John Rae (explorer) - Later Career and Death

Later Career and Death

In 1860 Rae worked on the telegraph line to America, visiting Iceland and Greenland. In 1864 he made a further telegraph survey in the west of Canada. In 1884 at age 71 he was again working for the Hudson's Bay Company, this time as an explorer of the Red River for a proposed telegraph line from the United States to Russia.

John Rae died from an aneurysm in London on 22 July 1893. A week later his body arrived in Orkney. He was buried in the kirkyard of St Magnus' Cathedral, Kirkwall. A memorial to him is inside the cathedral.

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