[4] She was powered by a triple expansion steam engine made by John G. Kincaid & Company and rated at 3,000 horsepower[5] and driving a single screw propeller.

Bruce was registered at St. John's with Official Number 129921, and sailed on 13 February 1912 on her first service voyage to Sydney, Cape Breton Island, where she proved to be an efficient icebreaker.

[10] At the outbreak of the First World War in July 1914, the Russian Imperial Government needed to improve access through Arkhangelsk by delaying the annual icing-up of the port.

[16] By late March the situation on Solovey Budimirovich was desperate, with coal exhausted and boilers fuelled only with wooden barrels, food very limited, and radio communications cut to weekly, to conserve batteries.

[15][17] It was agreed that Sviatogor would be loaned to the Norwegian Government for a rescue mission, under the leadership of Arctic explorer Otto Sverdrup, which reached the trapped ship on 19 June 1920, by which time she had drifted some 1000 miles in the ice.

Other members included technicians (amongst them Umberto Nobile) whose mission was to locate a suitable place for a Soviet floatplane base in Franz Josef Land.

During this expedition the German airship Graf Zeppelin made a memorable rendezvous with Malygin at Bukhta Tikhaya on Hooker Island, Franz Josef Land, on July 27, 1931.