Rae had displayed such ability when acting in conjunction with Sir John Richardson that the Government felt that they could not do better than entrust the conduct of the next expedition to him, so they asked Sir George Simpson for the loan of his services and commissioned him to continue the Franklin search in 1851 in whatever manner he thought best, only stipulating that the voyage should be made by boat.
With considerable difficulty he succeeded in getting two small boats built at the Great Bear Lake, and, after a preliminary sledge-expedition to Wollaston Land, in which he covered no less than 1100 miles in thirty-one days, on June 15, 1851, he started off on the serious work of the year from Provision Station, Kendall River, whither the boats had been brought to meet him. Passing through Dease Strait he soon made Cape Colburn, and instantly set to work to examine the east coast of Victoria Land, much of which had never been visited by a civilised man before. His boats, however, had to be abandoned after a while, for a stiff northerly gale and packed ice made it impossible for him to use them, and he felt that he would do better if he pursued his journey on foot. The rugged limestone debris with which the shore was covered, however, made this mode of travelling exceedingly irksome, and, meeting with no better success inland, he was obliged to turn back after attaining lat. 70° 03´ long. 101° 25´ thus, though he did not know it, reaching a higher latitude than that in which the Erebus and Terror were abandoned.
On his way home he found a boat’s stanchion and the butt-end of a small flagstaff, with a piece of rope attached to it in the form of a loop, which he rightly supposed to be relics of the Franklin expedition.
He returned to Fort Confidence, at the eastern extremity of the Great Bear Lake, without misadventure, after a brilliant journey, in the course of which he had explored 725 miles of unknown coast-line in Wollaston and Victoria Lands. For this service the Royal Geographical Society awarded him the founder’s gold medal.
His next journey was undertaken not as an agent of the Government, but as a servant of the Hudson’s Bay Company, and his mission was to explore the west coast of Boothia, of which very little was known at that time.
His first objective was his old headquarters at Repulse Bay, and thither he sailed in August. The outlook was calculated to fill with misgivings the heart of a less intrepid explorer than Rae. The weather, in the first place, was unfavourable for fishing and hunting. In the second place, not a trace of an Eskimo was to be found, from which fact he gathered that game was not so plentiful now as was the case when he had paid his last visit to Repulse Bay. Consequently he began to feel serious doubts as to the possibility of spending the winter there, for, being of the opinion that the country ought always to be made to support the explorer, he had only brought sufficient provisions for three months, and had depended on his guns and his nets to make up the deficiency. Consequently, he did not feel justified in asking his men to share the dangers of an Arctic winter with him against their will, so he called them together, told them exactly how matters stood, and asked them whether they would stay there or return. Such was their confidence in their leader that they one and all volunteered to remain where they were. Luckily for them the weather improved a little, and before the end of September they had laid in a sufficient supply of provisions and fuel to last them up to the period of the spring migrations of the deer.
It was on the last day of March that Rae and four men started out on the great spring journey which would, as they hoped, lead them across Boothia Peninsula from Pelly Bay to the Castor and Pollux River, and thence northward along the western coast of Boothia as far as Bellot Strait, thus connecting Simpson’s discoveries with those of Kennedy. They had been travelling for about three weeks when they happened to fall in with an Eskimo, from whom they obtained the first news of Franklin’s fate. The story is, perhaps, best given in Rae’s own words:—
“The man was very communicative, and, on putting to him the usual questions as to his having seen white men before, or any ships or boats, he replied in the negative; but said that a party of ‘Kabloonans’ (whites) had died of starvation a long distance to the west of where we then were, and beyond a large river. He stated that he did not know the exact place, that he had never been there, and that he could not accompany us so far.”
The substance of the information then and subsequently obtained was to the following effect:—
“In the spring four winters past (1850), whilst some Eskimo families were killing seals near the north shore of a large island, named in Arrowsmith’s charts King William Land, forty white men were seen travelling in company southward over the ice, and dragging a boat and sledges with them. They were passing along the shore of the above named island. None of the party could speak the Eskimo language so well as to be understood; but by signs the natives were led to believe the ship or ships had been crushed by ice, and that they were then going to where they expected to find deer to shoot. From the appearance of the men (all of whom, with the exception of one officer, were hauling on the drag ropes of the sledges, and were looking thin,) they were then supposed to be getting short of provisions, and they purchased a small seal, or piece of seal, from the native. The officer was described as being a tall, stout, middle-aged man. When their day’s journey terminated they pitched tents to rest in.