London Letter: Perils of taking on ‘the man’

The only certainties of life, they say, are death and taxes.

To this I can add a third; you cannot take on the establishment and win. You might win the odd battle, but not the war.

Rock stars may sing about taking on ‘the man’, but even they end up as boring establishment figures. Just ask Sir Mick Jagger.

But it was always thus. I was watching a TV programme recently about Arctic explorer Dr John Rae, one of the greatest adventurers who ever lived, but who is relatively unknown.

The reason? He made the fatal mistake of unrepentantly taking on ‘the man’.

Rae was born in Orkney, where most of the men who ventured into the vast wildernesses of Canada came from.

Although the Scots as a nation have more chips on their shoulders than a packet of Pringles (I can say that as my paternal bloodline is Scottish), they are the hardiest of the Brits.

And those from the Orkney Islands are the hardiest of all. So the Hudson Bay Company, which basically owned Canada, recruited heavily from there.

Rae, a medical doctor, soon made his name as an Arctic explorer as he did what no other European did: he listened to the indigenous people. He travelled light, lived in igloos and wore Caribou skin clothes.

The latter was vital as the pelts repelled moisture, much as Gore-Tex does today, which means you don’t freeze when you sweat. But above all, Rae was as tough as a Polar Bear and hugely respected by the Inuit.

At the time, the biggest global quest was to find the North West Passage, which linked the ice-choked Atlantic to the Bering Sea.

Whoever discovered that would control the fabulously rich spice route to Asia without having to sail around the Cape of Good Hope. Not only would it knock thousands of miles off the journey, but the cold weather Brits would far rather sail in the Polar Regions than cross the Equator.

Much of the North West Passage was known, but there was one vital piece of the jigsaw missing and Rae was sent to find it.

Five-star exploration

At the same time, the British Navy launched its own expedition under Sir John Franklin. Unlike Rae who followed the Inuit way, Franklin insisted on being ‘civilised’ and every night would feast off china plates.

When Franklin’s ship went missing, Rae was sent to find him. It took two years, but eventually his Inuit guides discovered a group of dead Europeans. By the wretched state of the corpses, it was obvious there had been cannibalism. It was Franklin’s party.

At the same time, Rae also discovered the last navigable stretch linking Hudson Bay to the Bering Sea. Called the Rae Strait, the North West Passage was now complete.

Rae returned to England with news of both his discovery and of the ill-fated Franklin expedition. In his official report, he refused to shy away from the fact that Franklin’s starving men had resorted to cannibalism.

Overnight he was shunned. ‘The man’, sitting in plush London offices far removed from the unforgiving Arctic wastes, would not accept that the British Navy had practiced cannibalism, no matter how dire the situation.

Franklin’s widow mounted a heated campaign against Rae, which was so successful that not only was Rae scorned with extreme vitriol, but Franklin was fallaciously accorded the honour of discovering the North West Passage. There’s a stature of him in Lincolnshire stating just that.

The real hero of the Arctic, John Rae, died in obscurity.

To give an idea of the enormity of this, compare his treatment to his contemporary, Dr David Livingstone.

Ironically, he is only now gradually receiving the honour he is due. In January this year, a Facebook group called ‘In John Rae’s Company’ was launched which has quite a following – the ultimate 21st Century compliment.

There’s even a motion in parliament urging the government to remove memorials that inaccurately describe Franklin as the first to discover the North West Passage.

It’s taken two centuries, but perhaps John Rae will be the first to take on ‘the man’ and win.