“It’s all a little fuzzy who had the idea for it but it’s definitely safe to say he was instrumental in bringing a maritime-related museum to our coast,” said Brittany Vis, executive director of the Maritime Museum of B.C. “We’re not sure if he sparked the idea, or if the idea was already around.” What is known is that then-Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip toured the naval base in Esquimalt, and when the prince returned to England, he contacted the Greenwich Museum and asked it to send a collection of objects to the province in order to start a new naval museum.