Jennifer McPhee
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Nov 14/01) - Like rock stars and models, sailors have earned a bit of a reputation over the years.

But don't hide your daughters just yet, as you won't find the captain and eleven crew-members of HMCS Yellowknife cavorting around town.

Master Seaman, Louis Beaudet staffs a booth at the trade show. Here, Michele Siebold, a Grade 6 student at William McDonald school, asks Beaudet if the crew has "done a real search and rescue." - Jennifer McPhee/NNSL photo

This crew is in Yellowknife to do good works. They hardly even drink.

"We probably drink more water than anything else,

says Sub-Lt. and deck officer Desmond James.

The crew will spend their week-long visit to their ship's namesake, visiting schools, serving meals and fundraising for the Salvation Army.

Last weekend, crew members manned a booth at the trade show and participated in Remembrance Day ceremonies. It's a tradition for Canadian navy ships named after Canadian cities to maintain close ties with their namesake cities.

But James says the Yellowknife crew has a better relationship with its host city than most navy ships.

So far, throughout the year, the crew has raised $1,600 for Yellowknife's Salvation Army -- four times what other ships generally raise.

A piece of Northern art hangs in every cabin in HMCS Yellowknife. The ship is also decorated with a stuffed grizzly bear, Yellowknife street signs, drawings and poems by students. So, they aren't exactly rowdy. But the captain and crew do have a dramatic tale from the sea to tell.

The HMCS Yellowknife crew rescued a longliner, carrying five men and 9,000 kilograms of fish, off the Queen Charlotte Islands, off the northwest Coast of B.C. on Oct. 16.

The chain holding the longliner's anchor snapped, and the "Salmon King" was caught in hurricane-force winds. It took nine exhausting hours, but HMCS Yellowknife towed the boat safely to Prince Rupert, B.C. "We do search and rescues all the time, but a lot of them are false alarms," said the ship's cook, MS Louis Beaudet. "But knowing we got five people back to their families was the most comforting, amazing feeling. We felt really proud."