Where the walls tell the tales: Exploring the Crow’s Nest Officers’ Club in St. John’s, N.L.

Alex Bowers on February 19, 2025

Britain’s emblematic wartime prime minister and renowned drinker, Winston Churchill, keeps a watchful eye over all patrons of the Crow’s Nest Officers’ Club in downtown St. John’s N.L. [WikiMedia/TheCrowsNest]

The Crow’s Nest Officers’ Club in St. John’s, N.L., has enthralled patrons for more than 80 years. Established on Jan. 27, 1942, for Allied sailors seeking respite from the perils of the Second World War’s Battle of the Atlantic, it has since been likened to a living museum. The club, located near the city’s harbour and brimming with evocative wartime artifacts, continues to host veterans, but also welcomes anyone wishing to explore WW II maritime history.

Legion Magazine spoke with two of the club’s past presidents, Gary Green, now a director on the club’s board, and Margaret Morris, the current treasurer, about maintaining the Nest’s unique spirit.

Hidden next to Newfoundland’s National War Memorial, and in between two of the main streets of old St. John’s N.L., are the steps which lead to the Crow’s Nest Officers’ Club. [Wikimedia]

On wartime Newfoundland

Morris: Newfoundland had huge strategic importance in World War Two. We had the largest airstrip in the world at Gander, the flying boat base in Botwood, Nfld., and it was a vital hub for international communications, with undersea cables terminating here. We also had the iron ore mines in Bell Island, of which Germany was one of our biggest customers before the outbreak of the war. Significantly, like Gibraltar guards the mouth to the Mediterranean, Newfoundland guards the entrance to the St. Lawrence seaway, a crucial industrial lifeline for much of North America.

St. John’s was, at the time, an impoverished city, but the war suddenly brought a flurry of activity, transforming the local environment. The Newfoundland Escort Force [tasked with protecting Allied naval convoys] was among those changes.

Eventually, a senior naval officer, Captain Rollo Mainguy, recognized the importance of the men developing close-knit personal relationships. He also appeared to have an early appreciation of post-traumatic stress disorder, where he understood the importance of a safe, secure room where these sailors could speak freely, unguardedly and weren’t required to put on a brave face for outsiders.

And so, what is now the Crow’s Nest Officers’ Club was born.

On maintaining the club’s wartime appearance

Morris: Many men had their last bit of fun in this very room. They returned to their ships, returned to the Battle of the Atlantic, and many of those ships never made it to their destinations, and many of those officers never got home. That’s why it’s important that we keep the club as close as possible to its wartime appearance.

Those fellas aren’t coming back to tell their stories, so we let the walls tell them.

Part of the interior of the Crow’s Nest Officers’ Club in downtown St. John’s N.L. [Flickr/Stephen Harold Riggins.]

On the club’s artifacts

Green: There are two groups in the Crow’s Nest. One is the club membership; the other is the Crow’s Nest Military Artifacts Association. Their prime focus is the preservation of our artifacts and, fundamentally, preserving the club’s stories.

There’s nothing in the room that doesn’t have a story behind it. The gun shields [plaques], for example, tell incredible stories, some more cartoonishly than others, but virtually each one expresses pride in the ship on which the crewmen sailed.

We also have one of only eight known-to-exist U-boat periscopes in the world—and one of only two found in North America [the other is located at the Griffin Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago]. Ours belonged to U-190, which sunk HMCS Esquimalt outside Halifax harbour on April 16, 1945, before surrendering in Newfoundland after the war’s end. U-190’s periscope now extends out of the club’s roof.

And, of course, when we do tours, people look outside, look to the Narrows, and realize they’re looking at a battlefield. That can just as much be an eye-opener.

One of the many wartime artifacts in the Crow’s Nest Officers’ Club, and only the second of its kind in North America, is a Second World War U-boat periscope. [Wikimedia/TheCrowsNest]

On today’s patronage

Morris: The Crow’s Nest is nothing if not adaptable. We’ve gone from an all-male, seagoing officers’ club to a mixed-gender, tri-service, all-ranks club that welcomes civilians. If you appreciate and want to preserve its history, you’re welcome here.

Green: Some people also come on personal pilgrimages, perhaps because their father or grandfather served in Newfoundland during the war or even because their relative had their last drink here. Occasionally, we’ve had people walk into the Crow’s Nest and see something relevant to their family story before they break down in tears. It can be an incredibly emotional experience for those visitors.

Morris: Sadly, of the veterans themselves, very few are left. Those who are left now have trouble with the stairs [comprising of 59 steep steps]. When they used to visit regularly, however, many thought it hadn’t changed—the ultimate compliment.

This abridged interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.

Canada announces Arctic foreign policy overhaul

Stephen J. Thorne on February 19, 2025

The commanding officer of the Danish warship HDMS Triton  on Hans Island in August 2003. [Wikimedia]

In 1984, Canadian soldiers visited a small, barren island in the middle of the Kennedy Channel between Greenland and Ellesmere Island. Jurisdiction over Hans Island had been the subject of a mild dispute between Canada and Denmark since 1973, when the two countries agreed to redefine their overlapping seabed boundaries in the area, leaving ownership of the 1.2-square-kilomentre rock in limbo.

The soldiers didn’t arrive expecting a fight. Rather, they planted a Maple Leaf Flag and left a bottle of Canadian whisky—a lighthearted assertion of Canadian sovereignty over what to most outside observers was an inconsequential stone slab. The Danish minister of Greenlandic affairs responded in kind, coming to the island a few months later, hoisting a Danish flag and leaving a bottle of schnapps with a letter stating “Welcome to the Danish Island.”

Thus, began what became known as the “Whisky War,” a jocular to-and-fro during which the friendly NATO allies took turns raising flags and leaving behind bottles of booze associated with their homelands.
The whimsical border dispute—and 17 years of negotiations—came to an end on June 14, 2022, when Canadian, Danish and Greenlandic officials gathered in Ottawa to sign a treaty dividing the island roughly in half, thus creating a land border between Canada and Denmark.

Hans Island was at the heart of a nearly 50-year dispute between Canada and Denmark. [Wikimedia]

It also ensured Inuit in both countries can move freely about the island and surrounding ice and waters, a vital hunting ground since the 14th century.

“I think it was the friendliest of all wars,” said Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly at the time. The treaty, she added, is “a win for Canada, a win for Denmark and Greenland, and a win for Indigenous Peoples.”

But while Denmark’s parliament ratified the treaty in December 2023, Canada’s has not yet done so.

“The North American Arctic is no longer free from tension.”

In a sweeping new Arctic foreign policy strategy announced Dec. 6, 2024, the federal government promises to tie that loose end and “finalize the implementation of the boundary agreement between Canada and the Kingdom of Denmark regarding Tartupaluk (Hans Island).”

It is among the simplest fixes the document undertakes—a stark contrast, for example, to its intention to launch boundary negotiations with the United States on the strategic and potentially resource-rich Beaufort Sea, which U.S. President Donald Trump apparently covets (along with the rest of Canada and Greenland).

The strategy aims to address more serious issues largely brought about by Russia’s continuing invasion of Ukraine and climate change, which is expected to render the Arctic Ocean “an increasingly viable shipping route between Europe and Asia” by 2050. Non-Arctic states—most particularly, China—are showing increasing interest, and presence, in the Arctic.

“The North American Arctic is no longer free from tension,” says the strategy. “Canada must work even closer with its closest ally, the United States, to maintain a secure North American homeland. Canada should also be closer than ever to its Nordic allies.”

It declares effective diplomacy “critical for shaping the international environment to defend and advance Canadian national interests; it is a first line of defence for Canada’s national security. Canada’s fundamental defence and security goal is to prevent and defuse potential crises before they can develop into conflict.”

Ottawa was to appoint an Arctic ambassador to better represent Canadian interests. It also intends to open new consulates in Alaska and Greenland, initiate an Arctic security dialogue with like-minded states, and further support science and research related to Arctic security and science.

Meanwhile Canada, it says, is making investments to ensure that its military has the capabilities required to operate in “an evolving geopolitical context.” By 2030, it adds, Canada will have almost tripled its defence spending from 2015.