Documenting the HMCS Canada
At 230 feet off the Florida Keys lay one of Canada’s forgotten warships—the former flagship of the Royal Canadian Navy. Nearly a century after she sank, our team had been asked to create the first high-resolution photogrammetric documentation of HMCS Canada. Commissioned in the years when the Royal Canadian Navy was still finding its identity, HMCS Canada carried admirals, represented Canadian sea power abroad, and served as the fleet's flagship. Many years later, after her military career ended, she would meet a very different fate off the Florida Keys. Now, nearly a century after she slipped beneath the surface, we were descending to meet her ourselves.
One of my favourite parts of deep, open-ocean wreck diving is watching a wreck materialize out of the depths as you approach it. Sometimes the visibility is exceptional, and you can see the structure taking shape far below. At other times, it appears almost without warning.
We usually know the depth of the wreck, so anticipation builds as the numbers on the dive computer increase. But when you have never dived the site before, you do not know what condition the wreck will be in—or what it will feel like when you see it for the first time. That indescribable moment is often the best part of the dive.
HMCS Canada photogrammetry model viewed from the starboard side, with expedition insignia in the foreground and a historical photograph of HMCS Canada (summer 1918) in the background. Photo credits: Roger Lacasse / HMCS Canada Expedition 2025; Royal Canadian Navy (National Defence / Canadian Armed Forces)
The rough seas on the first day of diving tossed us around on the deck like ping pong balls. We were wearing upwards of 150lbs of gear when we walked across the deck and then still had to pick up our diver propulsion vehicles (DPVs) to jump off a small dive deck. This was exciting in a not-so-great kind of way, and we were lucky no one was hurt.
Despite the rough seas above, the descent felt strangely peaceful. This wasn't just another wreck dive. Somewhere below us was our navy’s former flagship, and in a few minutes, we'd be the latest people to visit her. As we approached the bottom, however, the visibility deteriorated into a murky haze. It reminded me of looking through my reading glasses on a cold morning while sitting in my hot tub: the wreck was visible, but its features were indistinct and seemed to blend into one another.
Through the haze a massive bow emerged, unmistakably different from the countless freighters and artificial reefs that technical divers become accustomed to. The HMCS Canada's distinctive ram bow left no room for doubt. We had found her.
HMCS Canada photogrammetry model viewed from the port bow. The anchor and the vessel’s distinctive bow form are visible in the foreground. Photo credit: Roger Lacasse / HMCS Canada Expedition 2025
As a Canadian veteran, there was something quietly humbling about descending toward the former flagship of the Royal Canadian Navy. Before the cameras came out and before the work began, I took a moment simply to appreciate where we were. The most dangerous place is always the interface of boat and water and having survived half of that on this day, we could relax a little and enjoy the view.
The ship sat upright on the bottom, draped in fishing nets and lines. In the limited visibility, it took us a few moments to identify enough recognizable features to orient ourselves. Our shot line had landed on the seabed beside the hull, so our priority was confirming the route back to it—our trail of breadcrumbs home.
Normally, you never want to touch a wreck and try really hard not to. But this time I couldn’t resist. As I reached out and placed a gloved hand on the hull, I couldn't help but think about the sailors who had once stood on this same steel. Nearly a century separated us, yet for one brief moment we were connected through the same ship.
Once we were satisfied, we began an initial circumnavigation to get a feel for the structure. We were not the first divers to visit HMCS Canada, but our objective was different. Every feature we photographed and every route we swam would ultimately become part of a detailed three-dimensional record of the wreck. Before any of that work could begin, however, we had to be certain we were documenting the HMCS Canada.
The ram bow made us 99 percent certain we had found the right ship. Given our limited expedition schedule—and the even more limited bottom time available at 230 feet—we decided not to waste a minute. Work began immediately. We were using a unique photogrammetry “sled” that attached to our DPVs and held two GoPro cameras and four high intensity dive lights arranged in a framework. This let us literally “fly” along the wreck and collect thousands of images at two per second intervals from each camera. Then, with the help of some cosmic software, that, to me, bordered on black magic, we could assemble a three-dimensional image of the wreck.
My first impression of the wreck was that it wasn’t huge by the standards of modern warships. Even at 180’ long, the HMCS Canada seemed compact and even surprisingly small. And it was alive with fish! And not just any fish either. It was home to the largest Goliath groupers I had ever seen, some of them easily bigger than a diver and likely in the 400-pound range. This was their home and when you looked at sonar images of the bottom, it made sense that they would live here as it was the only structure that offered shelter in the area. These fish would suddenly emerge from the wreck, and their sudden appearance startled me on several occasions. A fish that large, further magnified by the fact that we saw them underwater was indeed impressive.
It's hard to explain to someone who has never descended onto a wreck far beyond recreational depths what that first glimpse feels like. Even for those of us who do it regularly, the feeling never completely disappears. Every wreck has its own personality, and every first encounter leaves an impression that stays with you long after the dive is over.
HMCS Canada photogrammetry model viewed from directly above, revealing internal framing and collapsed deck structures. Photo credit: Roger Lacasse / HMCS Canada Expedition 2025
Our first dive went off without a hitch, despite exceptionally rough surface conditions. And we all made it back aboard without injury although I wouldn’t have taken that bet when I saw the initial sea state. We had dropped a shot line on the wreck and marked its position on the surface with a large floating buoy so we could speed the project up the next day. The weather also looked to improve over the coming days, so we left the wreck site contented and anxious to review the images we had captured that first dive.
Only after that first dive was over did I have a chance to reflect on how unlikely it was that a small group of Canadian technical divers had ended up documenting one of Canada's forgotten warships off the Florida Keys. Months earlier, none of us knew we'd be standing on the deck of a boat over HMCS Canada. That story began with a phone call from Joseph Frey...
Jill Heinerth and I have been friends for a while, and she was the one who had nominated me as a Fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society. That alone was a privilege, but I didn’t know it would eventually lead to her introduction to me of Joseph Frey, a long time RCGS and The Explorers Club member.
Joe asked me if I would assemble a dive team to document the wreck of the former Royal Canadian Navy flagship, the HMCS Canada. 2025 was a special year for the RCN as it was the 115th anniversary of the formation of our navy and it was 99 years since the HMCS Canada had sunk. As a veteran I was interested in this project and having free reign to select the divers made it even better. We knew the wreck was laying in about 230’ of water so this meant the diver pool I could select from was quite small. Our plan was also to make a photogrammetric model of the wreck, so this meant some special and even rare skills were also required.
The HMCS Canada was originally the Canadian Government Ship (CGS) Canada. The Royal Canadian Navy was formed in 1910, and in 1915, she became His Majesty’s Canadian Ship (HMCS) Canada. She survived the Halifax explosion in 1917 and served as a training vessel and convoy escort during WW I. She was eventually decommissioned in 1919 and later, in 1924 she was sold to an American businessman who intended to use her as a luxury cruise ship between Miami and the Bahamas. At that time, she was renamed the Queen of Nassau and after being sold again in 1926, she sank on July 2nd, 1926, while enroute from Miami to Tampa where she was going to be refitted. Steel that had once represented Canada's growing naval ambitions now rested quietly beneath 230 feet of Atlantic water.
Building the right team was perhaps the most critical decision of the expedition. At 230 feet there is little room for error, and photogrammetry demands precision even under ideal conditions. I wanted divers who combined deep technical experience with the ability to work seamlessly together. I also didn’t want any drama. There is a lot of misplaced ego in the diving world and while we could be proud of our accomplishments and even admit that we had an extremely unusual skill set, it was going to be a “check your ego at the door” kind of operation. Making a mistake at 230 feet in the Gulf Stream where currents can reach three knots and where we could end up in Miami or even eventually Newfoundland meant we needed to keep our wits about us. Fortunately, I knew exactly who to call.
I contacted several friends who I knew had the diving chops to do these kind of dives and who had some expert video, photo and photogrammetric skills and experience. These were people I trusted and people who I wouldn’t mind sharing a drink with in, say, Miami, if things went too haywire.
Because I knew we would be doing some serious photogrammetry at deep, the first person I contacted was Roger Lacasse from Montreal. Roger and I have been friends for a while, and he is probably one of the smartest people I know as a real life PhD in nuclear physics. Roger has the unnerving habit of making impossibly complicated things look routine. Calling Roger a competent technical diver is a bit like saying the New Zealand All Blacks are a competent Rugby team. Roger is the epitome of precision and poise and a genius with photogrammetry. He developed his own photogrammetry course, and it was top shelf.
I also contacted two of my regular diving teammates who lived and dived close to me on Vancouver Island. Jason Cook was a fellow GUE technical diving instructor and Ewan Andersen was another photogrammetry savant. They were both experienced technical divers who regularly dove in cold water, so diving in the warm waters off the Florida Keys would be a welcome respite. They might even enjoy a trip to Miami.
Every expedition eventually becomes less about equipment than people and at the depths we would be working at everyone has to solve problems before they become emergencies. That meant choosing teammates carefully and Rob Deproy, the former senior NCO for the RCN Fleet Diving Unit (Pacific) and a very experienced diver was an expert at solving problems underwater. I think it meant a lot to Rob to be part of a project that revolved around the RCN and both Joe and Rob were our official RCN veterans. He was my primary diving partner, and I couldn’t have asked for a more solid diver as a buddy. If I was going to be attacked by a giant killer Goliah grouper, I knew he would be there with his trusty three inch diving knife.
Finally, I contacted my longtime friend and diving teammate, Kelvin Davidson. Kelvin was the only non-Canadian in the group, but he was the next best thing and our token member representing New Zealand. Kel has more technical diving experience than almost anyone I know, and I knew we could draw on this experience to help make our expedition a success. Kelvin has a unique reputation in the diving world as someone who doesn’t beat around the bush. If he said, “we will probably die if we jump in today”, he was probably understating the sea conditions.
Joe Frey was the overall project leader and the originator of the expedition. As an RCN veteran, Joe was intensely motivated and handled fundraising, website development, and logistics with the experience of the consummate professional. Joe was also friends with a Canadian who owned a brewery just down the road, so that didn’t hurt. If we were going to stare Neptune in the eye and spit in his general direction, maybe a few beer after surviving the experience wouldn’t be such a bad idea.
Together, we had a team brimming with experience and skill and we felt comfortable that we could develop the dive plans and carry them out successfully to accomplish our goals. We also knew some good bars in Miami, and we had friends in Newfoundland. You just never knew.
Overcoming challenges is a daily occurrence on expeditions and every morning we looked at each other over breakfast and wondered if we’d get off the dock that morning. We could make the best laid plans that accounted for everything from equipment breakdowns to boat problems and everything in between, but the one thing we could do nothing about was mother nature. We could not control the weather, nor could we control ocean currents or visibility. And this proved to be the biggest talking point for each morning. We honestly didn’t know what to expect at 230 feet each day and conditions proved to be different on every dive.
It is also easy to get task loaded and too focused on what you are trying to accomplish. Driving a DPV with a sled full of cameras and lights while trying to maintain a steady position relative to the wreck, while moving, in changing current, and limited visibility can be enough to gray your hair. Not a problem for me but I wanted to keep what I did have. The risk of losing situation awareness because of task focus was so significant that the camera operator had their own safety diver whose sole job was to keep the camera operator safe. This may sound excessively protectionist, but the concept proved its value when Roger was inadvertently tangled in heavy fishing line, and his safety diver had to cut him free. The clock can tick really loud when you are tangled up in something you can’t see at 230 feet. Roger was the only one of us who was diving on open circuit, and this meant he couldn’t patiently wait for things to sort themselves out. He was on the clock and likely a little stressed on that occasion.
Photogrammetry is all about the lighting and visibility and while we could control the lighting, we were at the mercy of the ocean gods as far as what the visibility would be like that day. Roger was constantly fretting like the mother of a teenager going to their first high school dance as he retreated to his hotel room to begin processing the images. It looked more like Merlin stealing his way back to his cave to invoke some spells, and we always wondered what he would say the next morning about the previous day’s imagery. He’s generally a low key guy, so it was hard to interpret his facial expressions each morning. Some days he looked depressed and other days he looked like he had just found $20 in the clothes dryer that he didn’t know he had.
But as the days progressed, he seemed happier and more confident that the imagery we were collecting would work to build our three dimensional model. I never had any doubt, being the glass half full guy, I am, but I was likely more optimistic than realistic.
HMCS Canada photogrammetry model viewed from the starboard stern. Photo credit: Roger Lacasse / HMCS Canada Expedition 2025
I was surprised by several things on our expedition. I had expected a larger wreck even though I knew what the actual size was. It just looked smaller in the ocean. The technical challenges of deep diving were relatively well understood by our team, but the wild cards of equipment breakdowns and gear issues can never be taken for granted. We could also never second guess the environment such as the fishing lines that were strewn around the wreck like snares waiting to catch a rabbit. We were lucky in this case and except for one piece of equipment literally falling apart after the last dive on our expedition, everything else worked.
I most definitely hadn’t expected fish the size of Harley Davidson’s on the wreck but that just made the trip unique.
No expedition of this nature ever goes off without a hitch. It is the way the team overcomes nearly daily obstacles that speaks to the team’s resilience, and this is a function of the members of the team and how well the work together. This is why choosing the right team members is often more important than choosing the project itself. Roger having the calm, cool and collected Rob as his team mate the day he was tangled up was likely a good reason for Roger never to buy lottery tickets again. He used up all his luck that day.
Over four days, six divers working in three teams collected more than 10,600 images of HMCS Canada. Those photographs were combined into the first high-resolution photogrammetric model of the wreck, creating a permanent three-dimensional digital record of one of Canada's most historically significant warships. The resulting model, created by Roger Lacasse from that vast repository of images collected by the expedition team is now a part of the historical record. This might sound like no big deal. 10,600. Imagine if you had that many photos on your phone. How long would it take you to flip through them to find the one you were looking for?
Unlike traditional archaeological investigations, the expedition was entirely non-invasive. Nothing was removed from the site. Instead, the wreck was documented exactly as it lay, preserving both its archaeological integrity and its historical context while creating a baseline that future researchers can use to monitor structural changes over time.
Close-up of the photogrammetry model highlighting hull fracture features on the starboard side of HMCS Canada. Photo credit: Roger Lacasse / HMCS Canada Expedition 2025
The expedition also collected still photography, video imagery, and ecological observations that contribute to our understanding of the wreck as both a cultural resource and an artificial reef supporting marine life. What began as a diving expedition ultimately became a contribution to marine archaeology, marine science, and Canadian naval history.
Months later, when the model was complete and the expedition had become another entry in my logbook, I found myself thinking back to that first glimpse of HMCS Canada emerging from the darkness. Perhaps that's why we keep returning to places like this—not because we're chasing depth, but because experiences like these become part of who we are. They're memories we revisit long after the equipment has been packed away. It's always on reflection, and usually when I am tired or just about to fall asleep that I think about the experience.
It’s important to recognize that projects like this are only possible because of organizations and individuals who believe that Canada's maritime history is worth preserving. The expedition was supported by the Royal Canadian Geographical Society, The Explorers Club, NOAA, the Jackman Foundation, Kensington Tours, Whites Drywear, Shearwater Research, and numerous individual donors whose generosity made the project possible. We are especially grateful to Shearwater Research for their support of the expedition and for continuing to support technical diving exploration and documentation projects around the world. The dive computers, cameras, DPVs and photogrammetry software were remarkable tools, but they were never the objective. They simply allowed us to preserve a small piece of Canadian history that otherwise would have remained out of sight and, eventually, beyond reach.
HMCS Canada photogrammetry model viewed from the starboard bow, with expedition insignia in the foreground and a historical photograph of HMCS Canada (summer 1918) in the background. Photo credits: Roger Lacasse / HMCS Canada Expedition 2025; Royal Canadian Navy (National Defence / Canadian Armed Forces)
Finally, I must acknowledge that our expedition built upon the earlier work of marine archaeologist Tane Casserly, whose identification and research on HMCS Canada laid much of the foundation for our project. 2025 also happened to be the 20-year anniversary of Tane’s graduate thesis on the topic of the HMCS Canada. The resulting model Roger created allows historians, archaeologists and future expeditions to examine the wreck in remarkable detail without repeatedly disturbing the site, while providing a permanent record against which future deterioration can be measured.
Our project has added to the rich maritime heritage of Canada and celebrated the anniversary of our navy. History is built up from a collection of documents, memories and adventures and it is our responsibility to preserve them for generations to follow. I’d love to go back to the HMCS Canada. It was an amazing experience to be part of contributing to the historical record and we were all proud Canadians that day. Even Kelvin was given honorary Canadian status at the end of the trip. I don’t think the HMCS Canada’s journey in history is over. We established the first baseline of her condition. Now the responsibility is to return, document her again, and continue preserving her story. Hopefully next time we'll choose a season with fewer storms—or at least a bigger dive boat.
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Written by Guy Shockey
Guy Shockey learned to dive in a cold mountain lake in Alberta over 40 years ago. He is a full-time instructor Evaluator for Global Underwater Explorers and regularly travels the world teaching everything from introductory to advanced technical diving including closed circuit rebreather diving. He is particularly active with instructor training. He has an undergraduate and graduate degree in political science and was a military officer in another life. He has several business startups to his credit including companies in the manufacturing, wholesale, and retail sectors. He played competitive rugby for many years and is an active skydiving instructor and coach. He was the editor for an outdoors magazine for 13 years and regularly writes for various diving publications. His passions include exploration, underwater archaeology, and helping grow diving communities.
