In the Wake of the Ancients
They were new seas and new ports of call to a Canadian warship but two and a half thousand years ago, the intrepid Phoenicians traded for gold and ivory and ostrich feathers along those coasts. The calculated daring of the ancient traders built the greatest commercial empire of ancient days - an empire which at last crumbled before the armed might of Rome in the Carthaginian wars.
The officers and men of the training cruiser Quebec saw modern cities and great industrial enterprises along the coast of Africa, and they also had glimpses of life among the natives, little changed by the slow march of the centuries.
The Quebec returned to Halifax on April 15 as the first Canadian warship ever to circumnavigate the continent of Africa. Only a few months previously the Arctic patrol ship Labrador became the first warship in history to sail around the North American continent. The Quebec (then HMCS Uganda) steamed completely around South America nine years ago and the cruiser Ontario rounded that continent late in 1952. Within the past year, five circuits of the globe were completed by Canadian warships serving in the Far East - two each for the Huron and Iroquois, one each for the Haida.
Cdr. H. W. S. Soulsby, RCN (Ret'd) of Victoria, prepared the certificate commemorating the Quebec's African voyage.