Editing John Rae (explorer) (section)

=== Franklin's fate ===
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| title = {{center|"The Fate of Sir John Franklin"<br>by John Rae, 1854}}
| description = {{center|00:05:45 ([https://archive.org/stream/melancholyfateof00raej#page/n7/mode/2up text])}}
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Rae headed south to [[Fort Chipewyan]] in [[Alberta]], waited for a hard freeze, travelled by [[snowshoe]] to [[Fort Garry]] in [[Winnipeg]], took the [[Red River Trails|Crow Wing Trail]] to [[Saint Paul, Minnesota]], and then travelled to [[Chicago]], then [[Hamilton, Ontario]], New York, and London, which he reached in late March 1852. 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 (Nunavut)|Back River]]. He went to New York, Montreal, and then Sault Ste. Marie by steamer, [[Fort William, Ontario|Fort William]] by canoe, and reached [[York Factory]] on 18 June 1853, where he picked up his two boats.

He left on 24 June and reached [[Chesterfield Inlet]] on 17 July. Finding a previously unknown river, he followed it for {{convert|210|mi}} before it became too small to use. Judging that it was too late to drag the boat north to the Back River, he turned back and wintered at his old camp on [[Naujaat|Repulse Bay]]. He left Repulse Bay on 31 March 1854. Near [[Pelly Bay]] he met some Inuit, one of whom had a gold cap-band. Asked where he got it, he replied that it came from a place 10 to 12 days away where 35 or so ''kabloonat'' had starved to death. Rae bought the cap-band and said he would buy anything similar.

On 27 April, he reached frozen salt-water south of what is now called [[Rae Strait]]. A few miles west, on the south side of the bay, he reached what he believed was the [[Castor and Pollux River]], which [[Thomas Simpson (explorer)|Simpson]] had reached from the west in 1839. He then turned north along the western portion of the [[Boothia Peninsula]], the last uncharted coast of North America, hoping to reach [[Bellot Strait]] and so close the last gap in the line from Bering Strait to Hudson Bay. The coast continued north instead of swinging west to form the south shore of [[King William Island|King William Land]].

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. It appeared that King William Land was an island and the coast to the north was the same as had been seen by [[James Clark Ross]] in 1831. Author [[Ken McGoogan]] has claimed<ref>McGoogan 2002, §16.</ref> 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 (historian)|William Barr]] has disputed that claim,<ref>Barr 2015, pp. 219–220.</ref> citing the uncharted {{convert|240|km}} between Ross's discoveries and the Bellot Strait.

With only two men fit for heavy travel, Rae turned back. Reaching Repulse Bay on 26 May, he found several Inuit families who had come to trade relics. They said that four winters ago some other Inuit had met at least 40 ''kabloonat'' who were dragging a boat south. Their leader was a tall, stout man with a telescope, thought to be [[Francis Crozier]], Franklin's second-in-command. They communicated by gestures that their ships had been crushed by ice and that they were going south to hunt deer. When the Inuit returned the following spring they found about 30 corpses and signs of [[Human cannibalism|cannibalism]]. One of the artefacts Rae bought was a small silver plate. Engraved on the back was "Sir John Franklin, K.C.H". With this important information, Rae chose not to continue exploring. He left Repulse Bay on 4 August 1854, as soon as the ice cleared.

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 [[Admiralty (United Kingdom)|British Admiralty]], which included it. However, the Admiralty mistakenly released the second report to the press, and the reference to cannibalism caused great outcry in Victorian society. Franklin's widow [[Jane Franklin|Lady Jane]] enlisted author [[Charles Dickens]], who wrote a tirade against Rae in his magazine ''[[Household Words]]'' deriding the report as "the wild tales of a herd of savages", and later attacked Rae and the Inuit further in his 1856 play ''[[The Frozen Deep]]''.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Rae|first=John|date=1854-12-30|df=dmy-all|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DOQRAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA433|title=Dr Rae's report|journal=Household Words: A Weekly Journal|volume=10|issue=249|pages=457–458|access-date=2008-08-16}}</ref> Arctic explorer Sir George Richardson joined them, stating that cannibalism could not be the action of Englishmen but surely the Inuit themselves. This campaign likely prevented Rae from receiving a [[knighthood]] for his efforts. 20th century [[archaeology]] efforts in [[King William Island]] later confirmed that Franklin Expedition members had resorted to cannibalism.<ref name = "Roobol">Roobol, M.J. (2019) ''Franklin's Fate: An investigation into what happened to the lost 1845 expedition of Sir John Frankin.'' Conrad Press, 368 pages.</ref>