Miscaroo was an icebreaking anchor handling tug supply vessel built by Vancouver Shipyards for BeauDril, the drilling subsidiary of Gulf Canada Resources, in 1983.

These units, each capable of completing one exploration well per year, would be supported by four Arctic Class 4 vessels: two large icebreakers providing 24-hour ice management and standby services on the drilling site and two smaller icebreaking vessels responsible for anchor handling and supply runs between the drilling rigs and coastal bases.

Twelve wells alone were drilled in the Amauligak prospect, the most significant oil and gas field discovered in the region, but the high expectations for the Beaufort Sea were not met: the area was characterized by a large number of small, widely scattered resources.

The drilling subsidiary of Dome Petroleum (later Amoco Canada) had been BeauDril's main competitor in the Beaufort Sea for more than a decade and the merger of two former rivals created the world's largest fleet of commercial Arctic vessels.

The two former Canadian offshore icebreakers were deployed together at the Vityaz Production Complex during the first phase of the Sakhalin-2 project in the seasonally frozen Sea of Okhotsk.

Her icebreaking hull form, developed at the Hamburgische Schiffbau-Versuchsanstalt (HSVA) ice tank in Hamburg, Germany, featured a heavy forefoot wedge to deflect ice floes and large bossings to protect propellers and rudders from damage, and was strengthened to Canadian Arctic Shipping Pollution Prevention Regulations (CASPPR) Arctic Class 4 requirements.

The hull was made of cold-resistant high strength steel sourced from Japan and coated with the low-friction Inerta 160 epoxy paint.

[3][4] Inside, Miscaroo provided comfortable accommodation for six officers and 16 crew members in single cabins even when the ambient temperature dropped to −50 °C (−58 °F).

[3][4] Miscaroo had a diesel-mechanical propulsion system with four medium-speed diesel engines driving two shafts through twin input-single output gearboxes.

The four-bladed stainless steel controllable pitch propellers, manufactured by LIPS Canada, had a diameter of 3.75 metres (12 ft) and were placed in fixed nozzles.