The Skeena Sea Cadet Corps, founded in wartime 1941, celebrated 60 years of service to the youth of Northumberland County. Celebrations organized by the Northumberland Branch of the Navy League of Canada were held at the Skeena Building in Port Hope, Ontario. In attendance at various events were more than 100 Cadet Corps alumni and guests and several veterans of the WWII Destroyer, HMCS Skeena after which the Corps is named. 

Norm  wanted to make a contribution to the celebrations and promised the corps a model of the "Skeena".  On May 26, 2002 he delivered it.  The model is on display in the lobby of the R.C.S.C.C. Skeena building on Mill street in Port Hope, Ontario. The model is built to a scale of 1/8 inch to 1 foot, and the
plans were obtained from a man in Dartmouth N.S..

      In the formative years of the Royal Canadian Navy , Canada operated with a mere handful of obsolete ships that had had been passed on to her from the Royal Navy. However there was always a driving spirit to make the R.C.N. a workable navy. 
      In 1928 permission was given to order two brand new ships from England. These two ships were built in England by John I. Thornycroft & Co., Southampton, UK, and were virtual copies of the Royal Navy “A” (Acasta) class destroyers. However, they were built to Canadian specifications and had some built in features that until this time were unheard of. These included steam heat in the crew spaces, strengthened hulls to withstand ice conditions in the North Atlantic, superior ventilation systems, and refrigeration. They entered service known as Rolls Royce destroyers. 
      H.M.C.S. Saguenay was commissioned into the R.C.N. on May 22 1931, and Skeena followed on June 10,1931. Both ships arrived in Halifax on July 3, 1931. Until the outbreak of WWII these two ships  served on both the east and west coasts, and showed the Canadian flag in all parts of the world. 
      When war started both ships were brought to Halifax, and both ships served as Atlantic convoy escorts. Skeena was attached to the R.N. for a short time and was present in the evacuation of France and on D-Day. 
      In October 1944 Skeena was attached to escort group 11 and was on anti-submarine patrol south of Iceland. On October 24 the group was caught in a severe storm with winds gusting to 100 mph, and sleet and snow. That night the group took shelter in Iceland and tried to take advantage of the little bit of shelter offered by Videy Island, in Reykjavik harbour. 
      After all ships were anchored, a particularly severe squall blew in, and all contact with the island was lost. When the visibility cleared about an hour later it was seen that Skeena was dragging her anchor.  Before any action could be taken, she was thrown stern first on to the rocks, where the wind and waves caused her to broach to, and hurled her bodily onto the rocks. 
      Everything possible was done to help her, but with the storm raging at its height no one could get close enough. There were 15 men lost in the night and the rest of the crew was rescued in the morning by a crew from Iceland that made their way across the island from the lee side. 

Displacement: 1,337 tons 
Speed: 35kts 
Complement: 138 
Armament: Four 4.7 inch guns, two 2 pdr anti-aircraft guns and eight 21 inch torpedo tubes. 

Canadian ships served on the convoy run between North America and Great Britain; as well as on the convoy run to Russia. They operated in the English Channel and the Bay of Biscay, as well as the Mediterranean Sea. They took part in the Dunkirk evacuation in 1940 as well as the Normandy Invasion of 1944. They rescued refugees; and they were responsible or partially responsible for the sinking of twenty-six German U-boats, and two Italian Submarines. By 1945, the RCN had grown to 775 ships and 107,000 men and women. Twenty-nine ships of the RCN were lost to enemy action or the elements during the war.