Skip to content
Join our Newsletter

Tale of Tilikum canoe journey earns John Lyman Book Award

A book about John Voss and the Tilikum — a modified dugout canoe the German ship captain used to circumnavigate the globe — has won its Vancouver Island authors a John Lyman Book Award.

A book about John Voss and the Tilikum — a modified dugout canoe the German ship captain used to circumnavigate the globe — has won its Vancouver Island authors a John Lyman Book Award.

Around the World in a Dugout Canoe: The Untold Story of Captain John Voss and the Tilikum was written by John M. MacFarlane of Qualicum Beach and Lynn J. Salmon of Courtenay, who won for best book published in the category of Canadian Naval and Maritime History.

The 2019 release was recognized by the North American Society for Oceanic History for making a major contribution to the study and understanding of maritime and naval history.

Voss set out from Victoria in 1901 to claim the world record for the smallest vessel to circumnavigate the globe. His journey came to an end in 1904 in London, England.

The Tilikum was housed in Bastion Square’s Maritime Museum of British Columbia, of which MacFarlane is curator emeritus, from 1965 to 2015. It is now on display at the Ogden Point cruise-ship terminal.