McGoogan on Rae

In his book Fatal passage. The untold story of John Rae, the arctic adventurer who discovered the fate of Franklin Ken McGogan states (McGoogan Reference McGoogan2001: 190) that in discovering Rae Strait between King William Island and Boothia Peninsula in the spring of 1854 John Rae of the Hudson's Bay Company had thereby discovered ‘the final link in the Northwest Passage.’ McGoogan has repeated this claim in numerous lectures ever since, and has even erected an aluminium plaque making this claim (in an inscription of 250 words) on the shores of Rae Strait (McGoogan Reference McGoogan2001: 303–312).

Unfortunately this claim is totally erroneous. In 1854 a substantial section of that variant of the northwest passage further north, namely Franklin Strait and Larsen Sound (from where James Clark Ross found the magnetic pole north to Bellot Strait) for a total of some 240 km, was still undiscovered. Maps showing the unexplored section of the passage may be found in McGoogan (Reference McGoogan2001: 256) and in Williams (Reference Williams2009: 175). Rae himself was well aware that this section of the passage was still unexplored in 1854. In a review of Captain Albert Markham's book Sir John Franklin's life in the Journal of the American Geographical Society Rae (Reference Rae1891: 341) wrote: ‘Thus nearly 800 miles of the 1000 left unexplored in 1839 [that is following Dease and Simpson's explorations], were completed by me, but there still remained about 200 miles, between Bellot Strait and the Magnetic Pole on the west shore of Boothia, a blank on the charts, and these were explored by McClintock in his memorable journey [in1859]. . .’ Although Rae has somewhat exaggerated the length of the unexplored section, this is irrefutable evidence of the fact that he was well aware that his discovery of Rae Strait did not represent the ‘final link’ in the northwest passage. Rae's reputation as perhaps the greatest (and certainly most efficient) arctic explorer is already sufficiently secure without this unnecessary and erroneous attempt at inflating it.

Political involvement

For at least a decade Alistair Carmichael, MP for Orkney and Shetland, undoubtedly influenced by McGoogan's false statement, has been waging a campaign to have a corrective plaque mounted near Franklin's cenotaph in Westminster Abbey to the effect that Rae and not Franklin had discovered the passage. In July 2004 he tabled a motion in the House of Commons to the effect that the House ‘regrets that Dr. Rae was never awarded the public recognition that was his due’. More recently (Carmichael Reference Carmichael2009) he tabled another more specific motion, to the effect that ‘John Rae was the first to discover the final link to the passage’ . . . and that the House ‘regrets that memorials to Sir John Franklin outside the Admiralty headquarters and inside Westminster Abbey still inaccurately describe Franklin as the first to discover the [North West] passage, and calls on the Ministry of Defence and the Abbey authorities to take the necessary steps to clarify the true position.

At the conference to celebrate John Rae's 200th birthday in Stromness in the Orkneys in September 2013, Carmichael made a statement to the effect that he had recently been in touch with the Dean of Westminster Abbey and that the latter was supportive of the idea of a corrective plaque being installed adjacent to the Franklin cenotaph. Carmichael repeated this statement in a column he wrote in the Orcadian, a local Orkney newspaper (Orcadian (Kirkwall) 3 October 2013). McGoogan was also present at the conference and once again repeated his erroneous statement in a public lecture. I spoke to each of them, pointing out their error, and later e-mailed them both, quoting chapter and verse, but received no reply from either.

Ecclesiastical contacts

I subsequently tried to e-mail the Dean of Westminster, the Very Reverend Dr. John Hall, drawing his attention to the fact that the McGoogan/Carmichael claim was false. Unfortunately I had only the general e-mail address for the Abbey, and the Dean did not receive my e-mail. Thereafter I drew the situation to the attention of my friend, Professor Glyn Williams, who in turn passed on the information to Ann Savours; they have both published excellent histories of the exploration of the northwest passage (Williams Reference Williams2009; Savours Reference Savours1999), and both fully agree with me that McGoogan is in error. Ann Savours obtained the Dean's phone number, and after establishing her bona fides with his secretary and explaining the situation sent the Dean a letter with a copy of my e-mail attached.

The outcome was that she received a telephone message from the Dean on 24 April 2014 to the effect that John Rae will be commemorated by a ledger stone (a tablet set in the floor) near the Franklin cenotaph stating simply ‘John Rae. Arctic explorer’ but not going into any further detail. This is a felicitous outcome. Rae will be honoured and there will be no false attempts at enhancing his already admirable reputation. We are indebted to McGoogan and Carmichael for initiating the sequence of events which have led to this outcome, and the Dean of Westminster and the Abbey authorities are to be commended for refusing officially to sanction, in very concrete form, the erroneous claim that Rae was the discoverer of the northwest passage. I understand that the unveiling of the tablet (to be paid for by the John Rae Society) is scheduled to take place on 30 September 2014, the 201st anniversary of Rae's birth.

Unfortunately, the plaque on the base of the new statue of John Rae, unveiled at Stromness last September, does include the false statement that he discovered the northwest passage. It is truly unfortunate that those responsible for the wording of the inscription uncritically accepted McGoogan's erroneous claim.