Thiepval formed part of the Canadian naval response to Admiralty warnings to Canada about the growing German U-boat threat to merchant shipping in the western Atlantic.

In early 1919, as part of the reallocation of ships in Canada's greatly reduced postwar navy, she accompanied Armentières, Givenchy, and Stadacona on a trip via the Panama Canal to the west coast.

Initiated by the RCN after the First World War, the patrols were a response to the dangerous waters off Vancouver Island, which were considered part of the Graveyard of the Pacific.

[3][4] In addition to search and rescue patrols, the trawler also carried out fisheries protection work, sometimes seizing US fishing boats that had entered Canadian waters.

[3] Reacquired by the RCN, Thiepval was recommissioned in April 1923, and in February 1924 was given the task of helping to support the round-the-world flight attempt of Major Stuart-MacLaren.

Proceeding across the North Pacific via the Aleutian Islands and the Kamchatka Peninsula, Thiepval arrived in Hakodate, Japan, carrying supplies and equipment for the Vickers Vulture flying boat and its crew.

[3] The Canadian government had also given Thiepval the secret assignment of investigating American and Japanese territories in the North Pacific to see if they were being fortified in contravention of the 1922 Washington Naval Treaty; it turned out that they were not.

Heavy fog forced an emergency landing at sea, where the aircraft was badly damaged by waves before coming ashore at Nikolskoye, on Bering Island.

[8] In March 2017, The Royal Canadian Navy sent clearance divers to conduct a survey of the wreck and develop a plan to remove the unexploded munitions.