Posts Tagged ‘John Rae!’
John Rae for St. Giles Cathedral?
Scottish Explorer John Rae ‘should be honoured’ By SHAN ROSS The Scotsman Published on Saturday 20 April 2013 A CANADIAN historian is calling on the Scottish Government to commemorate controversial Arctic explorer John Rae by erecting a statue of him in Edinburgh’s St Giles Cathedral. Award-winning Ken McGoogan, who will give a talk on Orkney-born…
Read MoreReturn to Rae Strait
In August 1854, during a single prodigious Arctic expedition, the Scottish Orcadian superman John Rae solved the two great mysteries of 19th-century Arctic exploration. First, beating his way overland with his two hardiest men, an Inuk and an Ojibway, he discovered the final link in the Northwest Passage, the only channel navigable by the sailing…
Read MoreThe Royal Society of Edinburgh
Our Hero is bringing John Rae back to Scotland, figuratively speaking. Ken has been invited to lecture about Rae at the Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE), Scotland’s National Academy. On April 22, he will give a talk entitled John Rae: The Forgotten Hero of Arctic Exploration. Rae was born in Orkney, northern Scotland, in September,…
Read MoreMore Arctic Journals of John Rae . . .
An expert review here of . . . The Arctic Journals of John Rae Selected and Edited by Ken McGoogan Victoria, BC: TouchWood Editions, 2012 312 pp. , $19.95 Reviewed by Russell A. Potter The welcome publication of the journals of Dr. John Rae, the man who filled in the last crucial blanks in the…
Read MoreWhy John Rae and NOT Sir John Franklin
So folks are (still!) debating the accomplishments of John Franklin and John Rae over at Russell Potter’s blog, where I have been driven to offer the following thoughts . . . .:http://visionsnorth.blogspot.ca/2012/09/a-navigable-northwest-passage.html Greetings, Russell. Nicely done. But we do not yet see eye to eye. We agree, I think, that John Rae discovered Rae Strait.…
Read MoreWe’re looking for Arctic history in the wrong places
The June issue of the Literary Review of Canada finds Yours Truly responding to an LRC article published last month under the headline What Does Franklin Really Mean? This August, sailing with Adventure Canada, I am hoping to return to the site that marks John Rae’s discovery. Adriana Craciun is right to question the wisdom…
Read MoreJohn Rae gains recognition in London
John Rae has a gained a plaque in London, England. Friends of the Scottish-Orcadian explorer, who lived in that city from 1869 to 1893, recently mounted an historical plaque on the wall of his long-time home in Addison Gardens. I visited that site while researching Fatal Passage, and I remember feeling outraged that Rae —…
Read MoreFilm based on Fatal Passage wins a Rockie
Wonderful to see the movie version of Fatal Passage getting the attention it deserves. The Grand Prize for best Canadian program at the Banff World Television Awards — commonly called a “Rockie” — has gone to the 90-minute docudrama, Passage, which is based on my book. It tells the story of John Rae, the Orcadian…
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