Posts Tagged ‘Sir John Franklin’
The woman who launched the search for Sir John Franklin
“Denied a role in Victorian England’s male-dominated society, Jane Franklin (1791–1875) took her revenge by seizing control of that most masculine of pursuits, Arctic exploration, and shaping its history to her own ends.” This clarification went missing during my own final edit of the book, to my lasting mortification. So it’s great to see it…
Read MoreThe Franklin discovery is not about what, but where
Published Wednesday, Sep. 10 2014 You’ve got to love the above headline, which introduced Our Hero’s think-piece in today’s Globe and Mail. You can read the whole by clicking here. Probably you will want to do that after sampling this excerpt? First, a bit of extra background. 1. In 1854, the Inuit who spoke to…
Read MoreJohn Rae enters Westminster Abbey, redeems Sir John Franklin
With a Canadian search expedition scouring the Northwest Passage for the Erebus and the Terror, several Arctic historians have turned their backs on Sir John Franklin’s claim to fame. By insisting that “a substantial section” of the Passage remained undiscovered well into the 1850s, these would-be guardians of exploration orthodoxy repudiate Franklin’s claim to discovery…
Read MoreBritish 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…
Read MoreStill searching for Franklin? These metal scraps will make you wonder . . .
Searchers for the two lost ships of the Franklin expedition, which disappeared into the Arctic in 1845, have been struggling for decades to keep hope alive. Experts have suggested that even if both ships got crushed by ice, the metal engines, boilers, and pipes will have survived intact at the bottom of the sea. Magnetic…
Read MoreArctic explorer celebrates in Hamilton with Supercrawl
Arctic explorer John Rae is going up against Supercrawl this Saturday night. At first, I felt dismayed. But as a metaphor, a David-and-Goliath, I think the juxtaposition works almost perfectly. Supercrawl is a wildly successful Hamilton street festival that celebrates arts and culture. Last year, it attracted 80,0000 people. What’s not to love? John Rae,…
Read MoreJohn Rae festivities set for Canada, Orkney
John Rae has legs. His contemporaries knew that. They hailed him as the greatest snowshoe traveler of the Victorian era. Here in the 21st century, the peerless Arctic explorer has been carrying Fatal Passage overland for more than a decade. He has turned it into my all-time bestselling book, and for that I am grateful.…
Read MoreOur Hero brings John Rae back to Calgary
In 1999, when he was working as books editor at the Calgary Herald, Our Hero traveled to the Arctic with a fellow Calgarian to erect a plaque at the spot where explorer John Rae discovered the final link in the Northwest Passage. He told that story in his award-winning book Fatal Passage, which became an…
Read MoreJohn Rae lives!
As you can see from this poster, an international conference on Arctic explorer John Rae is happening in Orkney this September. Rae solved the riddle of the lost 1845 expedition of Sir John Franklin, and also discovered the final link in the Northwest Passage. Yes, I will be in Stromness during the conference, serving as…
Read MoreJohn 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…
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