Coast guard names new ship after Nunavut glacier
Halifax ceremony marks start of construction on two ships, including CCGS Sirmilik Glacier
A Canadian Coast Guard image shows what two new Arctic and offshore patrol ships, whose construction began Wednesday in Halifax, will look like. One of them will be named the CCGS Sermilik Glacier after a geographic feature on Nunavut’s Bylot Island. (Image courtesy of Irving Shipbuilding, Canadian Coast Guard)
A new Canadian Coast Guard Arctic and offshore patrol ship will be named after a Nunavut glacier, the organization announced Wednesday.
The vessel will be named the CCGS Sermilik Glacier, for the glacier in Sirmilik National Park on Bylot Island north of Baffin Island, according to a coast guard news release.
Sirmilik means “place of glaciers” in Inuktitut.
The ship will be one of two new vessels the coast guard is adding to its fleet.
An event Wednesday at the Irving Shipbuilding Inc. yard in Halifax, N.S., acted as a keel-laying ceremony for construction of the CCGS Donjek Glacier, named for the glacier in Yukon’s Kluane National Park, and also to officially start construction on the CCGS Sermilik Glacier.
The vessels, built to navigate through icy Arctic waters, will support fisheries enforcement and surveillance missions along Canada’s east coast.
The ships will be outfitted with science equipment and a medical facility so they can be used for research and to support humanitarian assistance missions, the release said.
Each of the two new ships will be 103 metres long and 19 metres wide, and will replace two of the coast guard’s five offshore patrol vessels. Both vessels are expected to be in service by 2027.
The two ships are being constructed as part of the federal government’s National Shipbuilding Strategy, which aims to modernize the coast guard fleet and create jobs in the shipbuilding industry.
Why is the name spelled Sermilik instead of Sirmilik? Did they spell it that way so non-inuit know how to pronounce it?
Spell check got it wrong?
“Did they spell it that way so non-inuit know how to pronounce it?”
No, Bubba.
The Sermilik Glacier’s namesake is found in Nunavut’s Sirmilik National Park — and its name is an Inuktitut word meaning “place of glaciers.”
As someone else said: “You just might be too stupid for your own good. Be very happy breathing is an autonomic function… if you had to think about it, you’d have been dead a long time ago.”
well well well how the turn tables… eat that cake off your face because as someone else said: “You just might be too stupid for your own good. Be very happy breathing is an autonomic function… if you had to think about it, you’d have been dead a long time ago.”
Before you go off acting like you’re all powerful and smart, maybe do some research or learn Inuktitut while you’re up here. And no, I’m not putting in the research for you. There are many places you can learn. Why not start by actually talking to Inuit.
I believe Sermilik is located in Greenland. The name Sirmilik is probably a misspelled unintentionally. Also, I think Sirmilik is in Nunavut, so I think they have the info unintentionally incorrect.
There is no e in Inuktitut. Why didn’t they spell it Sirmilik?
I didn’t know there were any letters in Inuktitut.
It is just emblatic of the spelling/English used in that era… Multiple spellings can be found on many old maps, and in most cases, the old whalers substituted letters that helped them to properly enunciate the phonetic lilt…just another page in our Eskimoan history archives
Correct. In inuktitut there are only si su sa. The Sermilik spelling is an English translation for Sirmilik and that’s the way colonial authorities named the glacier at the time. In English se is pronounced like si in Inuktitut while si would be pronounced like hi!
> Sirmilik means “place of glaciers” in Inuktitut.
> The vessel will be named the CCGS Sermilik Glacier
So translated to English the ships name is “The place of glaciers glacier”?
The actual glacier is called Sermilik, because it used to have a glaciated tongue (Sirmilik – glacier with a little glacier itself) and your guess is linguistically correct, so they could just change it to CCGS Sirmirlik or if really stuck on Sermilik, then CCGS Sermilik.
This Norwegian ship design is not an ice breaker, it can go through a meter of ice at best and it’s more of a patrol ship.
Under the Harper government the Canadian government paid Norway 20 million for the blueprints for this ship for the Irving ship yard to build it,
Only problem the Irving ship yard was not up to par and they could not build these ships without a massive upgrade to the Irving ship yard, who paid for the upgrades? Not the riches family in Canada and one of the riches families in the world but the tax payers of Canada, in the tunes of billions. The quality of work does not seem to be at the same level as the Norwegians ship yards.
People seem to forget or are unaware that the Canadian government could have bought these same ships for the fraction of the cost from Norway and a decade earlier. A fine example of spending billions on a rich family to get government contracts, wasteful spending by our government.
Is this the same boat that has to turn back for repairs?
Like the submarines the feds bought kept sinking and the Canadian air force helicopters keep crashing.
Maybe the military should invest in hockey sticks and harpoons and drum dance to deter “the bad guys”.🤣
I was in Nuuk and I saw the Danish navy ship that looks the same as our Canadian patrol ships, same as this coast guard ship.
I wonder if it’s the same ship?