John Rae (Inuktitut: ᐊᒡᓘᑲ, [aɡluːka]; 30 September 1813 – 22 July 1893) was a Scottish surgeon who explored parts of northern Canada. He was a pioneer explorer of the Northwest Passage.
Rae explored the Gulf of Boothia, northwest of the Hudson Bay, from 1846 to 1847, and the Arctic coast near Victoria Island from 1848 to 1851. In 1854, back in the Gulf of Boothia, he obtained credible information from local Inuit peoples about the fate of the Franklin Expedition, which had disappeared in the area in 1848. Rae was noted for his physical stamina, skill at hunting, boat handling, use of native methods, and ability to travel long distances with little equipment while living off the land.
Rae was born as the sixth of nine children at the Hall of Clestrain in Orkney in the north of Scotland with family ties to Clan MacRae. His father managed up to 300 tenant farmers for a local nobleman, Sir William Honyman, Lord Armadale and worked for many years as the Hudson Bay Company's chief representative on the Orkney islands when it came to hiring workers amongst the Orkney men that had a reputation of being hardy and skilled labourers. Already in his childhood the young John Rae learned many skills that would become useful to his later explorations. By the age of fifteen, Rae had become an excellent musket hunter, rock climber and hiker, enjoying hobbies like fishing and boating.
After studying medicine in Edinburgh, he graduated with a degree from the University of Edinburgh and was licensed by the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh at age 19 in 1833. Two months after graduating he accepted a post for a season as the ship's surgeon aboard the Prince of Wales, a supply ship for the Hudson Bay fur trading settlements. During his first voyage the ship was kept from its return home to Great Britain by an early winter 1833 and pack ice closing the route. The ship's crew had to spend the winter on the deserted Charlton Island. Rae's skills as a hunter and doctor, as well as his knowledge about fauna and its pharmaceutical merits managed to keep most men alive throughout the winter despite heavy cases of scurvy, which took two lives among the crew.
He went to work for the Hudson's Bay Company as a surgeon, accepting a post at Moose Factory, Ontario, where he remained for ten years. While working for the company, treating both European and indigenous employees, Rae became known for his prodigious stamina and skilled use of snowshoes. He learned to live off the land like a native and, working with the local craftsmen, designed his own snowshoes. This knowledge allowed him to travel great distances with little equipment and few followers, unlike many other explorers of the Victorian era.
From 1836 to 1839, the Scottish explorer and fur trader Thomas Simpson sailed along much of the northern coast of Canada. His cousin Sir George Simpson proposed to link the furthest-east point Thomas Simpson had reached by sending an overland expedition from Hudson Bay. Rae was chosen because of his well-known skill in overland travel, but he first had to travel to the Red River Colony to learn the art of surveying. On 20 August 1844, Rae left Moose Factory, went up the Missinaibi River, and took the usual voyageur route west.
When he reached the Red River Colony on 9 October, he found his instructor seriously ill. After the man died, Rae headed for Sault Ste. Marie in Ontario to find another instructor. The two-month, 1,200-mile (1,900 km) winter journey was by dog sled along the north shore of Lake Superior. From there, Sir George told him to go to Toronto to study under John Henry Lefroy at the Toronto Magnetic and Meteorological Observatory. Returning from Toronto, he received final instructions at Sault Ste. Marie.
Rae finally departed on the voyage to Simpson's furthest-east on 5 August 1845, taking the usual voyageur route via Lake Winnipeg and reaching York Factory on 8 October, where he wintered. On 12 June 1846, he headed north in two 22-foot (6.7 m) boats and reached Repulse Bay at the south end of the Melville Peninsula in July. The local Inuit told him that there was salt water to the northwest, so he chose this as his base. On his first journey, which began on 26 July, he dragged one of his boats 40 miles (64 km) northwest to Committee Bay in the south of the Gulf of Boothia. Here he learned from the Inuit that the Gulf of Boothia was a bay and that he would have to cross land to reach Simpson's furthest-east.
In 1830, John Ross had also been told that the Gulf of Boothia was a bay. He sailed partway up the east coast of the Gulf, but soon turned back because he needed to make preparations for winter. He became one of the first Europeans to winter in the high Arctic without the aid of a depot ship. By December he had learned how to build igloos, which he later found warmer than European tents.
Rae's second journey began on 5 April 1847. He crossed to Committee Bay, travelled up its west coast for four days and then headed west across the base of the Simpson Peninsula to Pelly Bay. He went north and from a hill thought he could see Lord Mayor Bay, on the west side of the Gulf of Boothia, where John Ross had been trapped in ice from 1829 to 1833. He circled much of the coast of the Simpson Peninsula and returned to Repulse Bay. His third journey began on 13 May 1847. He crossed from Repulse Bay to Committee Bay and went up the east coast hoping to reach the Fury and Hecla Strait, which William Edward Parry's men had seen in 1822. The weather was bad and they began to run short of food. On 28 May, Rae turned back at a place he called Cape Crozier which he thought was about 25 miles (40 km) south of the strait.
He left Repulse Bay on 12 August, when the ice broke up, and reached York Factory on 6 September 1847. He soon left for England and Scotland. Although he had not reached Simpson's furthest-east, he had reduced the gap to less than 100 miles (160 km).
From 1848 to 1851, Rae made three journeys along the Arctic coast. The first took him from the Mackenzie River to the Coppermine River, which had been done before. On the second he tried to cross to Victoria Island but was blocked by ice. On the third he explored the whole south coast of Victoria Island.
By 1848, it was clear that Sir John Franklin's expedition, which had traveled west from the coast of Greenland in 1845, had been lost in the Arctic. Three expeditions were sent to find him: one from the east, one through the Bering Strait, and one overland to the Arctic coast, this last led by Sir John Richardson. Most of the Arctic coast had been traced a decade earlier by Thomas Simpson. North of the coast were two coastlines called Wollaston Land and Victoria Land (Victoria Island). Franklin's crew was thought to be somewhere in the unexplored area north of that. The 61-year-old Richardson chose Rae as his second-in-command.
The Rae–Richardson Arctic Expedition left Liverpool in March 1848, reached New York, and took the usual voyageur routes west from Montreal. On 15 July 1848, the expedition reached Fort Resolution on Great Slave Lake. John Bell was sent downriver to establish winter quarters at Fort Confidence on the east arm of Great Bear Lake. Richardson and Rae traveled down the Mackenzie River and turned east along the coast.
They hoped to cross north to Wollaston Land, as southern Victoria Island was then known, but ice conditions made this impossible. Through worsening ice, they rounded Cape Krusenstern at the west end of Coronation Gulf (not Cape Krusenstern in Alaska), and turned south. By the first of September it was clear that they had run out of time, so they abandoned their boats and headed overland. They crossed the Rae River and Richardson River and on 15 September reached their winter quarters at Fort Confidence at the northeast end of Great Bear Lake.
In December 1848 and January 1849, Rae made two trips northeast to find a better route to Coronation Gulf. On 7 May, Richardson and Bell left with most of the men. Rae left on 9 June with seven men. Hauling a boat overland they reached the Kendall River on 21 June. The next day they reached the Coppermine River and waited a week for the ice to break up. They descended the Coppermine and waited again for the ice to clear on Coronation Gulf.