page_title: Rae–Richardson Arctic expedition
section_title: Preparation
hierarchical_section_title: Rae–Richardson Arctic expedition / Preparation
caption_attribution_description: English: John Rae, explorer of the Arctic. Image online from [1] Subject has been deceased since 1893 so this image is certainly in the en:public domain.
context_page_description: The Rae–Richardson Polar Expedition of 1848 was an early British effort to determine the fate of the lost Franklin Polar Expedition. Led overland by Sir John Richardson and John Rae, the team explored the accessible areas along Franklin's proposed route near the Mackenzie and Coppermine rivers.
  Although no direct contact with Franklin's forces was achieved, Rae later interviewed the Inuit of the region and obtained credible accounts that the desperate remnants of Franklin's team had resorted to cannibalism. This revelation was so unpopular that Rae was effectively shunned by the British Admiralty and popular opinion, and the search for Franklin continued for several years.
context_section_description: As early as 1847, it was believed that Franklin's forces were likely icebound. The British Admiralty devised a three-pronged rescue effort to address the three most likely escape routes for Franklin – Lancaster Sound, the Mackenzie River (to the settlement of the Hudson's Bay Company fur traders), and Beering's Straits.
  Sir John Richardson, who had participated in earlier Arctic expeditions with Franklin himself, took the objective of the Mackenzie River, tracing the coast between the Mackenzie and Coppermine rivers, as well as the shores of Victoria Island and the Wollaston Peninsula, then known as Victoria Land and Wollaston Lands, in an overland expedition.
  Assuming the existence of an unknown but likely passage between these lands, it would have been the most direct route of travel consistent with Franklin's original exploration orders. John Rae of the Hudson's Bay Company was attached to this effort. Rae had 15 years of experience in the region and regarded the indigenous people with uncommon respect. It was planned that the expedition would extend their search by wintering in the area of Great Bear Lake.
  Recent seasons of hunting in Rupert's Land (as the Hudson's Bay Company area was called) had been poor, so additional provisions were transported to the area in 1847, prior to Richardson's departure. These consisted of over 17,000 lb (7,700 kg) of canned pemmican. Four half-ton boats were constructed (at Portsmouth Dock Yard and Camper's Yard at Gosport) for the river navigation, about 30 by 6 ft (9.1 by 1.8 m) each, but designed so that the two smaller boats nest inside the two larger boats during shipping. Five seamen and fifteen sappers and miners were selected as the expedition crew, many also skilled in carpentry, blacksmithing and engineering. The company's men and supplies departed England on June 15, 1847, making way for Hudson Bay.
  Ice in the Hudson Straits delayed the supply and crew landing until September 8, while Richardson completed his preparations in England. The Hudson's Bay Company provided transport of additional supply caches along their proposed route. Workers were deployed to fish and cut firewood in anticipation of the expedition. Richardson and Rae set out from Liverpool on March 25, 1848, landed in New York on April 10, and reaching Montreal four days later.
  Two canoes, crewed mainly by Iroquois and Chippewa, delivered Richardson, Rae, and their personal equipment to Cumberland House on the Saskatchewan River on June 13. Travelling by canoe and portage, Richardson and Rae met the advance party at Methy Portage on June 28, continuing down the Slave River with them until mid-July, reaching Fort Resolution on Great Slave Lake, source of the Mackenzie River, on the 17th.
caption: John Rae
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