40,000 Miles in a Canoe

In May 1901, just three years after Joshua Slocum's legendary solo voyage around the world, another professional seaman idled by the passing of the Age of Sail set off on an extraordinary ocean journey. Saying goodbye to his wife and children, he put to sea from Victoria, British Columbia, with one other man in a converted Native American war canoe. Voss's objective was to circle the world in a boat smaller than Slocum's Spray, and his canoe, which he named Tilikum, certainly qualified. Although 38 feet long, it was a mere 5 and a half feet wide and drew just 24 inches when fully loaded. When he first saw the canoe, he said, it struck me at once that I we could make our proposed voyage we would not alone make a world's record for the smallest vessel but also the only canoe that had ever circumnavigated the globe. To prepare the dugout red-cedar canoe for an ocean voyage, Voss had built up the sides seven inches, decked it over, and added a tiny 5 x 8 foot cabin, a cockpit for steering, a small keel and three small masts carrying four sails. He and a man named Luxton, left Victoria carrying 100 gallons of fresh water, three months' provisions, firearms and navigation instrumen