 While the location for the training base was being sorted out, the actual training establishment was founded at a cost of $9 million at Halifax's HMC Dockyard on May 1, 1942, and was named HMCS "Cornwallis" in honour of Edward Cornwallis, the founder of Halifax.With the location of the new base decided, construction began in June of that year with a budget of $15 million.The base occupied a small peninsula jutting into the Annapolis Basin several miles east of the mouth of the Bear River where a gypsum loading facility was located in Deep Brook.