Who We Are

We are a small group of volunteers – individuals who all have strong professional backgrounds in maritime heritage. We are all authors of books, articles and papers related to this body of knowledge as well as career links to active marine agencies in Canada. We are all volunteers and do this work as enthusiasts for the love of maritime heritage. Our contributing writers and authors have similar backgrounds and are volunteers when working with The Nauticapedia.

The Curator of the Nauticapedia Project is:

John MacFarlane

John MacFarlane

As Director of The Nauticapedia Project he is realizing a dream dating back to 1976 to highlight the defining stories of British Columbia’s heritage. He was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, (London U.K.) in 1994. He is the scion of three generations of Pacific coast tug boaters and naval officers. He is a retired Director of the Maritime Museum of British Columbia in Victoria BC and is now the Curator Emeritus of that venerable institution. He is the author of numerous books and articles on maritime, naval and aviation topics including Canada’s Admirals & Commodores; Canada’s Naval Aviators and the Official Guide to Pacific Rim National Park.

Nauticapedia

Site News: March 16, 2024

The vessel database has been updated and is now holding 91,134 vessel histories (with 15,557 images and 12,826 records of ship wrecks and marine disasters). The mariner and naval biography database has also been updated and now contains 58,612 entries (with 4,007 images).

In 2023 the Nauticapedia celebrated the 50th Anniversary of it’s original inception in 1973 (initially it was on 3" x 5" file cards). It has developed, expanded, digitized and enlarged in those ensuing years to what it is now online. If it was printed out it would fill more than 300,000 pages!

My special thanks to our volunteer IT adviser, John Eyre, who (since 2021) has modernized, simplified and improved the update process for the databases into semi–automated processes. His participation has been vital to keeping the Nauticapedia available to our netizens.

Also my special thanks to my volunteer content checker, John Spivey of Irvine CA USA, who has proofread thousands of Nauticapedia vessel histories and provided input to improve more than 10,000 entries. His attention to detail has been a huge unexpected bonus in improving and updating the vessel detail content.


© 2002-2023