Royal Canadian Navy sets out on first-ever deployment to Antarctica with band playing Heart of Oak

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The Royal Canadian Navy set out on its first-ever deployment to Antarctica Friday, but it wasn’t leaving tradition behind.

As HMCS Margaret Brooke left the dock in Halifax for a four-month voyage to South America and beyond, the Stadacona Band played Heart of Oak twice, even though the military is in the process of ditching the centuries-old marching tune due to its colonialist and male-centric overtones.

“We’ll play it until someone tells us not to,” said the conductor, who didn’t want to be interviewed on the subject.

Margaret Brooke is one of the navy’s new Arctic and offshore patrol vessels. With a crew of 85 sailors, the warship will first head to the Caribbean, then South America, where scientists from the Natural Resources Canada will come aboard in Punta Arenas, Chile, for the voyage south of the Antarctic Circle to the northern tip of Antarctica.

“It will be the first RCN ship to visit Antarctica,” said Commodore Jacob French, commander of Canadian Fleet Atlantic.

That two-week visit will happen in early March, “kind of the end of their summer season,” French said, before the warship heads back north along the Pacific coast of South America, through the Panama Canal and back to Nova Scotia in May.

The purpose of the trip is to meet with South American navies, and conduct diplomatic visits, with stops planned at several research bases along the way.

“It’s a good opportunity to showcase Canadian Arctic capability to an Antarctic audience,” French said.

Once the vessel reaches Antarctica, scientists “will be doing some core sampling (of the ocean floor), some oceanography and some marine geology,” French said.

The ship can operate in ice — it was deployed north of the Arctic Circle this past summer — but “while they might see some floating icebergs here and there,” the crew isn’t expected to spot much of that during this voyage, he said.

“It will be the first (Canadian warship) to be north of the Arctic Circle and south of the Antarctic Circle all within the same year,” French said.

Watching from the nearby flight deck of HMCS Harry DeWolf, Lt.-Cmdr. Amanda Jayne was on hand to wave goodbye to her friend, Cmdr. Teri Share, the skipper of Margaret Brooke.

“It’s going to be epic,” Jayne said of the coming voyage. “It’s a big trip, not in waters we normally sail.”

Currently on maternity leave, the naval warfare officer had her young daughter, Morley, on hand for the departure ceremony. Jayne has sailed as far south as Chile with the navy, but Antarctica is another story.

Share’s the right captain for the mission, said Jayne, who met her during training at Royal Military College Saint-Jean 23 years ago.

“She has a ton of sailing experience. She’s been, literally, around the world,” Jayne said. “One of her first deployments was circumnavigating the globe on HMCS Protecteur. So, it’s kind of fitting for her to round out her at-sea career doing this.”

Martha Rose and her three children, ages five, two and nine months, were at the dockyard Friday to say their goodbyes to Leading Sailor Anthony Logan, one of the cooks aboard the departing ship.

“They’re going to have some yummy cocktail parties,” Rose said.

She homeschools their three children, and they plan to follow the Margaret Brooke’s path on a map as the voyage progresses.

“We have our own cute little thing every time he goes to a port, he brings me back a pebble because that’s what penguins do for their spouse,” Rose said of Logan.

“So, I’m going to get my Antarctica pebble — my little penguin pebble.”

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