After his great years in the Arctic with the Hudson’s Bay Company, Dr John Rae went through an unsettled period, when the weight of his problems mounted up, and the continuing failure of those in authority to believe his discovery of the fate of the Franklin expedition. But then came a new challenge – a commission to survey a possible route for a transatlantic telegraph cable. The story of the journey that followed is told in this year’s Orkney International Science Festival in a talk and in a new Nordic Viola concert, accompanied by new music from Nordic composers. The story of the dark times that preceded it will be described in a dramatized version of a book, Finding John Rae, written by John Rae’s great-great-grandniece, Canadian writer Jane Hamilton. Here she set the scene for this part of his life.
In July 1860, Dr John Rae boarded the 120-foot ship Fox in London. He had been commissioned by the newly-formed Atlantic Telegraph Company to join a survey party in search of suitable northern land for building an international communications line from Britain to North America.
There was some irony in the fact that Rae was aboard the Fox, since it had been owned and sent to the Arctic by Lady Franklin in search of her missing husband, Sir John Franklin. It is well documented that Lady Franklin turned against John Rae when he reported news about the fate of the missing Franklin Expedition in 1854, and that her close friend Charles Dickens had accused the celebrated explorer of consorting with “bloodthirsty savages” in the Arctic.
Imagine the Fox dropping anchor at Southampton, England on that summer day and being met by HMY Fairy, the personal yacht of Queen Victoria. The Royal party, including the Queen and Prince Albert, boarded the Fox and were greeted by Captain Allen Young and of course, Dr John Rae. The irony in that brief meeting was the British Admiralty’s refusal to honour Rae for his years of work in discovering what had happened to the men of Sir John’s 1847 Arctic expedition in search of a northwest passage to the far east.
Tracing one warm line
John Rae’s extensive experience as a top-notch explorer and surveyor of northern spaces certainly qualified him to lead the land portion of the expedition for the Atlantic Telegraph Company. The overland portion of this survey took Rae across the treeless lands of Shetland, Faroe, Iceland and Greenland. Rae, who, at 47 years of age was no stranger to travelling under challenging conditions, would have 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. Alas, the Atlantic Telegraph Company did not win the contract for this ambitious project.
And did show a path for me
An interesting footnote to this story is that four years later, John Rae was commissioned (via the Hudson’s Bay Company) to conduct yet another overland survey, this time for the American Western Telegraph Company. His portion of the survey involved what was then known as Rupert’s Land (mid to western Canada). This project required identifying trees which would be suitable for stringing telegraph lines across wide swaths of forested land. The spacing, quality and longevity of the trees were crucial components of a potentially successful outcome. It’s fascinating to consider the sheer logistics of such a task. The sheer scale of the project was enormous. In addition to being a licensed surveyor, navigator and expedition leader, Rae was a naturalist, a man who was well versed in the flora, fauna and weather patterns of Rupert’s Land.
Rae began the survey by travelling from the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers at Fort Garry (modern-day Manitoba), and west from there. He completed it by paddling down the Fraser River to its mouth near Vancouver – in a dugout canoe! On arrival, he donned one of his “civilized” jackets and posed for a newspaper photo. He looks very pleased with himself in the photograph.
And alas, the Western Telegraph Company was not awarded the contract for this enormous undertaking. The job went to the Western Union Company instead.
Driving hard across the plain
John Rae was a natural for wilderness exploration and scientific projects. He grew up at the Hall of Clestrain, a grand home on the shores of Clestrain Sound in Orkney, overlooking the imposing hills of Hoy. His earliest interests were sailing, hiking, hunting and developing his skills as a young adventurer. He graduated with a medical degree from the University of Edinburgh and signed on for a summer job as ship’s surgeon aboard the Hudson’s Bay Company ship Prince of Wales, which was destined for York Factory in the Arctic. His father, John Rae Senior, Chief Factor for the Hudson’s Bay Company in Orkney, must have been very proud to see his eldest child setting off on such a great adventure; however, what should have been a few months’ posting turned into twenty years! The ship became iced in at harbour, delayed, and young John Rae remained where he was, besotted by the wild way of life in The Arctic. He remained in the Arctic as a travelling doctor, fur trader, surveyor and eventually a Chief Factor for the Company.
He learned survival skills from the local people, the Inuit, travelling hundreds of miles at a stretch using snowshoes, dogsleds, and at times canoes and small sailboats. He briefly moved to Toronto to train and became certified as a surveyor, which qualified him for charting and mapping vast sections of coastline for his employers. His reputation as a highly capable expedition leader and surveyor grew.
To seek a Northwest Passage
Many groups of explorers had historically tried in vain to locate a northwest water passage across the Arctic towards the exotic riches of the far east. Officers of the British Admiralty remained optimistic, and in 1847 mounted the largest expedition of all when the two famous gunships, the Erebus and Terror – commanded by Sir John Franklin, Captain Francis Crozier and James Fitzjames – set off down the Thames River in search of the elusive passage.
Despite having all the creature comforts of home and sophisticated technology, the ships literally vanished, never to be heard from again. Search party after search party was dispatched to look for the missing ships, to no avail. John Rae was involved in the searches, and it was John Rae who, in 1854, while conducting a two-pronged expedition of surveying the land and searching as well, discovered the tragic fate of the Franklin Expedition. Quite by coincidence, Rae also discovered the location of the route to the Northwest Passage. His news was not welcome in England, because it included references to the last men of the doomed expedition resorting the final recourse – cannibalism – in order to survive. Did John Rae intend that the gruesome news should be made public? Perhaps not, but it spread rapidly in the press, and with it, his reputation as a man of honour and integrity was called into question. Surely Men of the great British Admiralty would never engage in such uncivilized behaviour. Rae argued that the men were desperate, hallucinating, dying. And so, who can judge?
To find there but the road back home again
John Rae was, of course, an honest man. His story was later proven to be true, and his reputation was later restored. He was awarded £10,000 for ascertaining the fate of the doomed Franklin expedition. He used his reward money to remunerate his search party for their work. With the remainder, he built a custom designed 81-foot barque named Iceberg, with a plan to return to the Arctic and sail through his identified link to the Northwest Passage. Unfortunately, tragedy prevented him from seeing his dream through. The freshly-launched Iceberg foundered in a storm on Lake Ontario and sank to the bottom, taking all hands with her.
Rae was shattered. After suffering a breakdown, he pulled the pieces of his life together and went on to thrive as a highly celebrated surveyor, expedition leader, lecturer and author. He enjoyed a happy marriage to Catherine Thompson until his death in 1893. His name is well known and respected, even today, over two hundred years after his remarkable discoveries in the frozen north.
For the section headings we have used lines from the song Northwest Passage, written by the Canadian musician Stan Rogers.
The play Finding John Rae, based on Jane Hamilton’s book, has been written by Aine King and will be performed in the Orkney Theatre, Kirkwall on Tuesday 8 September 2026 at 9.00 pm.
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On the following afternoon, Wednesday 9th, researcher Fleur Ward will tell the story of John Rae’s northern telegraph route survey aboard the Fox, in the King Street Halls at 2 pm. Then at 4 pm Nordic Viola and the Faroese chamber ensemble Aldubáran draw on the inspiration from the story for a performance of four brand-new works by northern composers, with text and poetry, in St Magnus Cathedral.
Inuit voices
The eyewitness accounts that the Inuit provided to John Rae about the last days of the Franklin expedition were passed down through their families and communities, and have been recorded. Jane Hamilton has been provided with some of the audio recordings, and here are several short 30-second tracks, with the introductory words in each spoken in English.
“Our people were afraid to get close to the marching men.”
“After that winter our people hear loud cracking noises in the air.”
“Many animals are starving. Hunting has not been good.”
“The boat was on a sledge.”
“Hair. Teeth.”
