John Rae’s Expedition
While the journey will be arduous, the aim is to honour Rae and highlight his achievements. David said, “We want to shine a light on this important chapter of Arctic history and John Rae is a massive part of this.”
Richard added, “The expedition is not a bid to be the greatest, best or fastest. Rather it’s about raising awareness of a Scot whom many feel has not been properly recognised for his incredible achievements.
“It is about giving John Rae his rightful place in history and about educating people about his important Arctic discoveries.”
IT was in March 1854 that Orcadian explorer, medic and surveyor John Rae set out from Naujaat, then called Repulse Bay. Together with an Inuk, William Ouligbuck, and an Ojibway, Thomas Mistegan, Rae accomplished one of the most important expeditions in the history of Arctic exploration.
His journey would have been gruelling with the threat of death from wild animals, exposure and hunger.
Despite the odds against him he made his crucial Northwest Passage find, which subsequently enabled navigation of the sea channel, now named the Rae Strait, to the Pacific Ocean through the Arctic Ocean.
Rae also found evidence, including starvation and cannibalism, of a failed expedition led by Captain Sir John Franklin some nine years earlier. Franklin’s ships had been trapped in ice for years. Franklin had set out in May 1845 with two ships, HMS Erebus and HMS Terror, and 129 crew on a mission to find the missing link of the Northwest Passage. The last reported sighting of the ships was in 1848 and the resultant loss was said to be the worst disaster in the Royal Navy’s history of polar exploration.
Rae reported his findings to the Admiralty in London but faced a campaign of denial and vilification for believing the word of “savages” (the indigenous Inuit population) and suggesting that Royal Navy officers would resort to cannibalism. Such was the denigration, Rae’s place in history was not recognised until new evidence highlighted the truth in a book published by Ken Mcgoogan in 2001 called Fatal Passage: The Story Of John Rae, The Arctic Hero Time Forgot. Last year, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors awarded Rae the title of Honorary Charter Surveyor to mark its 150th year.