Fatal Passage: The True Story of John Rae, the Arctic Hero Time Forgot (Hardcover)

by Ken McGoogan (Author) "In June 1833, in the rugged Orkney Islands of northern Scotland, a restless, energetic young ship's doctor stood on the deck of a weather-beaten fur-trading..." (more)
Key Phrases: lost navigators, provision station, wretched countrymen, Lady Franklin, Repulse Bay, Moose Factory (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
In the spring of 1854, John Rae, a Scottish immigrant to Canada, led a small party of explorers across the Boothia Peninsula to map the missing link in the fabled Northwest Passage. That signal accomplishment, along with Rae's other contributions to Canadian and world geography, should have earned him glory. Instead, Ken McGoogan tells us, Rae faded from the record.

Rae's trouble, McGoogan writes, came from unpleasant reports that he filed about the fate of an earlier expedition, led by Sir John Franklin, whose remains he discovered along the way. Lost "in a hummocky wasteland of yawning crevasses and ten-foot pressure ridges assailed by blizzards and blowing snow," the unfortunate party--or so Inuit hunters reported to Rae--resorted to eating the dead. The news scandalized Victorian society, drawing vigorous objections from none other than Charles Dickens, who argued that proper British heroes were incapable of such acts and had to have been done in by the Inuit themselves. Rae, the messenger, was effectively killed by the tidings he brought, and written out of the history books. In this insightful and adventure-packed book, McGoogan restores Rae's name to the long roster of heroes of Arctic exploration. --Gregory McNamee

From Publishers Weekly
Novelist and journalist McGoogan (Kerouac's Ghosts) combines deft storytelling with 19th-century period detail in this gripping account of "arguably the greatest Arctic explorer of the century." McGoogan shows how Rae became a Scottish hero by solving the two great mysteries of 19th-century Arctic exploration: "he discovered both the fate of the Franklin expedition and the final navigable link in the Northwest Passage, at last connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans across the top of North America." But the bulk of the book details how this accomplishment was unjustifiably turned against Rae. Although Sir John Franklin's earlier, 1845 attempt to find the final Northwest Passage link was "the most expensive naval expedition ever mounted" by England, it ended with the mysterious disappearance of Franklin and his entire crew. During Rae's later, successful expedition, he found proof that Franklin's crew was dead and had cannibalized their dying mates in a failed attempt to survive. When Franklin's wealthy widow, Lady Jane, began a smear campaign against Rae, she enlisted the help of Charles Dickens to write articles arguing that the Inuit "savages" who had helped Rae discover the bodies must have been the cannibals. McGoogan's extensive research reveals compelling evidence that Franklin's crew and not the Inuits were cannibals. Although Rae's accomplishments were not fully appreciated in his time, McGoogan's fascinating account should help to give Rae his rightful place in the history of Arctic explorations.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 340 pages
• Publisher: Basic Books (March 10, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786709936
• ISBN-13: 978-0786709939
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.7 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,026,243 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Superman on snowshoes, November 13, 2002

By	Stephen A. Haines (Ottawa, Ontario Canada) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

What kind of man, at 45 years of age, slogs 60 kilometres through a Canadian January to give a lecture on icebergs?

The Victorian era has endured much hostile press in recent years. Cultural mores have been challenged, essential ideas decried as "social artefacts" and the reputations of heroic idols, nearly universally male, demolished as shams. It's become a novelty to encounter the celebratory resurrection of a forgotten icon. McGoogan relates the life and accomplishments of Scotsman John Rae, who joined a Hudson's Bay Company ship as surgeon, travelled to Canada in 1833 and remained for twelve years - on the first stay. McGoogan has surveyed many of the resources dealing with Arctic exploration, but Rae's own accounts provide the essential framework for this compelling narrative. The book is nearly two stories in one: Rae's ranging explorations along the Canadian Arctic coast, and the mysterious disappearance of the John Franklin expedition. McGoogan keeps this paired account nicely balanced until they merge to determine Rae's future reputation.

John Rae was a departure from the usual explorer of the Victorian age. Instead of heading complex expeditions, he travelled with a small support group. Instead of ships or extensive caravans, he travelled by canoe or small boat, on land using snowshoes. He was extraordinarily hardy, traversing extensive distances, often alone. He adapted many features of Aboriginal life in his travels when "going native" was disdained by most. He kept his associates fed when other British explorers were starving on government rations. He found the route of the elusive Northwest passage and determined the fate of the lost Franklin expedition seeking that route. Later, he turned from Arctic adventures to the survey of a telegraph line site across the Rocky Mountains. Why have we heard so little of him?

According to McGoogan, one individual maintained a steady campaign to reduce Rae's reputation. Jane Franklin, Sir John's quasi-widow [she refused to admit her husband's death for years], irked by the possibility her husband had turned to cannibalism in extremity, actively challenged many of Rae's accomplishments. She fostered Leopold McClintock as the verifier of Sir John's finding of the Northwest Passage. In her zeal, she even managed to secure the aid of no less a figure than Charles Dickens to her cause. McGoogan contends Dickens' virulent racism aided this assault when the novelist asserted the Inuit were consummate liars and the true cannibals. In the event, John Rae stands out as the only explorer of note that failed to achieve knighthood for his achievements.

McGoogan has produced a noteworthy study, done with lively wit and solid research. This book restores John Rae's position as the true finder of the Northwest Passage and as man with few peers. This book can be read by anyone seeking knowledge of the North or as a model of perseverance and sacrifice. Illustrated with photographs and engravings and including a fine bibliography, this is a real treasure to read and possess.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Vivid and Compelling Biography of an Arctic Explorer, March 7, 2002

By	Gord Cope (France) - See all my reviews

McGoogan has written an excellent biography of John Rae that conveys not only the struggles that the explorer went through to find the ill-fated Franklin expedition, but also the scientific banishment that he suffered when he reported the bizarre circumstances of their deaths.
Rae was a doctor employed by the Hudson's Bay Company. The HBC had been set up to exploit the vast fur trade in Canada, and had outposts across the North. Rae, an outdoorsman and naturalist, was commissioned to explore the shores of the vast Arctic waters, searching for the last, elusive connection that would allow sailing ships to navigate from the Atlantic to the Pacific Oceans.
Many explorers had gone before Rae. One expedition, headed by Sir John Franklin, had disappeared without a trace in the 1840s. Several search parties subsequently failed to find the explorer and his crew.
Finally, Rae was asked to search for the party. He set out, not with a large crew and ships, but with a small number of natives and Europeans experienced in traveling in the frozen North. After several years, in which Rae found the last remaining link in the Northwest Passage, he finally uncovered the fate of the Franklin Expedition; the boats had foundered in the ice, and the crew had starved to death while marching south.
Rae also uncovered evidence of cannibalism. In their last efforts to remain alive, the crewmen had consumed their dead companions. Rae, in his report, duly noted this observation.

Unfortunately, this was to be his undoing. Led by Franklin's widow, Lady Jane, Rae was ostracized from the Royal Geographical Society and his epic discovery of the final link in the Northwest Passage disparaged. For over a century, his achievements languished in the footnotes of history.
McGoogan set out to rectify Rae's tarnished image. Using research from Rae's extensive notes, as well as primary sources from a multitude of independent sources, he has carefully constructed a description of Rae's achievements, as well as the denunciations that robbed him of his rightful place in history.
As an homage, the author journeyed to the Arctic and placed a memorial at the final discovered link in the Northwest Passage, now officially recognized as Rae Strait.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Canada's Greatest Adopted Hero, May 26, 2005

By	Rodney Meek (Austin, TX) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Ashamed of my ignorance of the history of our great neighbor to the north, Canadaland, I resolved to get this book to learn more of one of its greatest unsung heroes. Who, of course, had actually been born in Scotland. But he got over to Canuckia as soon as he could, and stayed a long time. Before going back to Britain. Well...he was still heroic, if not fully Canadian.

They certainly built people different back in olden pre-Internet times. These days, of course, most of us regard a trek to our mailboxes as an epic ordeal, but back in the day, it was nothing to go hiking about for miles and miles. Of course, there was no TV, so entertainment options were few, and if you were living in the remote northern Canadian woods for months on end, you really had nothing better to do than hike about and push aside the native peoples to "discover" things. But even amongst the hardy traders and trappers, John Rae was an anomaly.

Pretty much, anything you could do, he could do better. I mean, he was a proficient sailor and hunter virutally out of the womb, then became a doctor at a very young age, then rose through the ranks of the Hudson's Bay Company. And the dude could walk! Thirty miles in a day would be a disappointing outing for him. Plus he could totally snowshoe, and he learned all sorts of cool stuff from various Native American tribes and the Inuit. He was like a one-man Winter Olympics, except with somewhat less luging.

We would find him notable for all of his exploring, but what was more remarkable about him was his enlightened attitudes toward the assorted indigenous peoples he encountered. Whereas your average Victorian regarded the original inhabitants of North America with, at best, amused contempt, Rae realized that they were perfectly adapted to their environment and that they could teach him a great deal about how to survive in the far north. Consequently, whilst various British expeditions to find the Northwest Passage, and then to find the vanished Sir John Franklin and company, were blundering about the Arctic, crashing and sinking and starving and freezing, Rae was moving about with comparative ease and was seldom in any jeopardy.

His major accomplishments were to discover the final link of an ice-free navigable Northwest Passage and to uncover word at long last about the Franklin Expedition, which he basically did by the simple expedient of asking some passing Inuit, "Hey, what happened to Franklin?" Unfortunately for Rae, the truth was not palatable to his waiting British audience. As it turns out, the crews of Franklin's ships had been forced to abandon their icebound ships to set off on a doomed trek to reach a far-distant trading outpost, mysteriously declining to head toward a much closer and more easily accessible known cache of supplies left by a previous group of explorers. But it was the news of the extremities to which they had been forced that most upset the public. At least some of the Franklin Expedition had resorted to cannibalism (which assertion has subsequently been proved in modern times by forensic analysis of some of the remains later discovered scattered here and there across the Canadian coast).

It was easier for the outraged British to claim that Rae was a liar or a fool and that the Inuit had either murdered the Franklin crews or selfishly hogged all the caribou to themselves and declined to help the starving explorers. It never really sunk in for most of Rae's critics that the Inuit weren't exactly carting around surplus tons of food or that the land wasn't at all capable of supporting dozens and dozens of people at a time. And so the vilification of Rae began in earnest, orchestrated by the Widow Franklin and ably abetted (to his eternal shame) by one Charles Dickens.

This is a handsomely illustrated volume with an assortment of helpful maps. Since it was originally published in Canada, to some very minor degree it presupposes that the reader has some small knowledge of certain Canadian-type things, but that's only the most insignificant of impediments to American readers. My real quibble is that the author sometimes takes an overly novelistic approach in describing certain scenes (down to details of facial expressions) and recreating dialogue. The bibliography is slim and I would've felt on more solid ground had he better documented his materials for some of these "you are there" passages.

Also, his forward for the American edition is so unabashed in its effusive praise for Rae that it spirals at the end into a quasi-hysterical screed for public worship of this great man. He would have been better advised to follow the basic rule of "show, don't tell", and let us draw our own conclusion without demanding our obeisance to all things Rae. Still, this is a most entertaining and well-told tale of a figure who indeed deserves much greater acclaim and a more prominent place in the annals of Arctic exploration.