Strange Co-Incidence of the Radio Scots Arctic Heritage
Strange Co-Incidence of the Radio
Scots Arctic Heritage
It’s strange when little events happen together and the things that connect us all are revealed. Michael Palin came on Radio 4 today with a new book on Arctic exploration the ship HMS Erebus and the 19th century Arctic explorer John Rae, a man who shares his surname with my wife’s favourite painter Barbara Rae. At the same time as I heard the Palin broadcast I was reading that a group dedicated to the Arctic explorer John Rae has raised £79,000 to buy the house in Orkney where he was raised before departing on his many journeys in northern Canada. All sitting under a Barbara Rae print called “Sea Fence.” It’s also true that a great number of the polar explorers came from Scotland, Ross the original captain of HMS Erebus was of Scots heritage, his uncle John Ross was an Arctic explorer before him and born in Balsarroch, West Galloway.
Ross, Rae and Erebus
But John Rae was born in Rae was born in Clestrain Orkney and studied medicine at Ediburgh before he went to work for the Hudson's Bay Company as a surgeon, accepting a post at Moose Factory. Rae is He is the man who discovered the final stretch of the Northwest Passage, and confirmed the disaster that overtook HMS Erebus in 1845 had claimed the lives of Sir John Franklin and all of those his expedition to chart the North West Passage. The John Rae Society has just raised a deal of money and plans to make his birthplace the Hall of Clestrain into a museum and visitors centre. It will be a tribute to his outstanding contribution to our understanding of the Arctic and the Inuit peoples. It mist have been the Orkney’s weather that hardened him up so much that he prospered greatly in the Arctic cold and was a demon on snow shoes it seems.
More MacSnowMen
Well by another strange co-incidence I am here to tell you about the many lovely things we have here at James Pirie and to remind you of the nation’s heritage in the exploration of the world’s coldest places we have a lovely little thing the MacSnowman. It’s a popular new item and out of stock but hopefully we’ll have some very soon.. Here he is wrapped up in a cosy red or blue scarf & tartan hat against the winter chill. By Caithness Glass the crystal snowman paperweight is handmade in Scotland.
