by Derek Neary
Northern News Services

NNSL (Mar 13/98) - In just over a month HMCS Yellowknife will be commissioned in Victoria, B.C.

The enthusiasm for the event is building to a crescendo, but after that bottle of champagne smashes over the bow, what then? Will the city's namesake be forgotten?

In an effort to determine if the novelty will likely wear off, Yellowknifer contacted a number of newspapers around the country to find out when they last wrote about the other 11 vessels named after territorial and provincial capitals.

The Edmonton Journal was on the ball, having sent a reporter to travel with HMCS Edmonton.

"We went out last summer, I remember, to Halifax. Or was it Victoria?" interim assignment editor Mike Sadava mused.

But since then, where has the Edmonton been deployed?

"Geez, I don't know," he admitted.

Surprisingly, in land-locked Regina, a Leader Post reporter had just returned from a voyage with the HMCS Regina. But, personally, the editor who took the call didn't see the reason for the hoopla.

"It's just a namesake, for heaven's sake," he said.

In Winnipeg, Free-Press assistant city editor Margo Goodhand seemed quite amused by the endeavor to keep tabs on HMCS Winnipeg.

"The reason why we don't is because they don't exactly come into port here," she reasoned. "It makes it kind of difficult to feel a strong sense of ownership."

Needless to say, nobody in the newsroom had ever seen the ship.

"Do you think we would?" Goodhand asked, laughing.

On the east coast, the Fredericton Daily Gleaner had last written about HMCS Fredericton over the summer when the ship was in the area for a ceremony.

"We haven't ignored it by any stretch, but then again it's not something that's replayed over and over." managing editor Bill Witcomb explained.

Surely, on the West Coast, they'd have an impressive track record. Not so. The city editor at the Times-Colonist, the newspaper serving B.C.'s capital cupped the phone and asked someone else in the newsroom, "Do you recall anything written on the HMCS Victoria -- if there is such a ship?"