CGS Earl Grey was designed by Charles Duguid, naval architect to the Marine Department in Ottawa. Captain Angus Brown of Belfast, P.E.I., travelled to England to take delivery of Earl Grey; Chief Officer was John L. Read of Summerside, P.E.I., and Chief Engineer was P.W. Lyon of Orillia, Ontario.
She was launched by Vickers of Barrow-in-Furness in 1909 for the Canadian Government.
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She was unique in many ways: in her elegant yacht-like lines; in her fine clipper bow, designed to slice through ice, rather than ride up over it and smash it; and in the fact that she was designed to double as the vice-regal yacht.
For the first five years of her life she provided the winter ferry service from Pictou, N.S., to Charlottetown, P.E.I., across Northumberland Strait.
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In the summer of 1910, in her other capacity, she visited York Factory on Hudson Bay: there she picked up the Governor General, Lord Grey, who had been visiting the proposed site of the port and railway terminal for the Hudson Bay Railway.
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She was sold to the Russian government for $493,000 in October 1914. The bill of sale was signed on October 8, 1914.
In preparation for her trans-Atlantic voyage she fitted out in the naval dockyard in Halifax. On October 3, 1914 she was transferred to the Canadian Navy and commissioned as HMCS Earl Grey. On October 7, 1914 she sailed with a naval crew under the command of Charles W. Trousdale, R.N., and arrived in Arkhangel'sk on October 26, 1914.
She was renamed Kanada and throughout the war was used for keeping the White Sea ports open, and for maintaining a winter service between Arkhangelsk and Murmansk.
In February 1920, she took part in an incident that must be unique in naval history: an artillery duel between two icebreakers, working through the ice.
In the summer of 1920 she was renamed III International. June 1921 saw her again renamed, this time as the Fedor Litke, after the famous nineteenth century arctic explorer.
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In 1934 the Fedor Litke made the first accident-free through-passage of the Northern Sea Route, from east to west.
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In 1938, in the company of Yermak, the Fedor Litke punched her way to latitude 83 North in an unsuccessful attempt to rescue the icebreaker Sedov, drifting rudderless to the north of the Laptev Sea.
During the Second World War, like many Soviet icebreakers, Litke spent the winters escorting Allied convoys to and from Archangelsk, while the summers were spent in normal operations along the Northern Sea Route.
On a scientific cruise in 1955 she reached latitude 83 11 North.
Fedor
Litke,
originally the Earl
Grey,
was broken up in 1959, but her wheelhouse is preserved in the Moscow
Maritime Museum.
This information was provided by William Barr who was, in 1999, a Research Associate at the Arctic Institute of North America, University of Calgary.
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