John Rae FRS FRGS (Inuktitut: ᐊᒡᓘᑲ, [aɡluːka]; 30 September 1813 – 22 July 1893) was a Scottish surgeon who explored parts of northern Canada.

In 1854, back in the Gulf of Boothia, he obtained credible information from local Inuit peoples about the fate of the Franklin Expedition, which had disappeared in the area in 1848.

Rae was noted for his physical stamina, skill at hunting, boat handling, use of native methods, and ability to travel long distances with little equipment while living off the land.

Rae was born as the sixth of nine children at the Hall of Clestrain in Orkney in the north of Scotland with family ties to Clan MacRae.

By the age of fifteen, Rae had become an excellent musket hunter, rock climber and hiker, enjoying hobbies like fishing and boating.

Rae's skills as a hunter and doctor, as well as his knowledge about fauna and its pharmaceutical merits managed to keep most men alive throughout the winter and heavy cases of scurvy, that took two lives among the crew.

[2] He went to work for the Hudson's Bay Company as a surgeon, accepting a post at Moose Factory, Ontario, where he remained for ten years.

When he reached the Red River Colony on 9 October, he found his instructor seriously ill. After the man died, Rae headed for Sault Ste.

Rae finally departed on the voyage to Simpson's furthest-east on 5 August 1845, taking the usual voyageur route via Lake Winnipeg and reaching York Factory on 8 October, where he wintered.

On 12 June 1846, he headed north in two 22-foot (6.7 m) boats and reached Repulse Bay at the south end of the Melville Peninsula in July.

On his first journey, which began on 26 July, he dragged one of his boats 40 miles (64 km) northwest to Committee Bay in the south of the Gulf of Boothia.

He went north and from a hill thought he could see Lord Mayor Bay, on the west side of the Gulf of Boothia, where John Ross had been trapped in ice from 1829 to 1833.

John Bell was sent downriver to establish winter quarters at Fort Confidence on the east arm of Great Bear Lake.

On 19 August, they made the attempt, but after 8 miles (13 km) they were caught in fog and moving ice and spent three hours rowing back to their starting point.

Rae received three letters from Sir George Simpson, Francis Beaufort, and Lady Jane Franklin all telling him to return to the Arctic.

In late July he crossed the mouth of Bathurst Inlet and reached Cape Flinders at the western end of the Kent Peninsula.

In England he proposed to return to Boothia and complete his attempt to link Hudson Bay to the Arctic coast by dragging a boat to the Back River.

On 6 May, he reached his furthest north, which he named Point de la Guiche after an obscure French traveller he had met in New York.

Author Ken McGoogan has claimed[8] that Rae here effectively discovered the final link in the Northwest Passage as followed in the following century by Roald Amundsen, although Arctic historian William Barr has disputed that claim,[9] citing the uncharted 240 kilometres (150 mi) between Ross's discoveries and the Bellot Strait.

Upon his return to Britain, Rae made two reports on his findings: one for the public, which omitted any mention of cannibalism, and another for the British Admiralty, which included it.

[11] With the prize money awarded for finding evidence of the fate of Franklin's expedition, Rae commissioned the construction of a ship intended for polar exploration, the Iceberg.

In 1884, at age 71, he was again working for the Hudson's Bay Company, this time as an explorer of the Red River for a proposed telegraph line from the United States to Russia.

The memorial by North Ronaldsay sculptor Ian Scott, unveiled at Stromness pierhead in 2013, is a statue of Rae with an inscription describing him as "the discoverer of the final link in the first navigable Northwest Passage.

Although he found the first clue to the fate of Franklin, Rae was never awarded a knighthood, nor was he remembered at the time of his death, dying quietly in London.

In comparison, fellow Scot and contemporary explorer David Livingstone was buried with full imperial honours in Westminster Abbey.

Historians have since studied Rae's expeditions and his roles in finding the Northwest Passage and learning the fate of Franklin's crew.

Authors such as Ken McGoogan have noted Rae was willing to adopt and learn the ways of indigenous Arctic peoples, which made him stand out as the foremost specialist of his time in cold-climate survival and travel.

Rae also respected Inuit customs, traditions, and skills, which went against the beliefs of many 19th-century Europeans that most native peoples were too primitive to offer anything of educational value.

[15] In July 2004, Orkney and Shetland MP Alistair Carmichael introduced into the UK Parliament a motion proposing, inter alia, that the House "regrets that Dr Rae was never awarded the public recognition that was his due".

[16] In March 2009, he introduced a further motion urging Parliament to formally state it "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.