The Scots doctor called ‘Long Strider’ by Inuit who discovered grisly fate of Franklin Expedition

He went to sea at 15, but his career was patchy at best. He left when he and his brother decided to take up sheep farming in Australia. This wasn’t a good move. A bushwacker robbed them, the sheep bankrupted them and dysentery nearly killed him. He had no option but to return to the Royal Navy. He kicked about on a few ships for a while, and then, in 1845, he was chosen to join the Franklin Expedition.

Commander John Franklin’s Admiralty orders specifically commanded “mapping the existence of land, at present unknown” at the far reaches of the NorthWest Passage. To paraphrase the mission statement of another enterprise, to boldly go where no man had gone before, if you overlook the people who already lived there.

A national obsession

His ships, Terror and Erebus, were well fitted out for the expedition. There were enough provisions for three years, including wine, rum and brandy. The two ships had been fitted with steam engines, bought from the London and Greenwich Railway, and even had revolutionary heating systems installed.

Irvine was assigned to the Terror, captained by Francis RM Crozier. Captain James Fitzjames commanded the Erebus.

In June 1845, the whaling ships, Prince of Wales and Enterprise, spotted the expedition in Baffin Bay. Franklin was seen waving, then he, his two ships and over 130 men vanished into the ice.

By 1847, people were wondering where the expedition was. The formidable Lady Franklin pushed the Admiralty to launch rescue attempts. Overland missions in 1848 were led by Scotsmen John Richardson and John Rae. Her Majesty's Ships Enterprise and Investigator set sail in 1849, and still nothing was found.

The mystery of the lost expedition became a national obsession. What could have happened? Someone did know, but they didn’t like what he had to tell them.

Learning from Inuit

John Rae was an Orkney man, born in 1813. He graduated in medicine from Edinburgh University and made for the Arctic. He joined the Hudson's Bay Company. He treated everyone at Moose Factor, regardless of who they were.

He admired the Inuit, and they taught him how to live off the land, make igloos and even how to make his own snowshoes. He was famous for the distances he could cover. The Inuit, called him Aglooka, or "Long Strider". Just the man to find a missing Arctic expedition.

He didn’t find the ships, but he did uncover clues about the expedition’s horrible end. In 1854, he encountered a lone Inuit hunter wearing a gold naval hat band. The hunter told him that “four winters before other Inuit had found 40 to 50 white men… ten to 12 days walk away”. They were all dead. That's where he got the hat band.

Other Inuit hunters directed him to King William Island. He found what looked like a campsite. It was more of a last stand. Cutlery, watches, compasses, telescopes, even guns, lay scattered about between the remains of men who had starved to death.

Dickens rubbishes cannibalism claim

Worse was to come. In his report to the Admiralty, he told of the Franklin men suffering “a fate terrible as the imagination can conceive”. He wrote: “From the mutilated state of many of the corpses and the contents of the kettles, it is evident that our wretched countrymen had been driven to the last resource – cannibalism – as a means of prolonging existence.” Rae sent two letters to London. One told of the cannibalism. The other, for the public, did not. The Admiralty blundered and released the wrong letter.

London society went ballistic. Jane, Lady Franklin was incensed by the implication that her heroic husband could have stooped to such savage depths. She needn’t have worried. Poor John Franklin had died before the horrors of King William Island.

She unleashed her PR machine on the Long Strider. Her chief spokesman was none other than Charles Dickens, who rubbished the claims of Rae, and the testimony of the native peoples in his report. It worked. Rae was shunned by the Imperial establishment.

Scientific analysis reveals the truth

Knighthoods and honours were bestowed on other Arctic explorers, but not Rae, even though Rae really made those discoveries of the Northwest Passage that Franklin was looking for.

Lady Franklin wrote to the Prime Minister and said that was clearly rubbish, her husband definitely found them first. A truly remarkable feat for a dead man.

Mission after mission headed north to find the lost ships. In 1879, an American, Frederick Schwatka found a grave on King William Island. Animals had ransacked it, but they found a few bones, a bit of a telescope and a small medal. It was a mathematics prize, awarded to John Irving, 3rd Lieutenant of HMS Terror. Schwatka arranged for the sad remains to be returned to Scotland.

A beautiful tombstone in Edinburgh’s Dean Cemetery marks the last resting place of one of the Franklin Expedition. Of course, it might not be him, even though the tomb has a carving of that tiny maths medal on it. Few remains of those lost men have been identified.

In 2014 and 2016, the wrecks of the Erebus and Terror were located on the seabed, eerily intact.

In September 2024, DNA evidence conclusively identified Captain James Fitzjames of HMS Erebus. The bones had been recovered from King William Island. Well, his mandible at any rate. Bioarchaeological analysis on marks in the bone confirmed that Fitzjames had indeed been cut up by his “wretched countrymen… driven to the last resource – cannibalism”.

John Rae, the Long Strider, had been right all along to trust his Inuit friends.