About this lot
Description
RAE, John (1813-1893, Explorer and Surgeon) Historical North Polar Map - North West Passage.
Chart of the North Polar Sea, lithographic map by Malby & Sons, with some hand colour, annotated in black and red ink by John Rae, Scottish explorer and surgeon. His marginal note states 'Here the hydrographer of the Admiralty took 10 or 15 miles from my discoveries so as to make Collinson's appear the farthest. I was at this place a year (in 1851) before Collinson. [signed] J Rae'. Rae's discoveries are marked in black ink; his 'track on coast / previously explored' is marked in red.
Albert Pell of Hazlebeech, Northants, and by descent.
John Rae was second in command of Sir John Richardson's party sent to search for the lost Sir John Franklin expedition in 1848. The Rae Strait at King William Land is named after him. It was the final piece of the jigsaw in discovering a North-West Passage. Rae completed four Arctic exploration voyages. He mapped much of the Arctic coastlines on foot or by boat. Lady Franklin did not accept the circumstances of the aftermath of her husband's doomed voyage, and campaigned against Rae, damaging his public reputation for years to come.
Fold creases and some damp staining. Originally inserted within the atlas, lot 62.
size is 86 x 69cm
According to papers still in family hands, in 1879 Albert Pell MP was given a Royal Commission to travel and observe agricultural practices in the United States of America and Canada. Accompanied by Mr Clare S Read, they left for New York in August 1879 and travelled extensively until mid December, formulating a report on modern farming practices, and also the export and transportation of produce. A letter in September 1879 finds the men in Portage La Prairie residing at the Hudson Bay Company's Office:
"We have met Mr Mactavish inside Fort Garry one of the officers of the company and he was kind enough to press us to go in the the interior for 72 miles, offering us his assistance and the use of the Company's steam and stores... in the evening I walked with Mr Hespeler the Emigration Agent to visit a friend Mr MacMicken (sic) on the other side of the Assinniboine River and I had the pleasure of rowing across it.... Mr MacMicken lives in a nice wooden house in the opposite bank. He is a fine old gentleman.... The indian or Red River cart is of the rudest kind there is not an ounce of iron about it, no tire even to the wheels which are very lofty. The axle is attached to the body with strips of buffalo hide.....and the whole affair is called a "rig".... We drove the first team 25miles right off, the next 22, and the last 16 miles with changed at the Hudson Bay's ports or stores. The drive was a most interesting one - the track was alive with people, carts, oxen, hores, mares and foals, women, children and a few dogs.... The caravans ..... are going to Winnipeg for the job of taking freight for the Company as far west as the Rocky Mountains - they are paid once cent per 100lbs per miles and an ox draws just 1000 thus earning 5d per mile. Those we overtook were loaded with barrels, bags of flour, stoves, digging forks, cotton, shoes..."
Whilst these family records do not tell of a meeting between Pell and Rae, they would seem to be working in similar fields at this point. According to the Dictionary of Canadian Biography in this same year "From 1879 Rae was involved in the controversy over the relative merits of the route through Hudson Bay and that by the Great Lakes and the St Lawrence River for exporting grain from the prairies. On the basis of his experience Rae strongly supported the Great Lakes route".
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