The gold medal of the Royal Geographical Society was in 1852 most
rightfully awarded to this indefatigable Arctic explorer. His survey of
the inlet of Boothia, in 1848, was unique in its kind. In Repulse Bay
he maintained his party on deer, principally shot by himself; and spent
ten months of an Arctic winter in a hut of stones, with no other fuel
than a kind of hay of the _Andromeda tetragona_. Thus he preserved his
men to execute surveying journeys of 1000 miles in the spring. Later he
travelled 300 miles on snow-shoes. In a spring journey over the ice,
with a pound of fat daily for fuel, accompanied by two men only, and
trusting solely for shelter to snow-houses, which he taught his men to
build, he accomplished 1060 miles in thirty-nine days, or twenty-seven
miles per day, including stoppages,--a feat never equalled in Arctic
travelling. In the spring journey, and that which followed in the
summer in boats, 1700 miles were traversed in eighty days. Dr. Rae’s
greatest sufferings, he once remarked to Sir George Back, arose from
his being obliged to sleep upon his frozen mocassins in order to thaw
them for the morning’s use.