The man who brought John Rae back to the public consciousness has thrown his support behind the project to restore the Hall of Clestrain in Orphir.

Author Ken McGoogan’s book, Fatal Passage, was the story of Dr John Rae, the Orcadian explorer who discovered the fate of the expedition of John Franklin and found the last link in the Northwest Passage. Rae’s home was at the Hall of Clestrain.

Rae, unlike Franklin, got to know the native Inuit people, managed to survive in the wilderness without losing any of his party, and found that some of Franklin’s party had been driven to cannibalism in an attempt to survive.

Rae spent eight summers and four winters surveying the north and had seen more of the Arctic coast of North America than anyone else at the time. When Roald Amundsen became the first European to navigate the Northwest Passage, he sailed through Rae Strait.

But Dr John Rae was denied his proper recognition, following a campaign by Lady Jane Franklin, widow of the explorer.

Ken McGoogan was so determined to put this right that he trekked the shores of Rae Strait in the 1990s and placed a plaque on the spot where Rae discovered the passage.

Fatal Passage was published in 2001, spending several months on Canadian bestseller lists and winning three major prizes, the Drainie-Taylor Biography Prize from the Writers’ Trust of Canada, the Lela Common History Award from the Canadian Authors’ Association, and the Grant MacEwan Author’s Award.

In the United States it won a Christopher Award, being described as “a work of artistic excellence that affirms the highest values of the human spirit.”

The documentary film rights have now been sold to a Canadian producer living in the UK.

But Ken McGoogan does not take the credit for this success.

“It’s because readers are entranced with the wonderfully sympathetic and hugely admirable John Rae,” he told The Orcadian from his home in Toronto.

“I think the campaign to restore the Hall of Clestrain is a brilliant idea whose time has come, and I support it not just whole-heartedly, but passionately.

“I vividly remember traipsing around the Rae homestead a few years ago when I was researching my book, and I can hardly wait to return and see the hall once it has been restored.

“The boat-museum-and-gallery project has the potential to become a major tourist attraction for Orkney - eventually, dare I suggest it, the major attraction.”

The author said that, judging from the response in North America, the message was getting through about John Rae.

“But there is work still to be done, and I am not finished yet.

“My next book will reinforce the message of Fatal Passage.”

The new book, The Lady and the Arctic Legend, tells the story of Jane, Lady Franklin. It is due out possibly as early as autumn 2005.

Former OIC museums officer Bryce Wilson, a director of the boat museum company, recently described Lady Franklin as a Victorian spin doctor.

Mr McGoogan said that was right on the mark.

“Among Victorians, she was the Queen of Spin.”

He said it was high time the Hall of Clestrain became a memorial to “this remarkable man,” John Rae.

“Any money spent on this project should be regarded as money wisely invested in the future of Orkney.

“Restoring the Hall of Clestrain will pay huge dividends in the years and decades to come.

“It will also help right an historic wrong,” he said.

“The battle continues. And I think the good guys are winning.

“As I wrote in a foreword to the American edition of Fatal Passage, ‘John Rae deserves to be celebrated as a timeless example of courage, endurance, resourcefulness, egalitarianism, and integrity.

‘“Let the cry ring out: Justice for John Rae!’.

“I wish everyone involved with this project the best of luck.”

Dr Russell Potter, of Rhode Island College, Providence, in the USA, said he thought the restoration of Rae’s birthplace would be a very fitting honour.

Dr Potter has researched and written extensively on Arctic exploration.

In April this year he visited many of the sites associated with the disappearance of the Franklin expedition for a documentary being made about it.

“I would say that Dr Rae is better known in the United States today than he was several years ago,” Dr Potter said.

“This is chiefly due to Ken McGoogan’s book, Fatal Passage. The book was first published in Canada where, I believe, it strengthened Rae’s reputation, which has always been stronger there.”

* The Restoration campaign has brought a resurgence of interest in Fatal Passage. Sales of it in The Orcadian’s Kirkwall bookshop had slowed down after Christmas but they have increased since April. At John Rae’s newagents in Stromness, it has been selling “exceptionally well,” said a spokeswoman.