HMCS Athabaskan was the first of three destroyers of the Royal Canadian Navy to bear this name. It was a destroyer of the Tribal-class, built in 1940-1941 in the United Kingdom by Vickers Armstrong of Newcastle upon Tyne with Parsons engine works.
She was heavily damaged by a Henschel Hs 293 glider bomb during an anti-submarine chase off Cape Ortegal, in the Bay of Biscay, on 27 August 1943. Egret was sunk in the same incident. Athabaskan was lost in the English Channel the night of 29 April 1944. She was torpedoed by the German destroyer escort T24. Her commanding officer — Lieutenant Commander John Stubbs — was killed in action after declining rescue by Haida to swim back for more crew members. 128 crew lost their lives in the sinking; in 2004, the Canadian Navy provided a brass plaque to be laid on the wreck to commemorate the loss. The expedition found more information about the sinking but did not clarify the actual cause. The wreck is in a shattered condition spread over the sea bed.
There does exist some speculation that Athabaskan was in fact lost to a friendly fire incident after being accidentally torpedoed by a British motor torpedo boat, or that she suffered some sort of catastrophic internal explosion in number one boiler room. However, due to the poor condition of the wreck after some 60 or so years of lying in strong currents, as well as the poor record-keeping and incomplete logs of other ships in the area at the time of her sinking, neither of these theories have yet been confirmed.
Athabaskan Island, near Bella Bella on the Central Coast of British Columbia, was named in memory of Athabaskan.
École John Stubbs Memorial School near Victoria, British Columbia is named for Lieutenant Commander John Stubbs.