In a way, he was an easy target. Unlike previous European Arctic explorers, he adopted many of the survival methods of the Inuits. He was the first European to live off the land, hunting and fishing, instead of trekking in huge caches of supplies.


He learned how to use snowshoes like a native and how to build snow houses which were vastly superior to the dank and freezing wooden huts constructed by Europeans. An intensely practical man, he reasoned that the Inuits knew best how to survive in their own bleak habitat. That set him apart from his fellow explorers.


That his expeditions for the Hudson’s Bay Company were among the most successful of all time, proved his approach was the best one.


But honesty, egalitarianism and straight- forwardness were not the weapons to aid him when he came up against the Establishment.


Today the John Rae Society, with some success, is taking its first fledgling steps towards restoring John Rae to his rightful place in history.


There has always been a strong affinity between Orkney and North America. Stromness was the last port of call for the Hudson’s Bay Company ships as they sailed for the wildernesses of Canada to collect trappers’ pelts. Traces of their regular visits to take on water and last-minute supplies still exist around the town. Many Orcadians, too, participated in John Rae’s travels.


Complete restoration of the Hall of Clestrain would be a fiting memorial to that fact.


John Rae, 1884 May 2015 29


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