HMCS Haida’s keel was laid down on September 29, 1941 by Vickers-Armstrong at High Walker Yard, Newcastle-on-Tyne, England. Two years less a month later she was commissioned into the RCN. Her official compliment was 14 officers and 245 ratings. According to Walt Dermott, Chairman and President of Friends of HMCS Haida, her original weapons suite was comprised of three 4.7-inch/45 Mk.XII twin guns (from the bow, Turrets A, B and Y); one 4-inch/45 Mk.16 twin gun; one quad launcher with Mk.IX torpedoes (4 × 21-inch torpedo tubes); and two Mk.IV depth charge throwers. For anti-aircraft defence, it deployed one quadruple mount 2-pounder gun and six Oerlikon cannons.

Coming into service in the fall of 1943, she initially served on the Murmansk Run while based at Scapa Flow. In this capacity she participated in the destruction of the German battleship Scharnhorst. In January 1944 she was transferred to the 10th Destroyer Flotilla (DF) operating out of Plymouth, England.

The 10th DF was tasked with securing the western approaches to the English Channel. As D-Day approached, the 10th DF aggressively sought out German vessels and Haida was engaged in a string of battles. In April 1944, DeWolf won the DSO when Haida ran German motor torpedo boat T-27 aground (although her sister ship HMCS Athabaskan was lost in the engagement). On June 9, three days after D-Day, along with HMCS Huron, she sank E-boats Z-32 and ZH-1, earning DeWolf a DSC. Less than three weeks later, she shared with HMS Eskimo the sinking of U-971. On her best day, in company of the Polish ship ORP Blyskawica, she sank two submarine chasers, UJ-1420 and UJ-1421, and a merchantman. Two other cargo ships were left ablaze.

When the American forces broke out of Normandy into Brittany, the 10th DF expanded its operations into the Bay of Biscay to isolate German garrisons and destroy U-boats. Haida remained with the 10th DF until September 1944. After a three-month refit in Halifax she returned to the north, ultimately joining the fleet that took custody of German U-boats in Trondheim, Norway. When the war ended Haida had sunk 14 enemy vessels.

Upon the outbreak of hostilities on the Korean Peninsula she was extensively refitted and updated before relieving HMCS Nootka in November 1952. A decade later, repeated cracking of the hull saw Haida take a farewell tour of the Great Lakes before she was paid off in September of 1963.

Slated to be scrapped the following year, the destroyer was sold to Haida Inc., a non-profit organization dedicated to restoring it. Moored at the foot of York Street in downtown Toronto, the ship was opened as an historical attraction in August 1965. When Haida Inc. proved unable to raise the funds to proceed with repairs, the Ontario government became the unwilling owner, berthing the ship adjacent to the new Ontario Place theme park.

By 2000 HMCS Haida was deteriorating, and the province was loath to invest in the needed structural repairs. Sheila Copps, MP for Hamilton East since 1984 and Liberal Minister of Canadian Heritage since June 1997, sensed an opportunity. By e-mail she explains: “The chair of Ontario Place wanted to get rid of the Haida so I had dinner with him and took possession on behalf of Parks Canada for one dollar. Parks Canada assumed responsibility for the refit and the decision to move to Hamilton.” In 2004 HMCS Haida, berthed at Pier 9 in Hamilton Harbour, once again opened to the public. It then spent a decade on the revitalized Hamilton waterfront, bearing witness to Canadian heritage and the proud history of the Royal Canadian Navy.