The Explorer who was CANCELLED by Dickens!

Victorian cancel culture at its finest! John Rae was an incredible polar explorer who was unique in that he wasn’t from a naval background (as was usual with polar explorers) and was in fact a doctor from Scotland. He was a born explorer who, like Amundsen who would come later, learnt from the Inuit how to survive in cold climates. His contraversial findings regarding how the Franklin Expedition ended their days caused an outcry and led to him being completely shunned by polite society. The book Fatal Passage by Ken McGoogan is the one to read if you want to know about John Rae! John Franklin and his crew were never found, but the three bodies of crew members who died before the ships got into trouble were buried at Baffin Bay. These bodies were exhumed in the 1980s by archaeologists more can be read on this in the very excellent Frozen in Time book by Owen Beattie and John Geiger. The ships HMS Terror and HMS Erebus were discovered in 2016 and 2014 respectively. #hmserebus #history #hmsterror #heritage #exploration #historygram #polar #victorian #orkney #johnrae #amundsen #northwestpassage #frozenintime #johntorrington #charlesdickens #dickens #canada #kenmcgoogan #fatalpassage #franklin #theterror