Named for the Annapolis River that flows through Nova Scotia, the ship entered service in 1964, the last of the St. Laurent-class design.

[1] Serving through the Cold War, Annapolis was decommissioned in 1998 before going through a protracted legal battle for use as an artificial reef.

[4][note 3] The ships were powered by two Babcock & Wilcox boilers connected to the two-shaft English-Electric geared steam turbines providing 30,000 shaft horsepower (22,000 kW).

[1] The ships were initially armed with two 3-inch (76 mm)/50 caliber[note 4] dual-purpose guns mounted in a single turret forward.

The two Annapolis-class destroyers were built late enough to incorporate the helicopter hangar retrofitted to the St. Laurent class and the "Beartrap" haul-down device.

Encompassing all the classes based on the initial St. Laurent (the remaining St. Laurent, Restigouche, Mackenzie, and Annapolis-class vessels), the DELEX upgrades were meant to improve their ability to combat modern Soviet submarines,[7] and to allow them to continue to operate as part of NATO task forces.

[8] The Annapolis class received the same sensor and communications upgrades that others in the St Laurent family of ships received, including the installation of a new tactical data system (ADLIPS), updated radars and sonars, fire control and satellite navigation.

However in 1959, the last two repeat Restigouches were altered to incorporate variable depth sonar and a helicopter landing area.

for Digby—Annapolis—Kings three days before the ship's launch[11] on 27 April 1963, Annapolis was commissioned into the Royal Canadian Navy on 19 December 1964 with the classification number 265.

Following completion of the refit, Annapolis took part in the large NATO naval exercise, Ocean Safari '87 and in Fall 1987, escorted the royal yacht HMY Britannia on the Great Lakes.

[14] In 1994, the destroyer was deployed as part of Operation Forward Action, the Canadian participation in the United Nations-sanctioned blockade of Haiti that year.

She was sunk, after some years of legal disputes over environmental concerns, as an artificial reef and long-term marine habitat in Halkett Bay Provincial Park off Gambier Island in Howe Sound on 4 April 2015, in under two minutes.