor Viking II. The vessel was sold to Canada in 2018 and was initially expected to enter service in summer 2020 following a refit. However, the conversion work was delayed and the vessel was delivered to the Canadian Coast Guard in October 2022.
The Martha L. Black-class icebreakers are a class of six light icebreaker and buoy tenders constructed for and operated by the Canadian Coast Guard. Built in the 1980s, the class operates on both coasts of Canada and have been used for operations in the Arctic region, including the search for the ships of Franklin's lost expedition. They are rated as "high endurance multi-tasked vessels" under Canadian Coast Guard naming rules.
CCGS Sir John Franklin is an offshore fisheries research ship of the Canadian Coast Guard. The ship was ordered in 2011 as part of the Canadian National Shipbuilding Procurement Strategy (NSPS) as a replacement for aging Canadian Coast Guard vessels. The ship was launched on 8 December 2017, named for Sir John Franklin, an arctic explorer who led two Royal Navy expeditions in search of the Northwest Passage, the second ending with the death of all his crew around 1848. The first of three vessels, Sir John Franklin is the sister ship of CCGS Capt. Jacques Cartier and CCGS John Cabot.
RV David Thompson is a Parks Canada mid-shore scientific research and survey vessel, that entered service in 2016. David Thompson has been used to carry out underwater archaeology work with Parks Canada during the survey of HMS Erebus and HMS Terror, the two Franklin Expedition ships lost in Northern Canadian waters. The vessel was formerly a fisheries patrol vessel of the Canadian Coast Guard named CCGS Arrow Post.
CCGS Capt. Jacques Cartier is an offshore fisheries research ship of the Canadian Coast Guard. The ship was ordered in 2011 as part of the Canadian National Shipbuilding Procurement Strategy (NSPS) as a replacement for aging Canadian Coast Guard vessels. Capt. Jacques Cartier is the sister ship of CCGS Sir John Franklin and CCGS John Cabot. The ship was constructed at Seaspan Shipyard, Vancouver, British Columbia and launched on 5 June 2019.
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