St. Roch wintering in the Beaufort Sea, 1948.
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History | |
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Canada | |
Name | St. Roch |
Builder | Burrard Dry Dock Co. Ltd., North Vancouver |
Launched | 7 May 1928 |
Status | Designated a National Historic Site of Canada at the Vancouver Maritime Museum, 1962 |
General characteristics [1] | |
Type | Auxiliary Police Schooner |
Displacement | 323 long tons (328 t) |
Length | 104 ft 3 in (31.78 m) |
Beam | 24 ft 9 in (7.54 m) |
Draft | 12 ft 6 in (3.81 m) |
Depth of hold | 11 ft (3.4 m) |
Propulsion |
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Official name | St. Roch National Historic Site of Canada |
Designated | 1962 |
RCMPV St. Roch is a Royal Canadian Mounted Police schooner, the first ship to completely circumnavigate North America, and the second vessel to transit the Northwest Passage. She was the first ship to complete the Northwest Passage in the west to east direction (Pacific to the Atlantic Ocean), using the same route that Amundsen on the sailing vessel Gjøa had traversed east to west, 38 years earlier.
The ship was most often captained by Henry Larsen.[2]
Liverpool-born Sgt. Fred S. Farrar RCMP (1901-1954) was a crew member of St. Roch for various voyages including the 1950 voyage that circumnavigated North America; he wrote the book Arctic Assignment: The Story of the St. Roch which was published posthumously in 1955.
The Stan Rogers song "Take It From Day To Day" is the lament of a crew member on St. Roch.
The ship is located at the Vancouver Maritime Museum in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, and is open to the public for scheduled visits.[3]