I’m about to go to bed here in my hotel room in Baie-Comeau, Quebec. It was a long day driving from London, Ontario, but I had to share this cool little story before going to sleep.
For most of the drive here we were riding along the northern margin of the St. Lawrence River. Check out the map below:
Right around the time when we were driving by the tip of the pink arrow above, my courageous co-worker Mr. Richard noticed an odd-looking boat on the St. Lawrence. He said, in his perfect French-Canadian accent, “I think that is a military ship.”
As you may know, I’m a reservist with the Royal Canadian Navy, so I had to stop and turn around.
It certainly looked like a Navy ship, but it was too far for me to make out exactly what it was. I took this picture of it:
After digitally zooming in on it a bit more, this is what I saw:
Not only I didn’t recognize it as a Royal Canadian Navy ship, it was moving very slowly and looking pretty old.
Of course, as soon as I got to the hotel room in Baie-Comeau, I googled “Navy Ship 946.”
It turns out this is USS Edson, commissioned in 1956 and decommissioned in 1988. According the the Wikipedia article dedicated to it, after serving as a museum for many years in New York City, the USS Edson’s ownership has been given to The Saginaw Valley Naval Ship Museum in Michigan.
The USS Edson was declared sea-worthy by the US Navy and cleared to begin its journey to Michigan on July 18th, 2012, expecting to arrive at the museum on August 3rd.
Today is July 28th and I spotted it on the St. Lawrence river, right in the middle of its journey.
Is this cool or what?