Finding John Rae Read online

  I was grateful for Commander Herd’s wise response, but I felt warmth creeping into my cheeks. I was disappointed but not surprised that my report was again under critical scrutiny, and that I, the bearer of bad news, was under pressure to explain and defend something infinitely complex and confounding to most people. In truth, I did not have the stomach for engaging in a debate about morality, education, or devotion to the rules of the church. The younger man adopted a softer tone but persisted.

  “Since there were no Englishmen present to witness the events, Sir, would you agree that it is impossible to know with absolute certainty what really did happen?”

  An older officer joined in. “Dr. Rae, surely you cannot argue with Mr. Wellington’s point. How can one possibly trust the testimony of savages? For years, I travelled far and wide with the British navy. I have seen with my own eyes the vast differences between God-fearing Englishmen and primitive peoples. How can we believe the stories of ignorant pagans, of people who can neither read nor write? Who would sooner burn a book as fuel for their fires than take meaning from its leaves?”

  Wellington chimed in. “How is it that you, an educated and welltravelled man, are willing to accept such horrible stories as truths?”

  Commander Herd probably enjoyed a good debate as much as anyone, but his eyes narrowed and he brought a firm, authoritative hand down upon the table, the sudden smack catching us all by surprise. This discussion was an ambush in the making, and it was clear that he did not like it one bit.

  “Enough, gentlemen!” he shouted. “It is inappropriate to harass Dr. Rae with such questions. This is neither the time nor place for an inquisition. As commander of this ship, I am ordering you to change the subject immediately.” The men exchanged glances and looked down at their plates, subdued. I placed my hands on the table, and looked the two impudent men directly in the eyes.

  “The commander has made a sensible decision, gentlemen,” I said. “This may not be the time and place for such a controversial discussion. It will take time for the dust to settle, and I hope that in the future, more detailed information will be discovered and made available to all.”

  “But the bloodthirsty natives… everyone knows about them!”

  I bristled. “Do they? Do you? You hear rumours, read stories and so on, but do you and the others really know the hearts and minds of the Esquimaux? Look, I am a strong supporter of education, and I suspect it would serve you well to fortify yours before you pass judgment upon others.” My appetite had vanished, but I remained seated at the commander’s table, consuming some of the meal and half-heartedly participating in light conversation. I was damned if I would let on that the men’s words had stung me.

  The remainder of the voyage passed without incident, although the order to be silent on the topic of the Franklin tragedy and cannibalism did not prevent some of the men from casting dark glances my way. I tended to the occasional case of seasickness and mild injury, but kept mostly to myself, with books and note-making to keep me occupied. The solitude suited me well because I knew I would soon see members of my family, and there would be much to discuss.

  Aberdeen

  [NOVEMBER 1854]

  The Prince of Wales II sailed into the port of Aberdeen in mid-morning. By the time the anchors were set, we were surrounded by numerous skiffs and yoles, and the noisy exchange of goods began to take place. The harbourmaster and a Hudson’s Bay Company representative boarded the ship to deal with documentation and bills of lading. I tidied up the infirmary and then stood on deck, watching boxes and items being removed from the hold and replaced by goods bound for Orkney.

  Since I was a small child growing up by the shores of Clestrain Sound on Main Isle in the Orkneys, I had never tired of watching the comings and goings of sailing vessels and fishing boats. This morning was no exception; the weather was as fine as could be expected for the northeast coast of Scotland in November. I picked up my telescope and looked closely at the shipyards, curious to see what was being built. My eye came to rest upon an almost-finished brigantine resting on a crib, with her two masts anchored in place. She was crawling with builders and gleaming with a fresh coat of varnish. What a lovely sight she was! I had always admired brigs because of their speed and manoeuvrability. They were relatively small, no-nonsense ships, designed to outrun just about any other vessel when all seven sails were hoisted, to dance circles around the larger, heavier, clumsier ones.

  A thought came to mind as I slowly looked her over through the lens, and my heart began beating a little faster. I pulled my notebook out of my pocket right then and there and sketched her. Then I made notes as the idea began to take more shape. The more I wrote, the more enthused I became, thinking about the possibilities, ignoring everything around me.

  North Sea, approaching the Orkney Isles

  [NOVEMBER 1854]

  I leaned against a rail on the foredeck of Prince of Wales II, telescope in hand, as she rose and fell on the waves, heading with the tides in the direction of Orkney’s Main Isle. The day was fine, crisp and cool. I indulged in one of my favourite pastimes, observing migrating birds and recording their approximate numbers in my notebook. I would later add the Latin names to each item on the list, according to G.R. Gray’s official system of bird species classification.

  A fresh gust from the northeast filled the sails and pushed the great ship towards home. Excited, I searched for the islands marking the entrance to Hoy Sound, the southern gateway to the Orkney archipelago. Finally, the majestic Hills of Hoy hove into view, and I felt my pulse quicken at the first sight of the land I loved.

  Stromness

  [NOVEMBER 1854]

  I had written to Marion from London, telling her that I would sail with the Company’s Prince of Wales II on her next voyage to Stromness. Sure enough, a large family party awaited my arrival at the town docks: my mother Margaret Glen Rae, her nurse Marion, my brother-in-law Dr. John Hamilton, Marion and John’s children and the housekeeper, Bessie. The faint, high-pitched sound of children’s shouts joined a chorus of seagull cries as our ship made her approach. Fishing boats moved out of our path, the ship slowly came about in the waters of Hamnavoe, the sails were let down, and we dropped anchor.

  Our mam, once a handsome and robust woman, appeared to have shrunk in the two years since I had last seen her. Her tiny figure was now bundled in a blanket and confined to a wheelchair. The eldest Hamilton son, Gavin, a tall young man of nineteen, knelt beside her, extended his arm and pointed a finger in my direction. So much had changed since the glory days of our life at the Hall of Clestrain on the other side of the sound. Our family was much diminished and changed by this time, through emigration, births and deaths. I was eager to put my arms around Mam, around all of them. Excited, I waved to them — the Arctic, London, brigantines and migrating birds all forgotten for the time being.

  The children were held back until I stepped onto the wharf with my things. Once they were released, they descended upon me, one or two of the older ones grabbing at my arms, the little ones my trouser legs and the ones in between, my overcoat. Marion and John stood quietly until the children’s greetings subsided, and Mam’s nurse had wheeled her to where she could, with one slender arm, reach out and touch me. I bent down and kissed her cheek, then crouched to embrace her, tightening the Hudson’s Bay Company blanket around her small shoulders. Holding onto her hand, I rose and greeted my sister and her husband.

  Our group retired to The Haven on the Plainstones beside the harbour, once the Hudson’s Bay Company offices my father had overseen in Stromness, and now Mam’s home. It felt good to have my feet on the ground in Orkney again. In the absence of the usual fog or rain, the view from The Haven’s kitchen window was perfectly clear that day. As I peered through it, I was able to see the outline of our former family home across the waters of Clestrain Sound, and a melancholy feeling washed over me.

  Even though the Hall of Clestrain was now in the hands of a new factor and his family, to me it would always be
our home. Most of the time, mist and rain rolled in like curtains, obscuring the view across the water, which almost made it simpler to accept not living there anymore. When the Hall was hidden by fog or rain, I was able to look ahead and imagine new possibilities, instead of being reminded of the idyllic life that I had believed was mine as a child.

  The Haven, Stromness

  [NOVEMBER 1854]

  The others left my mother and me alone for a little while in The Haven’s kitchen. At first, I observed her through the eyes of a physician, and then as a son. Her paralyzed arm was tucked in at her side under the blanket. I saw the warmth in her eyes; I could tell that her spirit was still there but she was fragile. I was afraid to hold her too tightly for fear of breaking her.

  I kept my emotions in check. “Mam, it is good to be home again.”

  Tears filled her eyes. She could not reply, although the words were probably formed and well organized in her mind. I sat at the kitchen table with my mother in her wheelchair close beside me. As I talked, I stroked her hands and spoke about life in the Arctic as if I were reading aloud from one of the many letters I had written to her during the years I was away.

  “This latest journey in the Arctic was challenging, Mam. The weather was more fickle than usual. Sometimes it was fine in the morning but blowing a nasty gale in the afternoons. When the blizzards came, we had to stop and wait for them to pass because we could no longer see where we were going.”

  She blinked several times, to let me know that she was listening.

  “It was difficult to spot our hunting quarry in those conditions, and of course we were always on the lookout for sources of victuals when our supplies grew low. We got along well enough on the pemmican recipe I had learned from the natives, although the mixture of dried venison, berries and salt quickly becomes a rather tiresome diet. Our daily fare was not as meagre as it was in 1847, though. Will you ever forget when I returned home from that one? My belt was around my knees! You forcibly fed me for weeks despite the fact that I was a fully grown adult!” I chuckled at the memory of her hovering over me like a hawk. I detected a sparkle in her eyes, and that little discovery made me smile.

  “Oh, and on warmer days when the snow melted into pools of water, the midges and mosquitoes bred faster than rabbits! Dark clouds of them rose as one from the water’s surface, and their assaults were relentless! Dragging sixty pounds of instruments on a sledge through swarms of biting insects across the Boothia Peninsula was quite a challenge for this forty-one-year-old body.” I patted my knees and wiggled them for her as if I were a child spending time with his mother, regaling her with stories after a day of youthful activities.

  “Living in a snow house is cozy, of course,” I continued, “but it can drive you to distraction if you don’t get out and about for a few hours a day, even in the foulest weather. You spend two hours building it and then you are all wedged in together, wrapped in deerskins, and you have no choice but to bundle up in little groups to sleep, much as we did when we were children living right over there at the Hall. One man would turn over and the others were forced to do the same or face each other, wretched breath and all. Someone would pass wind and we would all join in. We called it ‘The Last Piper’!”

  I chuckled at the memory. “Before long, I began to build separate, smaller snow houses for my sleeping quarters, because the men all enjoyed smoking tobacco, and I slept poorly in the smoke-filled space.” Mam already knew the stories, but she had never discouraged me from telling them again. I wondered if she was feeling too tired to hear more tales of the Arctic but I pressed on, regretting that our conversation could only be one-sided.

  “I felt responsible for the men’s mental well-being as much as their physical condition. When the wind was blowing snow and visibility was almost nil, it was every man for himself when we played football, because the point was to stay warm and alert. We behaved like schoolboys, diving for the ball like gulls on a floating fish! In the warmth of a snow house, I often unpacked my fiddle and played a simple melody, with all of us trying to move around in a squatting position, pretending to dance a jig or two. There was much laughter and merriment in those silly moments!”

  Remembering her fondness for watching migrating birds, I took Mam’s hands into my own and recited the names of birds I encountered in the Arctic spring and summer, many of which wintered each year in Orkney: golden plovers, bar-tailed godwits, red-necked grebes, whitebilled divers and bonxies.

  Although I had described it to her before, I knew that Mam never tired of hearing about the aurora borealis — aksarnerk in the natives’ language — dancing green curtains shooting upwards, streaking blue, violet and red across the clear Arctic night sky. Her pale eyes twinkled when I spoke of shooting stars, spirits of the dead visiting each other in the qilak — living air — the native equivalent of what we called the heavens.

  After a while, Mam began to show signs of fatigue, so I lifted her from the chair and carried her to bed. “Rest now, Mam. I’ll look in on you later.”

  I stepped outside and stood on the stone beach at the edge of the water, telescope in hand, looking across the sound towards the Hall of Clestrain. Even from a distance, the great height of that Palladian mansion never failed to surprise me; there was such a grand quality to the steep roof and dramatic form, its twin chimneys rising upward as if they could touch the heavens. The building overlooked hundreds of acres of the many small holdings of tenant farmers, their low stone houses thatched with straw, heather or turf to shield the dwellers from the savage wind and rains which swept in so often from the sea. I decided to pay the resident Mackay family a visit at the Hall the next day.

  During supper next door at the Hamilton home, I told the children stories of the Arctic and distributed little presents of feathers and stones among them. I played a couple of tunes on my fiddle and some of them danced, much to everyone’s delight. When they were settled into bed, if not all yet asleep, I lingered at the dining table with Marion and John. The compassion on Marion’s pretty face was just visible in the candle-light

  “Johnny, you must be tired after all your travels and your time in London. Of course, it’s your decision whether you wish to tell us any of it this evening, or if ever.”

  I rubbed at my beard and moustaches, which had begun filling in again now that I was away from the city. “Let’s talk about other things, and then I will retire next door. I don’t want to think too much about the people and events in London, not tonight, anyway.”

  She placed a gentle hand on my arm. “The change of scene and a rest will do you the world of good,” she said, “and I’m so glad to know you’ll be spending some time with Mam.”

  “She has changed so much since I last saw her two years ago. Why, she barely ate any supper. Stuffed grouse was always one of her favourites.” I shook my head. “I foolishly thought my return might pick up her appetite a little bit.”

  “How long will you be with us this time?” As I observed Marion’s face more closely in the lamplight, I noticed signs of strain and fatigue.

  “I’ll stay for a while. See in the New Year here in Stromness, and return to London for Company meetings in January. I will come home at a moment’s notice if I am needed.”

  Marion met her husband’s eyes and then turned to me. “John and I are thinking about immigrating to Canada West, when the time is right.” She didn’t mention our mother, but we all knew that her death was not far away. “We think John will be able to open a medical practice in Hamilton, where Richard and Tom live, and close enough to Jessie and her family.”

  Our brothers were now living in the port city of Hamilton on Lake Ontario, running Rae Brothers & Company. Our sister Jessie and her husband Hector had moved to the area in 1840. We lost William in America, and a younger brother had died in infancy. Our eldest brother James, a sea captain, had perished off the west coast of Africa in 1832. If Marion and John moved away, there would be no members of the Rae family living in Orkney. The notion of everyone
leaving the Orkneys behind shouldn’t have bothered me so much, but it did.

  I shook my head. Scots were emigrating from their homeland by the hundreds, because the colonial government was offering them better land and living conditions in North America. The Raes were among the few lucky ones because our family had never been poor. I had naïvely assumed that future generations of Rae children would be raised in Orkney, just as my siblings and I had been. It seemed not so long ago when our young bellies had been full, our parents were nearby, the cook was busy in the pantry, and true bedtime stories of pirates made us shiver in our beds. I had followed my own adventurous heart and lived in the Arctic since the age of twenty. It never occurred to me that Marion would consider leaving the Orkneys.

  Marion spoke softly. “We cannot go back, you know. It’s time to begin looking ahead, Johnny. Don’t you think a new life in Hamilton, close to Tom and Jessie’s children and to Dick, with good schools nearby for our children and better professional opportunities for John, would make sense for us?”

  “Not if it means that no Raes live here.” As soon as the impulsive remark was out of my mouth, I wished I could take it back. Marion’s spine stiffened and she spoke in slow, measured words through clenched teeth. “I have remained here faithfully in Orkney with John and our children to look after Mam and stay close to her, while you and the others all moved far away, chasing your dreams.” Her eyes suddenly flashed with anger and resentment. “Does what I’ve done mean anything to you, Johnny? Where were you when we needed you all these years, especially after Papa died?”

  I looked down at my hands. Dear God. I never really thought about it. I had been too preoccupied with myself, with my own ambitions and adventures.