Meet authors John MacFarlane and Lynn J. Salmon at a book signing for Around the World in a Dugout Canoe: The Untold Story of Captain John Voss and the Tilikum, at Black Bond Books in Ladner on Saturday, Oct. 5 from 1 to 2 p.m.
Around the World in Dugout Canoe tells the remarkable story of Captain John Voss, who set out from Victoria in 1901 to claim the world record for the smallest vessel to circumnavigate the globe.
Voss’s journey spanned more than three years, and while books about the expedition were previously published by both Voss and one of his crew members, Norman Luxton, these accounts were compromised by poor memories, brazen egos and sometimes outright lies. In Around the World in Dugout Canoe, MacFarlane and Salmon sift fact from fiction, critically examining the claims of Voss’s and Luxton’s manuscripts against research from libraries, archives and museums around the world to reveal the real story of a little-understood character and his dugout canoe.
This groundbreaking work also includes unpublished photographs, letters and ephemera from the voyage to tell an enduring story of courage, adventure, tragedy, and at times, sheer luck.
MacFarlane makes his home in Qualicum Beach and is the curator emeritus of the Maritime Museum of British Columbia, curator of the Nauticapedia Project and author of several books and articles on nautical history. He was commissioned into the Royal Canadian Navy (Reserve). He is also a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society (London), and the recipient of the Sovereign’s Medal for Volunteers and the SS Beaver Medal for Maritime Excellence.
Salmon has written extensively on the marine history of BC and her articles have appeared in publications including Western Mariner and the Times Colonist. She worked as collections manager for eight years at the Maritime Museum of British Columbia and recently concluded a fifteen-year career as a radio officer with the Canadian Coast Guard. She is senior editor of the Nauticapedia Project. She lives in Courtenay, BC.
Black Bond Books is located at 5251 Ladner Trunk Road (Trenant Park Square).
Around the World in a Dugout Canoe: The Untold Story of Captain John Voss and the Tilikum is being released through Harbour Publishing.
