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September's Unusual Canadian Rockies Name

WAITABIT PEAK
The mountain takes its name from Waitabit Creek. The mouth of the creek marked the beginning of rougher water when descending the Columbia. Parties used to pause here before proceeding downriver.
Enter "Waitabit Peak" to learn more about the mountain. 

JOHN RAE
Born in 1813 in the Orkney Islands, John Rae's childhood experiences in that challenging environment likely contributed to his success in Arctic exploration. Later in his youth he lived in Newfoundland where he learned boating, shooting, and fishing. After becoming a medical doctor, he returned to Canada in 1833 to work with the Hudson's Bay Company, spending ten years as the surgeon at Moose Bay. Living in the Canadian wilderness, he became legendary as a hunter and snowshoer prior to undertaking exploration in the Canadian Arctic.

In 1846, Dr. Rae was chosen to undertake the final stage of surveying the Arctic coast. He conducted four major expeditions into the uncharted Canadian Arctic between the years 1846 and 1854, and in the course of these journeys travelled vast distances by canoe, small boat, dogsled, snowshoe and on foot. Whereas other explorers of the era claimed that, "the objective of polar explorations is to explore properly and not to evade the hazards of the game through the vulgar subterfuge of going native," John Rae learned from the aboriginal people and adapted to the Inuit techniques of living off the land. He listened carefully and learned such things as how to build an igloo and live off the land during his travels. After acquiring these skills he became the first European to survive and Arctic winter while living solely off the land. His stamina was said to have been phenomenal.

During the course of his Arctic expeditions, Rae travelled an incredible 10,500 km on foot an sailed and additional 10,700 km in small boats. His greatest accomplishment in the Arctic was establishing the final link (Rae Strait) in the long searched for Northwest Passage.

During 1853-1854 Dr. Rae completed his final Arctic journey, during which he hoped to uncover John Franklin's fate and claim the 20,000 pound reward for doing so. Near Pelly Bay, on the east side of the Boothia Peninsula, he met a solitary Inuit who had first hand information. Rae was told that 35 to 40 white men had starved to death west of a large river ten to twelve days from Pelly Bay. After questioning other Inuit, Rae learned that the white men had last been seen travelling south over the ice and later that year the graves of some of them had been seen. Rae returned with some articles that the Inuit had collected, including a silver plate marked with Franklin's name.

When Rae returned to Britain with the news of Sir John Franklin's fate, including his belief that the expedition's members had ended their days eating human flesh, he was not well received. Victorian Britain seemed unwilling to accept that fact that Franklin had failed, particularly on the word of the natives. In fact, Franklin's wife, Lady Jane, used her influence to turn pubic opinion against Rae and for a time deprived him of his proper place in the history of the Canadian Arctic. When it was proved later that Rae's reports were accurate, the British admiralty reluctantly agreed to pay Rae a portion of the reward money.

Rae lived in Hamilton, Ontario from 1857 until 1859 and was married in Toronto in 1860. His last major expedition was one that involved the Canadian Rockies. In 1864 he travelled from the Red River settlement, through the mountains to the Pacific in order to survey a route for a proposed telegraph line. He travelled through the Yellowhead Pass during August and eventually reaching Victoria on September 28th.

William Barr, a Canadian historian, recently compared Rae's trip through the mountains with that of Milton and Cheadle's trip taken the previous year. Making the point that William Fitzwilliam (Viscount Milton) and Cheadle were not nearly as capable travellers as John Rae, he wrote, "Rae, the consummate traveller, described his workmanlike trip -a journey that involved no serous mishaps or accidents -in a straight-forward, matter-of-fact manner. There were no dramatic accidents or even incidents, and certainly nothing remotely comparable to Milton and Cheadle's nightmare journey from Tete Jaune Cache south to Kamloops during which the entire party came close to starving. In short, Rae's journey was precisely what one would have expected of him. And, as one would also expect of him, he maintained his reputation as a traveller 'sans pareil.'" [McKoogan]

For information about Mount Rae, John Rae, Viscount Milton, and Walter Cheadle enter the person or mountain's name in the appropriate search box on the main page.