Sea to Sea Power

When compared with the history of the Canadian army, it is unlikely that many of us have given much thought to the equally long past of Canada’s navy. How was the evolution of this branch of Canada’s military different from the other branches, and how did this evolution affect the development of Canada’s coasts? Although ostensibly a history of the main naval establishments on the country’s east and west coasts, Bryan Elson’s Canada’s Bastions of Empire: Halifax, Victoria and the Royal Navy 1749–1918 has a much broader tale to tell. In it Elson—a former Royal Canadian Navy officer, and currently a director of the Canadian Naval Memorial Trust in Halifax—fleshes out the complicated and ever changing foreign and domestic situations that shaped Canada’s role as a naval presence up to the modern day.

His story begins in 1749 with Halifax’s founding as a naval base to challenge the French fortress of Louisbourg. The Royal Navy quickly realized that it required...