Dr. John Rae: A Scottish Hero

It is the 6th of May, 1854. Dr. John Rae leads a small party of men north up the west coast of Boothia through the barren, rocky ravines and windswept, treeless tundra. Rae has been tasked with mapping the last uncharted coastline of mainland North America. A small errand at the edge of the known world. He has no great ship to support him, no tinned goods, no dress uniform folded in a trunk, or hot meals in the officer’s ward room. Rae swiftly moves over the ice and snow with ease, having mastered the use of snowshoes; just one of many techniques he learned from the native people.

He had set out in March with four men, but two of them were forced to stay behind due to frostbite and exhaustion. Fog and storms had slowed their pace, but Rae now stands at the edge of a cape at the western shores of Boothia. The Scotsman and his Ojibwe and Inuit companions stare out over the icy landscape. Rae takes a measurement from his sextant, then looks at his compass and records his position into his log. 

Peering again into the west, a thought enters Rae’s mind. What if this land before him isn’t land at all? Had the snow cover previously misled him? He sees “young ice”; not like the thick pack ice on the other side of King William Land. This ice will melt by summer and this strait will be navigable in the summer. 

He said nothing. Made no grand announcements or boastful claims. The stoic surveyor stood quietly, calculating, pondering, and observing. “This is it,” he thought to himself. This is the northwest passage.”

Although it would take another forty-nine years until Roald Amundsen proved it, Dr. John Rae had indeed found the last link in the fabled Northwest Passage, a link that would one day be named after him. But it would take even longer for Rae’s contributions to science and geography to be properly appreciated.

Dr. John Rae: A Scottish Hero, today, on Shipwrecks and Sea Dogs.

Hello and welcome to Shipwrecks and Sea Dogs, tales of mishaps, misfortune, and misadventure. I’m your host, Rich Napolitano.

The history of polar exploration is peppered with legendary names such as Roald Amundsen, James Clark Ross, Ernest Shackleton, Fridtjof Nansen, and Robert Peary. All of these men made tremendous advances in scientific and geographic understanding of our polar regions. Their achievements have been celebrated, honored, and memorialized, and deservedly so. But among these men belongs a rugged, intelligent, and resourceful Scotsman whose accomplishments and discoveries are among the most significant of the last 200 years. That man is Dr. John Rae.

John Rae was born the sixth of nine children to John Rae Senior and Margaret Glen Campbell, at the Hall of Clestrain [KLESS-strin], parish of Orphir [ORR-phur], Orkney Islands, on the 30th of September 1813. His father managed tenant farmers for Scottish nobleman William Honyman, Lord Armadale, and also served as an agent for the Hudson’s Bay Company. Hardworking, skilled laborers from Orkney were recruited by the elder John Rae, and sent west to Rupert’s Land of Canada to work in the fur trade.  

The Rae family was fairly well-off for the time compared to the average Orkadian. The family home of Hall of Clestrain was nice, but modest when compared to more aristocratic estates. Young John Rae received an education from a private tutor, but the windswept, rugged outdoors of Orkney were truly in his heart. From a young age, Rae enjoyed hunting wild fowl, fishing, and sailing the family’s two small boats. Rae and his brothers often raced other boys from the area, and even older, more experienced sailors - and often won. 

Much of his time was spent exploring the moors, running over the hills, and climbing the rocky cliffs. He wistfully watched ships sailing west into the unknown from Stromness and wondered what adventures and mysteries lay beyond the ocean. 

While still a young lad, Rae’s father gave him an old flintlock rifle, and the boy fell in love with shooting and hunting. In his free time, Rae would disappear into the countryside with his Pointer named Carlo, and return home with grouse, ducks, and other game for the family’s stores.   

In 1829, at age fifteen, Rae left Orkney, and enrolled in the medical college at the University of Edinburgh. Four years later, he received his medical license from the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh and returned to his home in Orkney.

Rae wasted no time fulfilling his passion for the outdoors and his curiosity of the wilderness. Just two months after completing his medical training, he enlisted as a ship’s surgeon on the Hudson’s Bay Company ship, Prince of Wales. John Rae Senior had previously given clerical posts in the company to his sons William and Richard; older brothers of the younger Rae. The hopeful young surgeon signed on for just one voyage, to see if this employment was to his liking.

The Prince of Wales sailed from Stromness in June 1833, and Rae stood on its deck, looking back at his home. He wouldn’t see Orkney again for fourteen years.

During the voyage, Rae was observant of the conditions on board the ship. The workers recruited from Orkney were kept in small, cramped quarters, just five feet high, with hammocks hanging from the ceiling, and wooden berths along the walls. Seasickness was rampant, adding to the squalor of their quarters. Not long after departing Orkney, typhoid broke out among the men, and the young Doctor tended to them for the duration of the journey. He wrote of this, “Fortunately, they were a strong and healthy lot of young fellows and recovered very rapidly.

When not tending to the sick, Rae questioned the sailors about the rigging and sails, hoping to learn all he could about the operation of a ship. After entering Hudson Strait, Rae saw his first iceberg, and was awestruck, describing its “beauty and purity, vastness and variety.” Rae later encountered Inuit people for the first time on the Strait. Dozens of people approached in kayaks shouting, “Chimo!” meaning “friends”. Rae found them to be friendly and hospitable, as the ship’s crew traded knives, axes, and other tools for seal oil and walrus tusks.

The Prince of Wales reached Hudson Bay, and sailed south into James Bay. On September 7, 1833, it arrived at its destination: the Hudson’s Bay Company settlement of Moose Factory, located on an island in the Moose River.

Rae thrived in the rugged, workmanlike atmosphere, and pitched in with the work whenever possible. The Chief Factor, or superintendent, George Mactavish was impressed by the enthusiastic young man, and asked him to stay on at Moose Factory. Mactavish even sweetened the deal by giving Rae a birchbark canoe. Although tempted to stay in this rustic wilderness, Rae declined, and departed for home just two weeks later on the Prince of Wales.

However, thick pack ice blocked the Hudson Strait. After poking and prodding for a way through, the ship was forced to turn around, and would have to overwinter in Rupert’s Land. With icy decks and rigging, the Prince of Wales labored south through the bay once again, this time for Charlton Island, a desolate, abandoned outpost seventy miles north of Moose Factory. Rae and the others trudged through deep snow to find only dilapidated lodgings, with windows broken and collapsed roofs. The men constructed a large tent using sails, spars from the ship, and additional lumber from surrounding trees. The ship’s valuable cargo of furs were stored under the tent, while the men repaired the cabins.

Provisions and supplies were sent from Moose Factory, but Rae seized the opportunity to pursue his love for hunting. He eagerly sought geese and ducks and found pleasure in the adventure. While others in his party were miserable, Rae wrote of this time, “Personally, I enjoyed the situation immensely.” In the difficult, harsh conditions of the Canadian winter, John Rae found he was in his element.

Entrenched in their makeshift accommodations through the winter, the men suffered in the frigid cold and howling winds. Eating mostly salted meat and biscuits, and having used up their lemon juice, scurvy reared its ugly head. Many began exhibiting symptoms including joint pain, loose teeth, and blackened gums. Rae was not unfamiliar with the disease, although it was still decades before Vitamin C was discovered. But Rae had theorized its cause, writing, “I consider scurvy to be a blood disease caused by the lack of something it gets from vegetables.” He did what he could, even making a spruce beer, but this was ineffective in treating the disease. The captain and first mate of the Prince of Wales both perished from the disease, and Rae noted that these two men “had taken more spirits than were good for them, and consequently it was no wonder they were more affected than the other men.”

In the Spring, when the snow began to melt, Rae set off looking for wild peas to make a soup, when he discovered red stains in the snow. First believing it was blood, he found there were cranberries he had crushed underfoot. He gathered the cranberries and began distributing them to the men. Almost immediately, their scurvy began to fade, and the rest of the men recuperated. Through his hunting fresh game, foraging, and resourcefulness, John Rae was the primary reason for the party’s survival over the winter of 1833-1834.

In July, the Prince of Wales departed for England, but John Rae stayed on as surgeon at the Moose Factory outpost. Rae wrote of his decision, “thinking from what I saw that I should like the wild sort of life to be found in the Hudson’s Bay Company’s service.” However, he missed his family greatly, especially his mother, and sent letters for them on the Prince of Wales.

Rae remained at Moose Factory for the next ten years, and flourished in this new life. He eventually took on the duties of clerk as well as surgeon and learned more about the business as he engaged in the trading activities of the outpost. 

Although already a skilled outdoorsman, he admired the skills of the native peoples and sought to learn from them. He learned their language and adopted their ways of wearing deerskin clothing for warmth. He was taught hunting techniques, how to read the terrain, survive off the land, and drive a dog sled team from the Cree and Metis. In particular, Rae became proficient, and eventually a master in the use of snowshoes for traversing vast stretches of deep snow; an invaluable skill for what was to come. Rae became renowned among the Hudson’s Bay Company for his remarkable endurance during his long treks hunting, foraging, and exploring.

Governor-in-Chief of the Hudson’s Bay Company Sir George Simpson took note of Rae’s skills and initiative, and chose him to lead an expedition to map an uncharted section of the Arctic coastline. This was an area that was not mapped by Peter Warren Dease and Thomas Simpson from 1837–39.

Rae was up for the challenge, although he would need training in surveying before he could lead the expedition. On August 20th, 1844, Rae left Moose Factory with three native men and John Corrigal, an Orkney man. They traveled west and south by canoe, portaging when necessary, to Upper Fort Garry. This outpost of the Hudson’s Bay Colony was the administrative hub of the Red River Colony, located in modern day Winnipeg. 

After traveling a circuitous route, over one thousand miles, Rae and his party arrived on October 9, only to find his surveying instructor, George Taylor, to be extremely ill. While waiting for Taylor to recover, Rae explored the surrounding Red River Colony and became acquainted with the diverse mix of French, Cree, Metis, and Scots who had settled in the area.

Taylor sadly did not recover, and he died in November. Rae did not wish to take on the surveying expedition without receiving the proper training, and planned to head east to find someone who could provide it. With the lakes and rivers frozen, the canoes were of no use. In January of 1845, after a heavy snow had fallen, Rae set out for Sault Saint Marie with Corrigan and two native men using snowshoes and a dog sled team.

Through almost impenetrable terrain, the party traversed steep ravines and crossed streams, with Rae hunting game along the way to provide for fresh food. When the wilderness became too difficult for the dog team, he left them behind and the men carried their supplies on their backs. Two months later, on March 3, 1845, after crossing 1200 miles of rugged, frozen country, Rae arrived in Sault Saint Marie. This busy, fur-trading crossroads is bisected by the St. Mary’s River connecting Lake Huron to Lake Superior, which also serves as the border between Canada and the United States. Today, Sault Saint Marie is the home of the economically critical Soo Locks.

Rae wrote to Sir George Simpson explaining the circumstances, and Simpson, impressed by the young man’s initiative, instructed him to proceed to the Magnetic Observatory in Toronto. Rae traveled the additional three hundred miles or so to Toronto, where he learned from Captain John Henry Lefroy, an accomplished astronomer and surveyor.

Lefroy taught Rae to use a sextant to precisely determine a location, and by the end of July, Rae was back in Sault Saint Marie. Here, he received his official orders from the Hudson’s Bay Company to assemble a team and chart the Arctic coastline from Fury and Hecla Strait to the mouth of the Castor and Pollux River. This is a vast stretch of the Nunavut coastline of Northern Canada, north of Hudson Bay. Incidentally, it was at this time, HMS Terror and HMS Erebus of the Franklin expedition were last seen by whalers in Baffin Bay; an expedition that would later greatly impact John Rae.

On August 5th, Rae set out alone in a canoe for York Factory, and was given a seven gun salute over Lake Superior. Paddling west on the Winnipeg River, Rae encountered an HBC clerk, Robert Ballantyne, who then learned of Rae’s destination and expedition. Ballantyne was much impressed by the thirty-two year old doctor, later writing in his book, Hudson Bay, or, Everyday Life in the Wilds of North America, “He was very muscular and active, full of animal spirits, and had a fine intellectual countenance. He was considered by those who knew him well to be one of the best snow-shoe walkers in the service, was also an excellent rifle-shot, and could stand an immense amount of fatigue.”

Rae reached Moose Factory later that fall, where he promptly hired his right hand man John Corrigan, and a Metis carpenter and boat builder named Richard Turner. Continuing north to York Factory on October 8th, he was forced to overwinter there as the rivers had iced over.

Chief Factor of York Factory John Hargrave had two York boats built for Rae, 22 feet in length. These were small but sturdy vessels, powered by oars and sail, made for carrying furs and other cargo along the lakes and rivers. Rae was impressed with the boats, which were modeled after the Orkney yole, and named them North Pole and Magnet. Rae spent the 1845-1846 winter taking meteorological readings, and honing his surveying skills.  

As Spring began to thaw the winter ice, Rae had gathered his team of ten men, including Corrigan and Turner. Six of them were Scots, and four of those were from Orkney. The party departed York Station in their two boats for Fort Churchill, where he hired two Inuit men, Ooligbuck and his son William, to serve as interpreters, hunters, and guides. 

Now a party of twelve, the expedition got underway from Churchill on July 5th, 1846. Rae believed in traveling light and using his skills to live off the land. The two boats were packed with provisions for only four months, despite the journey ahead of them that could take up to two years.

The boats sailed north up the west coast of Hudson Bay and reached Repulse Bay on July 26th, a distance of about six-hundred miles. They disembarked here and were met by four friendly Inuit men. From them, Rae learned that the “big sea” was only about forty miles to the northwest across the Melville peninsula, and much of it was covered by lakes. 

The party secured the Magnet in a small cove, and two men were left behind to safeguard the boat while Rae and nine others hauled the North Pole by sledge over the ice and now, hopeful of reaching a lake or inlet that could take them across the isthmus. Finding more ice than open water, it was a grueling, slow-going journey. After four days, Rae reached Committee Bay on the northwest side of the isthmus, where he met an elderly Inuit couple in their small tent. From them, he learned that there was no waterway from Committee Bay to the Castor and Pollux River south of Boothia; that Boothia was in fact a peninsula, and not an island.

After several more days exploring to the northwest, and an attempt at sailing northeast to the Fury and Hecla Strait, Rae found little open water to navigate. Although reluctant to turn back before achieving any of his surveying goals, Rae wrote, “As we could neither advance nor remain in safety where we were, there was only one course to use, and that was to return toward the place from which we had started.”

The party returned to Repulse Bay, where the men all agreed they would overwinter, despite their lack of provisions. Rae carefully chose a site for their winter camp, and supervised the construction of a small stone house. Being above the tree line, no lumber was available. Its walls were two feet thick, its roof framed with oars and masts from the boats, and its doorway draped with a deerskin.

The house, which Rae named ‘Fort Hope’ was drafty, damp, and cold. As winter set in, temperatures plunged, as well as men’s spirits. But Rae once again flourished in this environment. He hunted, foraged, and fished, and supplied the vast majority of the food eaten by the men over the winter. In September alone, he brought in 63 deer, a seal, five hares, 172 partridges, and 116 fish. 

The self-determined Scotsman visited a nearby Inuit camp and saw igloos for the first time. He marveled at how efficiently they retained heat. He studied the igloos and learned from the Inuit how to construct them. With practice, he soon mastered the art and instructed his other men how to build the snow-shelters. By December, they had built four igloos connected by tunnels, and later built two observatories out of snow to take meteorological readings.

The heart of the winter was extremely challenging, as temperatures reached negative forty-seven degrees Fahrenheit, or negative forty four degrees Celsius. To pass the time, the men read books and when weather permitted, held lively football matches (soccer to my American friends). Strong winds and blizzards made hunting more difficult, and seal oil for cooking and lighting ran low. The nearby Inuit brought extra supplies of venison and seal oil to get them through the roughest part of the winter. John Rae and his party became the first Europeans to overwinter and live off the land, without a supply ship, at this latitude.

In the spring of 1847, Rae travelled back across the isthmus to Committee Bay, across the sea ice to Pelly Bay, and back around the coast of Simpson Peninsula (named by Rae after his employer). From high ground overlooking Lord Mayor's Bay, Rae could see that Boothia was a peninsula, not an island, just as the Inuit woman had told him. This corrected a previously held position supposed by the Admiralty. Along the way, Rae was joined by an Inuit man and his dog team. Rae marveled at how much easier the man’s dogsled skated across the snow than his own iron sledge. He learned that by rubbing the blades with moss and damp snow, it would reduce friction and allow for easier sledging. Once again, John Rae sought to learn all he could from those who lived and thrived in this region of the world.

After a short break back at Repulse Bay, Rae set off to explore the west coast of Melville Peninsula, reaching Cape Crozier, about 10 miles from the Fury and Hecla Strait. In total, the expedition discovered and surveyed close to 800 miles of Arctic coastline around Committee Bay and the Simpson Peninsula, mostly on foot. Rae had made history by trekking from Lord’s Mayor Bay in the west, along the coast to Fury and Hecla Strait. He had connected the coast mapped by Sir John Ross in 1830 with that of Sir Edward Parry in the east in 1822. More importantly, he had proven that the yet to be discovered Northwest Passage was not to be found via this route.

In September of 1847, Rae’s expedition returned, all healthy, at York Factory, and Rae was promoted to chief trader. He wrote letters to Governor Simpson announcing his achievements, and sent an official report to the Hudson’s Bay Company in London. 

An account of this expedition, A Narrative of an Expedition to the Shores of the Arctic Sea in 1846 and 1847, was published by Rae in 1850.

Rae returned to London and met with Sir John Richardson, who was impressed with Rae’s accomplishments. Richardson invited Rae to serve as second in command of an overland expedition to search for the now overdue Franklin Expedition, who had not been seen or heard from since 1845.

The Franklin Expedition is a story to itself, which can be heard in episode 115 of Shipwrecks and Sea Dogs. In summary, HMS Erebus and HMS Terror departed England in 1845 in search of the Northwest Passage. Nothing had been seen of them since 1845, and the Admiralty, and even more so Lady Jane Franklin, desperately wished to send ships to search for the men.

Richardson and Rae set out from Liverpool on March 25, 1848, landing first in New York, and then moving on to Montreal. Assisted by Iroquois and Chippewa, two canoes delivered Richardson, Rae, and their personal equipment to the Saskatchewan River on June 13. The expedition yielded no results regarding the Franklin Expedition, and was continuously blocked by ice. Rae was extremely frustrated by this venture, which he did not lead. He did not write a narrative of the expedition, and described it as, “perfectly barren of results."

Richardson returned to London in May of 1849, and Rae then took a post as Chief Trader at Mackenzie River District, at Fort Simpson in what is now the Northwest Territories. Of this time, Rae wrote, “It is certain that I never was intended for a man of business and my avocations for the last 4 or 5 years have driven the little I did know about accounts and etc. quite out of my head.” John Rae was not meant to be a trader, locked in an office, dealing with accounts. And his heart would drive him once again to the north.

In June 1850 the Admiralty once more requested Rae’s services in pursuing the search for Franklin. Rae took command of another search party and spent the autumn and winter planning and organizing the journey. On 25 April 1851, Rae led another search party in search of Franklin, travelling about 5,300 miles and mapping 700 miles of the southern coast of Victoria Island. He attempted to cross Victoria Strait to King William Land, which is where Franklin’s men had ultimately ended up in their struggle to survive. Closely packed sea ice blocked the strait, and Rae was forced to turn back. As he returned to Fort Confidence on Great Bear Lake, Rae found two pieces of wood that may have come from Franklin’s ships, and a part of a flagstaff containing the remnants of cloth. 

Although Rae found no information about the fate of the Franklin expedition, geographically the expedition was a success. Unfortunately for Rae, Captain Richard Collinson traced the coastline of Victoria Island two years later, leading to a dispute over accreditation with the Admiralty which lasted for years. Nevertheless, Rae was awarded the Founder’s Gold Medal of the Royal Geographical Society in 1852 for his achievements.

But John Rae’s most significant Arctic expedition was still to come. Shortly after arriving back in England in April 1852, Rae requested another Arctic expedition to complete the last part of the Arctic coastline survey along the west coast of Boothia. He also hoped to confirm his 1847 discovery of Boothia being a peninsula, and not an island, something the Admiralty had not yet formally accepted.

He sailed to New York, then Montreal, and then Sault Ste. Marie by steamer, then traveled to Fort William by canoe, reaching York Factory on June 18th, 1853, where he picked up his two boats. He over-wintered at his old camp on Repulse Bay, and set out in March of 1854 with four men. 

Then men hauled two-hundred pound sledges during a difficult trek northwest across Boothia. They built igloos along the way for shelter, which would also be used for their return journey. Unlike naval explorers, Rae didn’t stop twice a day to cook, and travelled nonstop. “We never stopped to eat or drink,” he later wrote, “but put a small piece of our breakfast allowance of pemmican in our pockets, which we munched at out pleasure.” They slept all under one blanket, side by side, and without their coats to allow their body heat to keep each other warm.

Fierce snowstorms reduced their pace to just six miles a day, often confining them to shelter in their snowhuts. Temperatures reached negative sixty-two degrees Fahrenheit, and one of Rae’s companions, Jacob Beads, suffered frostbite in two of his toes. Walking through heavy snowdrifts in almost zero visibility, all of the men suffered some degree of snowblindness. 

When the weather improved, the party made better progress across the peninsula. Near Pelly Bay they encountered an Inuit man driving a dog team near Pelly Bay, who offered to accompany and assist them. He wore a gold cap-band, which Rae recognized as belonging to a Royal Navy cap. Asked where he got it, the man replied that he received it from another man, who obtained it from a place 10 to 12 days away where 35 to 40 kabloonas, white men, had starved to death. Rae traded for the cap-band and offered to purchase any other items belonging to the white men.

Continuing on the west, Jacob Beads and James Johnston suffered from fatigue and frostbite. Rae instructed them to proceed to a group of rocks, where they could build an igloo, rest, and recover. John Rae, his Inuit interpreter William Ouligbuck, and Ojibwa hunter Thomas Mistegan, continued on and found Dease and Simpson’s Cairn at Castor and Pollux River. They then spent nine days travelling northward up the west coast of Boothia, one of the last uncharted coastlines of North America. It was here that Rae made perhaps his greatest discovery.

On May 6, 1854, Rae and his two companions reached a cape on the western coast of Boothia, which he named Point de la Guiche [GEESH]. Looking far to the west, Rae took measurements and observations of his location, and recorded them in his log. He looked out over a frozen channel, but according to his naval charts, this should be land. Rae came to the conclusion that there was open water between Boothia and King William Land, making the latter an island. The strait between the two land masses contained "young ice" which would melt in the summer. The heavier, multi-year pack ice that had frustrated so many expeditions, such as Franklin’s, was blocked by King William Island itself. The iced-over waterway would be navigable in the summer, south to Simpson Strait, and then on the west, completing the last link of the Northwest Passage. Still, it would be almost fifty years before this route would be successfully navigated by Norwegian Roald Amundsen, on his vessel, the Gjoa [JOE-uh] in 1903. Amundsen named this waterway the Rae Strait.

During the trek back to Repulse Bay, Rae encountered more Inuit people near Pelly Bay. They were in possession of a silver fork and spoon. Rae wrote of this, “the initials F-R-M-C, not engraved but scratched with a sharp instrument on the spoon, puzzled me much, as I knew not at the time the Christian names of the officers of Sir John Franklin’s expedition.” He would learn later, the silverware belonged to Captain Frances Rowdon Moira Crozier. 

The party returned to Repulse Bay, where more Inuit people from Pelly Bay later arrived. Rae was able to question them further, and the Inuit explained seeing dozens of kabloonas dragging a boat south down King William Island, and that the men all starved to death four years before. They described the men as appearing thin and hungry, and a tall, stout man with a telescope, who they believed to be the leader; a man now believed to be Francis Crozier, Franklin's second-in-command. The white men communicated to them by gestures that their ships had been crushed by ice and that they were going south to hunt deer. The white men then headed east across the ice toward a large river, which Rae believed to be Back’s Fish River. When the Inuit returned to the river to fish the following spring they found an overturned boat. They described seeing graves on the mainland, bodies in tents and under the overturned boat, and five corpses on a nearby island. with signs of cannibalism, including human bones with cut marks in pots.

The Inuit also were curious as to why these men did not have sledges. Through his interpreter, Ouligbuck, Rae explained the men may have burned the sledges to make fire. Regarding this Rae wrote, “A look of intelligence immediately lit up their faces, and they said that may have been so, for there had been fires.”

The Inuit were in possession of additional artifacts, which Rae purchased, including pieces of guns, watches, and compasses. A gold watch, a surgeon’s knife, and several spoons and forks were obtained, all bearing the crests and initials of officers on Franklin’s ships, an order of merit belonging to John Franklin, and a small silver plate engraved on the back with "Sir John Franklin, K.C.H.”. While Rae did not personally see the location of the overturned boat or any evidence of cannibalism himself, he had received, in his opinion, very significant testimony regarding the fate of the Franklin Expedition.

It is worth noting the remarkable nature of what Rae had achieved. He had reached this location on Boothia with only two men; the others in his party simply could not keep up with him. They traveled entirely on foot over frozen terrain, with no ship, limited supplies,  building igloos for shelter, and carrying only sextant and compass. His two discoveries, of the Rae Strait and evidence of the fate of the Franklin Expedition,

Believing this evidence important enough, Rae cut his expedition short and returned to England. He left Repulse Bay on August 4 1854 and returned to England.

Rae made two reports on his findings: a letter to the Times was meant for the public, which omitted any mention of cannibalism, but included information about the artifacts he collected. His report to the British Admiralty, however, included the gruesome details that he learned from the Inuit people. Additionally, he met personally with the First Lord of the Admiralty, Sir James Graham, and provided details of his voyage and produced the artifacts for inspection. Mistakenly, the Admiralty released the second report to the press which included the evidence of cannibalism.

In one passage, Rae summarized, “From the mutilated state of the many bodies, and contents of the kettles, it is evident that our wretched countrymen had been driveN to the last dread alternative as a means of sustaining life.”

Rae's assertion of cannibalism was abhorrent and offensive to Lady Jane Franklin, members of the Admiralty, and others of society who simply could not accept that civilized people of the United Kingdom, no less sailors and officers of the Royal Navy, could exhibit such vile behavior. Author Charles Dickens, who was a close friend to Lady Franklin, took up the fight on her behalf.

Only a week after the details were published, Dickens rejected the reliability of the Inuit testimony, which led to a series of seven articles between Dickens, Rae and Henry Morley debating the matter. Dickens, in his magazine Household Words, mostly avoided directly criticizing Rae, but instead focused on questioning the reliability of the Inuit people, broadly painting them as savages and liars.

Encouraged by Lady Jane Franklin, Dickens wrote, “It is impossible to form an estimate of the character of any race of savages, from their deferential behaviour to the white man while he is strong... We believe every savage to be in his heart covetous, treacherous, and cruel;”

Dickens, and others, alleged knife marks found on bones were the result of vicious Inuit attacks on Franklin’s men. He wrote, “…no man can, with any show of reason, undertake to affirm that this sad remnant of Franklin's gallant band were not set upon by the Esquimaux themselves.”

Charles Dickens never stepped foot in the arctic, never met an Inuit person, and had no evidence whatsoever to back any of his arguments, other than his own opinions.

Rae, who had tremendous respect and admiration for the Inuit people, was disgusted by the accusations.  Rae’s response to Dickens was published in the December 1854 edition of Household Words. Rae wrote, "What possible motive could the Esquimaux have for inventing such an awful tale as that which appeared in my report to the secretary of the Admiralty. Alas! These poor people know too well what starvation is, in its utmost extremes, to be mistaken on such a point."

Rae vehemently defended the Inuit people, and provided examples of their kindness and generosity toward him and his parties over the years. He avoided making assumptions in his reports, and simply recorded what he had been told and presented the artifacts that he was able to collect. In addition, it was the Admiralty that unleashed the reports of cannibalism to the public, and not John Rae himself.

Charles Francis Hall searched for evidence of the Franklin Expedition in the 1860s. The Inuit gave him testimony backing up the same evidence reported by John Rae. But still, this was brushed off as lies and savagery, with one Royal Navy official saying, “the natives were probably the operators” of such deeds. Sir Frances Leopold McClintock uncovered evidence in 1859, including the remains of Harry Peglar along with the “Peglar Papers” and the overturned boat, referred to since as “The Boat Place.” All of the evidence was consistent with the Inuit testimony.

Others who searched for the Franklin Expedition, including Sir John Richardson, Sir Robert McClure, and Sir Frances Leopold McClintock were knighted for their service. John Rae was not. Ultimately he did collect a £10,000 reward from the Admiralty for resolving the Franklin question, but only after many objections by Lady Franklin did he finally receive the money in 1856. By then, Rae had been largely shunned by the Admiralty. Lady Franklin and Charles Dickens continued to press their attacks, and many geographic discoveries made by Rae were instead attributed to the Royal Navy. The adventurous, capable, and strong-willed Scotsman was largely forgotten by history. 

Rae retired from the Hudson’s Bay Company in 1856, and relocated to Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. There, he cofounded the Hamilton Association for the Advancement of Literature, Science, and Art. A plaque at his late 1850s residence in Hamilton, notes that in the winter of 1859 he snowshoeed more than 40 miles from Hamilton to Toronto in seven hours for a dinner engagement.

He married Catherine Jane Alicia Thompson in Toronto in January 1860, and relocated to England for a short time. In July 1860, Rae boarded the 120-foot ship Fox in London, commissioned by the Atlantic Telegraph Company to conduct the overland portion of a survey for a transatlantic telegraph cable. John Rae's extensive experience made him the perfect choice to lead the survey team. The overland portion of the survey took Rae across the treeless lands of Shetland, Faroe, Iceland, and Greenland. At 47 years of age and no stranger to travelling under challenging conditions, he crossed the islands on horseback, on foot, and by dogsled in Greenland, marking the proposed location of each pole on the telegraph route. After completing the survey he returned to London in September, when he learned Atlantic Telegraph Company did not win the contract for this ambitious project.

After an extensive 1861 hunting trip to southern Alberta and Saskatchewan, Rae received a more substantial commission from the HBC. In 1865, Rae carried out a survey for a telegraph line from Saint Paul to Vancouver Island. He travelled by way of Upper Fort Garry, followed the Carlton Trail to Fort Edmonton, and then crossed the Rocky Mountains by the Yellowhead Pass. In a dugout canoe, Rae paddled down the Fraser River as far as Fort Alexandria, visited the Cariboo gold-fields and then continued on to Victoria, on Vancouver Island. Travelling throughout Upper Canada, the northeastern and midwestern United States and into British Columbia, Rae provided surveying and mapping guidance for the routes of telegraph lines, advised on equipment, and identified pole placement. Upon completion of this survey, Rae settled in London, but made frequent visits to his native Orkney.

He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1880, for his contributions to scientific observations. In 1884, at age 71, he was again working for the Hudson's Bay Company, this time as an explorer of the Red River for a proposed telegraph line from the United States to Russia.

John Rae died from an aneurysm in Kensington, West London, on the 22nd of July 1893. A week later his body arrived in Orkney and he was buried at St. Magnus Cathedral in Kirkwall. He and his wife Catherine had no children.

During his Arctic travels alone Dr. John Rae walked more than 23,000 miles and mapped 1,750 miles of coastline. He traveled only with small parties of men, minimal equipment and provisions, and no Royal Navy support. He used his own survival skills that he learned on Orkney, combined with techniques gained from the Inuit people to live off the land and achieve unprecedented feats of endurance. The Inuit people called John Rae “Aglooka” meaning “one with long strides.”

Perhaps Rae's most lasting and forward-looking achievement were his methods. Rae was unique in his openness toward establishing stable relationships with and learning survival techniques from the Inuit in the areas he explored. Where the Royal Navy mounted massive, expensive, ship-based expeditions that repeatedly failed and cost lives, Rae travelled light, lived off the land, wore Inuit clothing, built snow houses, used dog sleds, and returned his men home safely. 

A statue in London commemorates Sir John Franklin, with an inscription reading, “To the great arctic navigator and his brave companions who sacrificed their lives in completing the discovery of the Northwest Passage.” This is a much-debated issue, even today. Some argue that Franklin could not have possibly found the northwest passage when his ships were stuck in the ice in Victoria Strait. His men abandoned the ships, and perished without reporting any such discovery.

It has not been until the late 20th and early 21st century that John Rae’s story has largely emerged and his reputation has been improved. Ken McGoogan’s 2001 book Fatal Passage brought the story of John Rae more into public focus, and highlighted the smear campaign launched by Lady Jane Franklin and Charles Dickens. The 2008 documentary Passage by John Walker follows a trail from London to the Orkney Islands to Nunavut, switching between a modern retracing of John Rae’s steps, and following the making of a historical film about the Franklin Expedition, Rae’s attempts to defend the truth, and the efforts of Lady Franklin and Charles Dickens to discredit him. It provides stunning visuals, interviews with historians and Inuit, and a meeting between Inuk statesman Tagak Curley and the great-great grandson of Charles Dickens.

On Rae's 201st birthday, 30 September 2014, a memorial plaque set in red Orkney sandstone was installed and dedicated in Westminster Abbey, placed immediately in front of Sir John Franklin's cenotaph. Descendants of both Rae and Franklin attended the ceremony.

Several discoveries in the late 20th and early 21st century also helped restore John Rae’s reputation. In 1997, bones were discovered on King William Island, showing evidence of cut marks from knives. One of these bones has been revealed to be that of Captain James Fitzjames. The discovery of HMS Erebus in 2014 confirmed the location of the ship, as reported by the Inuit, giving further credence to their testimony, and to John Rae.

In 2013, a statue of John Rae was erected overlooking Stromness Harbour in Orkney, with the inscription, “In 1854 he discovered Rae Strait, the last link in the first navigable Northwest Passage between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, and the demise of the ill-fated Franklin Expedition.”

English Heritage erected a blue plaque at Rae’s London home in 2011, reading "John Rae, 1813–1893, Arctic explorer, lived and died here." The plaque was unveiled by outdoorsman and television presenter Ray Mears.

Today, the John Rae Society continues to advance the legendary Scotsman’s accomplishments and seek to further honor his accomplishments. As of 2026, fundraising efforts are underway to purchase and restore Rae’s childhood home, Hall of Clestrain. The stone structure is in poor condition and is listed as “at risk.” The Society is hoping to make the home wind and water proof to allow it to dry out, and build a new public access road to the location. For more information and to donate toward this effort, please visit johnraesociety.com.