The Works of William Gilkerson

This gallery presents the full range of Gilkerson’s work across painting, drawing, scrimshaw, and writing. His practice included detailed pen-and-ink studies, watercolours, and oil paintings, and finely engraved scrimshaw. A lifelong student of maritime history, Gilkerson’s subjects included vikings, pirates, John Paul Jones, the USS Constitution, American whalers in the Western Arctic, West Coast ships, ancient nautical charts, and more.

Alongside his visual art, he wrote and illustrated numerous books spanning maritime history, historical fiction, and children’s literature—including Pirate’s Passage, winner of the Governor General’s Award. Together, these works form a record of Gilkerson’s enduring exploration of the sea, its stories, and the people who lived by it.