﻿24 MR. RAE's expedition. 1846. 



tions, Sir Edward Parry and Sir James Koss, on 

 whose opinions Sir John placed deservedly the 

 greatest reliance, were decidedly averse to his 

 attempting a passage in that direction ; and it 

 was known that Sir John Franklin had resolved 

 on trying all the other oj)enings before he entered 

 Regent's Inlet, which was to be his last resource. 

 It fortunately happened before any of the search- 

 ing expeditions were finally organised, that the 

 non-existence of a passage through that inlet was 

 fully ascertained. 



Mr. John Rae, a Chief Trader in the service of the 

 Hudson's Bay Company, left Fort Churchill in the 

 beginning of the summer of 1846, with two boats, 

 for the express purpose of completing the survey of 

 Regent's Inlet. He arrived in Repulse Bay in the 

 month of August of that year, and immediately 

 crossed an isthmus, forty-three miles wide, to the 

 inlet, taking one boat with him. Finding that the 

 season was too far advanced for him to complete 

 the survey that year, he determined, with a bold- 

 ness and confidence in his own resources that has 

 never been surpassed, to winter in Repulse Bay, 

 and to finish his survey of Regent's Inlet on the 

 ice next spring ; so that he might be able to return 

 to Churchill and York Factory by open water in 

 the summer of 1847. He therefore recrossed the 

 isthmus again with his boat, and set about col- 



