Ken and Sheena’s Excellent Adventure in the Scottish Highlands

In Perth, we had dinner at the Hightower Hotel with my long-lost, DNA-found cousin Jim McGugan. In Sutherland, we visited Dunrobin Castle, the most politically incorrect edifice in Britain. In Helmsdale, by about an hour, we missed coincidentally encountering our Orcadian pal, historian Tom Muir . . . and so failed to meet his new…

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British MP is taking John Rae into Westminster Abbey

STROMNESS, ORKNEY – A John Rae plaque is going into Westminster Abbey. Alistair Carmichael, MP for Orkney in the British House of Commons, announced this evening that in 2014, a plaque will be mounted in the Abbey recognizing the Orcadian explorer as “the discoverer of the final link in the Northwest Passage.” Carmichael made the…

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Exploring Orkney with a celebrated story-teller

Here’s Our  Hero at the Broch of Borwick in Orkney, shortly after a visit to the Brough of Bigging. Both initial B-words are pronounced the same, but the Broch is an iron-age round tower, while the Brough is a fortified headland difficult of access. I say these things on the authority of our expert guide,…

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John 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 —…

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