Editing HMS Alert (1856) (section)

=== Loan to the Canadian Government ===
In September 1880, the United Kingdom transferred its rights of Arctic sovereignty to Canada. From 1884 to 1886 the Canadian Marine Service of the [[Department of Marine and Fisheries (Canada)|Department of Marine and Fisheries]] sent an expedition to [[Hudson Bay]] to establish observation posts and to estimate the length of season for ice-free navigation. A former lieutenant of the Royal Navy, Andrew Robertson Gordon, was placed in command, and a suitable ship was sought. Having finished her work with the US Navy, ''Alert'' seemed the ideal vessel for the task. She was sailed to the [[Royal Naval Dockyard, Halifax]] and transferred by the senior naval officer to the marine agent of the Department of Marine and Fisheries.<ref name=CCG/>

{{blockquote|"The ''Alert'' was a screw steamship, barque rigged, of about 700 tons gross . . . constructed as to be capable of resisting great ice pressure, and her engines being only 50 nominal horsepower, the screw is small . . . so that in every way she was well adapted for the work of the expedition."|Andrew Robertson Gordon<ref name=CCG/>}}
[[File:CGS Alert.jpg|thumb|right|''Alert'' as a lighthouse supply ship in 1893]]

In 1886 she carried Captain Markham, who had been second-in-command of ''Alert'' during the 1876 Arctic Exploration, and now represented the interests of a railway company interested in building a line from [[Winnipeg]] to [[Hudson Bay]]. Captain Markham left the ship at [[York Factory, Manitoba]] and returned by the [[Hayes River]] canoe route.<ref name=CCG2>{{cite web|url=http://www.ccg-gcc.gc.ca/eng/CCG/USQUE_Hudson_Bay|title=The Arctic and Hudson Bay at the Canadian Coastguard website|access-date=2008-11-18}}</ref>

After the last Hudson Bay expedition in 1886, ''Alert'' was reconfigured as a light-house supply vessel and buoy tender. Her [[Mast (sailing)|topmasts]] and [[Yard (sailing)|yards]] were removed, and a [[Bridge (nautical)|wheelhouse]] was built abaft the remains of the main mast. She worked at first in [[Nova Scotia]], but as her wooden hull showed signs of deterioration, she was moved to the [[Gulf of Saint Lawrence]], sailing out of [[Quebec]].<ref name=CCG/> Thirty years after her launch little was left of her original appearance; in essence she was now a small, old, low-powered steamer showing the scars of hard labour and many an ungainly conversion. Nevertheless, she continued to give useful service until the last decade of the nineteenth century.