Project Onondaga, Museum submarine at Site historique maritime de la Pointe-au-Père, Rimouski, Canada
Project Onondaga is the former NCSM Onondaga (S73), an Oberon-class submarine built in 1964-1965 at Chatham Dockyard and now displayed at the Site historique maritime de la Pointe-au-Père in Rimouski. The vessel measures 90 metres in length, 8 metres in diameter and weighs 1,400 tonnes. Visitors walk through its decks and compartments to see how a crew of six officers and sixty-two sailors lived and worked aboard.
The submarine entered service with the Royal Canadian Navy in 1967 and served until 2000. It participated in surveillance missions in the North Atlantic as part of Canada's Cold War naval strategy.
The Onondaga's name comes from the Onondaga people, one of the Six Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy, and its crest carries the wampum of the Iroquois nation. The submarine is now the centrepiece of the Pointe-au-Père maritime historic site, where visitors walk its decks and see the crew's quarters, torpedo tubes and control room.
The submarine can be visited from May through October, with guided tours available through the compact interior spaces. Temperatures inside remain constant year-round, so bring a light layer in case the coolness is unexpected.
During the August 2008 haul at Pointe-au-Père, the Onondaga tipped onto its side on 31 August; repeated attempts to right it failed, and it was towed back to Rimouski for the winter before being righted in mid-October. The hauling then resumed until 30 November, when the museum accepted a position short of the planned site.
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