After a century and a half, the debate about the Northwest Passage is about to erupt again. Blame the book Fatal Passage: The Untold Story of John Rae, the Arctic Adventurer Who Discovered the Fate of Franklin, by Calgary author Ken McGoogan. 

This book is one of the most important written on Canadian history in recent years. It is an attempt to correct what McGoogan believes has been a great injustice. Rae, he says, did much more than just discover what happened to the ill-fated expedition led by Sir John Franklin. 

Rae also discovered the final link in the Northwest Passage, played a major role in mapping the Arctic and helped show other Europeans how to survive the bitterly cold winters in the Canadian north. He just didn’t get credit for most of his work, and his reputation suffered for years because of his reports on Franklin reports that have been proven to be correct. 

Any attempt to rewrite history, and force us to reconsider what we have long believed to be true, will cause a controversy. McGoogan says he’s ready for that and is willing to debate his findings with anyone. 

He had initially planned to write a novel based on the life of Rae. The more he learned about Rae, however, the more he began to believe that a terrible injustice had been done, and that Rae had been deprived of his rightful place place in Canadian history. 

So McGoogan scrapped his plans for a novel, on the theory that while a work of fiction that rewrites history could be dismissed easily, a non-fiction book would carry more weight. His research took a major leap forward when he discovered, at the Scott Polar Research Institute at the University of Cambridge, Rae’s unpublished autobiography. 

The 812-page document helped McGoogan build a comprehensive account of the life of Rae, revealing a remarkable level of integrity and dedication that drove the explorer throughout his life. 

Rae didn’t set out to be an Arctic explorer, of course. He was trained as a doctor, and was hired by the Hudson’s Bay Co. and sent to Moose Factory. There, he discovered the importance of the survival skills of the native peoples. 

Over the next few years, he surveyed 2,800 kilometres of previously uncharted territory, travelled more than 10,000 kilometres on snowshoe and sailed a similar distance in small boats. 

In May, 1854, Rae and his companions reached a channel next to Boothia Peninsula. Their charts indicated they would find land, but instead they found an ice-covered strait. Rae observed that this channel was the final navigable link in the Northwest Passage, an assertion not proven until Roald Amundsen sailed through it almost 50 years later [1903-06]. 

A few days later, Rae encountered some Inuit carrying Franklin relics, and learned from them what had happened to the expedition including the cannibalism that marked the desperate struggle of the last survivors. Rae returned to England with his findings, and soon faced a barrage of criticism. Franklin’s widow, a master of public relations, did everything possible to discredit Rae, especially over his report of cannibalism. She encouraged the British government to continue its search for her husband’s expedition. 

Some historians say Franklin might have discovered the passage before he died; others say Robert McClure, who travelled by sledge over another icebound route, was the first to find it. There is a general unwillingness to give Rae the credit for showing the way. Other Arctic explorers received knighthoods for their work. Not Rae, even though he had succeeded where others had failed. He had to settle for a reward for discovering the fate of Franklin, and honours given later by the Royal Geographical Society. 

Throughout Rae’s life, he refused to back away from his beliefs, no matter how controversial they were. He would always tell it as he saw it, and paid the price for challenging statements that were generally accepted as true. 

History is written, for the most part, to complement the beliefs already held by the target audience. When the public is presented with evidence that things are not quite as previously thought, the reaction is often one of disbelief. That was the reaction to Rae in the middle of the 19th century. Expect that to be the reaction to McGoogan’s work. McGoogan says he is committed to righting a wrong and, in the finest tradition of Rae, he refuses to back down. 

above paragraphs edited from original in the TC newspaper