HMCS Ojibwa (S72) is an Oberon-class diesel-electric submarine that served as a frontline stealth asset for the Royal Canadian Navy during the height of the Cold War. Originally laid down for the British Royal Navy as HMS Onyx, the 295-foot vessel was purchased by Canada while still under construction and officially commissioned in 1965. Operating primarily out of CFB Halifax with Maritime Forces Atlantic, Ojibwa belonged to what submariners quietly called the "Real Secret Service." She specialized in ultra-quiet intelligence gathering, anti-submarine surveillance, and covert patrols tracking Soviet naval movements in the North Atlantic. Armed with eight torpedo tubes, the highly advanced "silent hunter" maintained a grueling operational tempo for over three decades until she was decommissioned in 1998.
Instead of being sold for scrap, the historic submarine underwent an incredible logistical journey in 2012, being towed over 1,500 kilometers inland into the Great Lakes network. The Elgin Military Museum successfully engineered the massive feat of hauling the five-story-tall, 2,000-ton vessel completely out of the water and onto dry land. Today, Ojibwa rests on the northern shore of Lake Erie in the lakeside community of Port Burwell, Ontario. Operating as a premier land-based museum ship, the submarine allows visitors to squeeze through her hatches and navigate her highly compressed interior spaces, offering a rare, immersive look into the intense, claustrophobic reality of Cold War underwater espionage.