to the Great Bear Lake, and so southward by the Mackenzie river. At the Athabasca river they were frozen in, and had to await a fall of snow to enable them to travel on snowshoes. In this manner they marched about 1,750 miles, by Fort Garry (now Winnipeg), to United States territory. In the last 450 miles forty-five miles a day was the average rate. In about eight months the expedition had travelled 5,380 miles, seven hundred miles of which were newly discovered coast-line. For the geographical results of this expedition and for the survey of 1847 Rae was awarded in 1852 the Founder's gold medal of the Royal Geographical Society.
Rae then returned to England, and proposed to the Hudson's Bay Company the despatch of another expedition to complete, if possible, the survey of the northern coasts of America. The company equipped a boat expedition on condition that Rae would lead it personally, and early in 1853 he once more left England. The expedition wintered (September 1853) at Repulse Bay. On 31 March 1854 Rae set out with four of the party to trace the west coast of Boothia. He reached Point de la Guiche on 6 May, and returned to his winter quarters on 26 May. On this journey he proved King William's Land to be an island. He also obtained news of Franklin's party, and purchased relics from the Eskimos. From 26 May to 4 Aug. he remained at Repulse Bay, gathering more particulars of Franklin's fate. He would then have proceeded to complete his commission, which was to survey the whole of the west coast of Boothia, but decided that he ought to return and prevent fruitless search for Franklin in wrong directions. He reached York Factory on 31 Aug. This expedition connected the survey of Ross with that of Dease and Simpson.
The evidence which Rae collected as to the fate of the Erebus and Terror is given in a letter addressed by him, under date 29 July 1854, to the secretary of the admiralty. He arrived in London on 22 Oct. 1854, and found that his party was entitled to a reward of 10,000l. offered by the government to the first who brought back decisive information of the fate of Sir John Franklin's expedition. On receipt of his part of the reward, Rae, being desirous of completing the survey of the northern shores of America, had a small schooner built in Canada at an expense of 2,000l. The vessel was not ready in time, and she consequently sailed on the lakes in the autumn to earn freight, but was lost in a storm. In November 1858 Rae made a tour through the United States with the Hon. Edward Ellice, and the following summer was one of a party who went across the prairies to Red river. It was about this time that Rae walked from Hamilton to Toronto, a distance of about forty miles in seven hours; he did it on snowshoes, and dined out the same evening, showing no signs of fatigue.
In 1860 Rae undertook the land part of a survey for a contemplated telegraph line from England by the Faeroes, Iceland, and Greenland to America (Proc. Royal. Geogr. Soc. v. 80). In 1864 he conducted a difficult telegraph survey from Winnipeg, across the Rocky Mountains in lat. 53°, to the Pacific coast. Subsequently some hundreds of miles of the most dangerous parts of Fraser river were traversed in small dugout canoes without a guide—a most perilous undertaking, but successfully accomplished.
During the latter years of his life, which he spent chiefly in London, Rae maintained a keen interest in colonial matters. He was an active member of the Royal Colonial Institute, a governor of the Imperial Institute, one of the first directors of the Canada North-West Land Company, and a director of other commercial enterprises in Manitoba and British Columbia. He was a regular attendant at meetings of the Royal Society, of which he was elected a fellow in 1880, of the Royal Geographical Society, and the British Association. He was also an ardent volunteer. He received the honorary degree LL.D. from the university of Edinburgh, and that of M.D. from McGill College, Montreal.
He died on 22 July 1893 at his residence, 4 Addison Gardens, London, of influenza, followed by congestion of the lungs, and was buried in the churchyard of St. Magnus Cathedral, Kirkwall.
Rae married, in 1860, Catharine Jane Alicia, the third daughter of Major George Ash Thompson of Ardkill, co. Londonderry, and Glenchiel Munechrane, co. Tyrone. He left no children.
Rae, whose health was exceptionally robust, attributed his success in arctic travel to his power of living in Eskimo fashion and to his skill as a sportsman and boatman. He is said to have walked over twenty-three thousand miles in the course of his arctic journeys. In all his expeditions he made collections of characteristic plants and animals, as well as physical and meteorological observations. He was the author of ‘Narrative of an Expedition to the Shores of the Arctic Sea in 1846 and 1847’ (published 1850). He wrote also reports of his journey in the ‘Journal of the Royal Geographical Society’ (xxii. 73, 82, xxv. 246); a paper on ‘Forma-
