Vilified Arctic explorer up for award

An Orcadian described as the greatest Arctic explorer of his age is up for an award – more than 125 years after his death.

Dr John Rae’s achievements should by rights have raised him to the pantheon of great Victorian explorers but his reputation was destroyed by a sustained campaign of vilification.

Dr Rae’s crime was to have discovered the gruesome and shocking cannibalistic fate of a previous expedition to find the Northwest passage, mounted by Sir John Franklin, but lost in the Arctic ice.

Past pleas for official recognition for Dr Rae’s extraordinary achievements had been made by explorer Ray Mears and comedian

“He is now being painted into history, not airbrushed out”

Billy Connolly.

But now the legendary Orcadian adventurer is in the running for a posthumous award from the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors.

To celebrate its 150th year, the institute has polls in a number of categories as part of their Pride in the Profession awards “to showcase the significant and positive impact surveyors have made to society.”

People are now able to vote online for Dr Rae in the mappers category, which celebrates “members of the profession who have progressed the understanding of the physical location of territorial borders, features of geography, and land use including transportation infrastructure and buildings”.

Andrew Appleby, president of the John Rae Society said: “He is now being painted into history, rather than airbrushed out.”