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Fatal Passage: The Untold Story of John Rae, the Arctic Adventurer Who Discovered the Fate of Franklin is a book by Canadian historian and writer Ken McGoogan. It was first published in 2001. The book formed the basis for the 2008 movie Passage from the National Film Board of Canada.
In 1854, the explorer John Rae found himself at the centre of one of the great controversies of the nineteenth century – the fate of the Franklin expedition. With the British hoping to be first in the race to discover the Northwest Passage, the news Rae brought of starvation and cannibalism among final survivors set off a firestorm that would eclipse his own incredible accomplishments. The true story of the remarkable John Rae – Arctic traveler and Hudson's Bay Company doctor – Fatal Passage tells a tale of imperial ambition and high adventure.
When nineteen-year-old Rae set sail for Hudson Bay in 1833, he had little idea of what to expect at the edge of empire. Meeting his first winter at Moose Factory with equanimity, even as members of the crew were dying despite his best efforts, he discovered that the key to successful Arctic life was to learn the survival skills of the native peoples. The hardy Rae, raised in the windswept Orkney Islands of northern Scotland, and a gifted hunter and sailor, would become one of the greatest explorers of his generation. He would survey 1765 miles of uncharted territory, travel 6555 miles on snowshoes and sail 6700 miles in small boats. Building on the work of explorers who had gone before him and aided by only a handful of native people, Métis and Scots, Rae became the consummate Arctic explorer, as much at ease in the wilderness of ice as in London drawing rooms.
Ultimately, he solved the two great mysteries of nineteenth-century Arctic exploration. Rae discovered both the fate of the lost expedition of Sir John Franklin, which had sailed from England in 1845, and the last navigable link in the Northwest Passage. The first of these discoveries brought down upon him the wrath of the formidable Lady Franklin, who enlisted the help of Charles Dickens, and orchestrated the erasure of Rae from official Arctic history. In Fatal Passage, Ken McGoogan sets the record straight.
The Northwest Passage (NWP) is the sea route between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans through the Arctic Ocean, along the northern coast of North America via waterways through the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. The eastern route along the Arctic coasts of Norway and Siberia is accordingly called the Northeast Passage (NEP). The various islands of the archipelago are separated from one another and from Mainland Canada by a series of Arctic waterways collectively known as the Northwest Passages or Northwestern Passages.
John Rae was a Scottish surgeon who explored parts of northern Canada.
Sir John Franklin was a British Royal Navy officer and Arctic explorer. After serving in wars against Napoleonic France and the United States, he led two expeditions into the Canadian Arctic and through the islands of the Arctic Archipelago, in 1819 and 1825, and served as Lieutenant-Governor of Van Diemen's Land from 1839 to 1843. During his third and final expedition, an attempt to traverse the Northwest Passage in 1845, Franklin's ships became icebound off King William Island in what is now Nunavut, where he died in June 1847. The icebound ships were abandoned ten months later and the entire crew died, from causes such as starvation, hypothermia, and scurvy.
HMS Resolute was a mid-19th-century barque-rigged ship of the British Royal Navy, specially outfitted for Arctic exploration. Resolute became trapped in the ice and was abandoned in 1854. Recovered by an American whaler, she was returned to Queen Victoria in 1856. Timbers from the ship were later used to construct the Resolute desk which was presented to the President of the United States and is currently located in the White House Oval Office.
Sir Francis Leopold McClintock was an Irish explorer in the British Royal Navy, known for his discoveries in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. He confirmed explorer John Rae's controversial report gathered from Inuit sources on the fate of Franklin's lost expedition, the ill-fated Royal Navy undertaking commanded by Sir John Franklin in 1845 attempting to be the first to traverse the Northwest Passage.
Ken McGoogan is the Canadian author of fifteen books, including Flight of the Highlanders, Dead Reckoning, 50 Canadians Who Changed the World, How the Scots Invented Canada, and four biographical narratives focusing on northern exploration and published internationally: Fatal Passage, Ancient Mariner, Lady Franklin's Revenge, and Race to the Polar Sea.
"Lady Franklin's Lament" is a traditional folk ballad indexed by George Malcolm Laws and Steve Roud. The song recounts the story of a sailor who dreams about Lady Franklin speaking of the loss of her husband, Sir John Franklin, who disappeared in Baffin Bay during his 1845 expedition through the Arctic Ocean in search of the Northwest Passage sea route to the Pacific Ocean. The song first appeared as a Broadside ballad around 1850 and has since been recorded with the melody of the Irish traditional air "Cailín Óg a Stór" by numerous artists. It has been found in Ireland, in Scotland, and in some regions of Canada.
Jane, Lady Franklin was the second wife of the English explorer Sir John Franklin. During her husband's period as Lieutenant-Governor of Van Diemen's Land, she became known for her philanthropic work and her travels throughout south-eastern Australia. After John Franklin's disappearance in search of the Northwest Passage, she sponsored or otherwise supported several expeditions to determine his fate.
Lady Franklin's Revenge: A True Story of Ambition, Obsession and the Remaking of Arctic History is a non-fiction book by Canadian historian and writer Ken McGoogan. It was published in 2005.
Rae Strait is a small strait in the Kitikmeot Region of Nunavut, Canada. It is located between King William Island and the Boothia Peninsula on the mainland to the east. It is named after Scottish Arctic explorer John Rae who, in 1854, was the first European to visit the area while mapping the northern coast of North America.
Franklin's lost expedition was a British voyage of Arctic exploration led by Captain Sir John Franklin that departed from England in 1845 aboard two ships, HMS Erebus and HMS Terror, and was assigned to traverse the last unnavigated sections of the Northwest Passage in the Canadian Arctic and to record magnetic data to help determine whether a better understanding could aid navigation. The expedition met with disaster after both ships and their crews, a total of 129 officers and men, became icebound in Victoria Strait near King William Island in what is today the Canadian territory of Nunavut. After being icebound for more than a year Erebus and Terror were abandoned in April 1848, by which point Franklin and nearly two dozen others had died. The survivors, now led by Franklin's second-in-command, Francis Crozier, and Erebus' captain, James Fitzjames, set out for the Canadian mainland and disappeared.
Passage is a 2008 documentary film partly based on the book Fatal Passage about Sir John Franklin's lost expedition through the Northwest Passage. The film explores the fate of the doomed mission, including John Rae's efforts to uncover the truth, and Lady Franklin's campaign to defend her late husband's reputation. The film also features Inuit statesman Tagak Curley, who challenges claims made by Lady Franklin supported by her powerful friend, the story teller and "famous author Charles Dickens", widely reported at the time, that Aboriginal people were responsible for the signs of cannibalism among the remains of the doomed crew.
Kiillinnguyaq, formerly the Kent Peninsula, is a large Arctic peninsula, almost totally surrounded by water, in the Kitikmeot Region of Nunavut. Were it not for a 8 km (5 mi) isthmus at the southeast corner it would be a long island parallel to the coast. From the isthmus it extends 169 km (105 mi) westward into the Coronation Gulf. To the south, Melville Sound separates it from the mainland. To the north is Dease Strait and then Victoria Island. To the west is Coronation Gulf and to the east, Queen Maud Gulf. Cape Flinders marks the western tip of the peninsula, Cape Franklin is at the northwestern point, and Hiiqtinniq, formerly Cape Alexander marks the northeastern point.
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William Kennedy was a Canadian fur trader, politician, and historian.
Arctic exploration is the physical exploration of the Arctic region of the Earth. It refers to the historical period during which mankind has explored the region north of the Arctic Circle. Historical records suggest that humankind have explored the northern extremes since 325 BC, when the ancient Greek sailor Pytheas reached a frozen sea while attempting to find a source of the metal tin. Dangerous oceans and poor weather conditions often fetter explorers attempting to reach polar regions and journeying through these perils by sight, boat, and foot has proven difficult.
The Rae–Richardson Arctic expedition of 1848 was an early British effort to determine the fate of the lost Franklin Polar Expedition. Led overland by Sir John Richardson and John Rae, the team explored the accessible areas along Franklin's proposed route near the Mackenzie and Coppermine rivers.
The McClintock Arctic expedition of 1857 was a British effort to locate the last remains of Franklin's lost expedition. Led by Francis Leopold McClintock, RN aboard the steam yacht Fox, the expedition spent two years in the region and ultimately returned with the only written message recovered from the doomed expedition. McClintock and crew were awarded the Arctic medal in recognition of their achievements.
James Walter Fairholme was a British Royal Navy officer and polar explorer who in 1845 served under Sir John Franklin on the Erebus during the Franklin expedition to discover the Northwest Passage, which ended with the loss of all 129 crewmen in mysterious circumstances.