Tour Scotland short 4K early Autumn travel video clip of a Scotsman walking wearing a Kilt and Sporran by Hall of Clestrain at Orphir on ancestry, genealogy, history visit and trip to the South West coast of the mainland Orkney Islands, Britain, United Kingdom. Clestrain was part of the Graemsay estate. The estate had come into the Honeyman family as the dowry of Cecilia Graham, daughter of Harie Graham of Breckness, when she married Robert Honeyman, grandson of Andrew Honeyman who was Bishop of Orkney from 1664 to 1676. This hall was built in 1769 for Patrick Honeyman. He inherited the Graemsay estate after his father and brother drowned together in the Pentland Firth on journey to Edinburgh. The Honeyman family later moved to the mainland, and the house was occupied by their agent, John Rae. The hall was the birthplace of Rae's son, the Arctic explorer John Rae, in 1813, the sixth of nine children. Already in his childhood the young John Rae learned many skills that would become useful to his later explorations. By the age of fifteen, Rae had become an excellent musket hunter, rock climber and hiker, enjoying hobbies like fishing and boating. After studying medicine in Edinburgh, he graduated with a degree from the University of Edinburgh and was licensed by the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh at age 19 in 1833. Two months after graduating he accepted a post for a season as the ship's surgeon aboard the Prince of Wales, a supply ship for the Hudson Bay fur trading settlements. During his first voyage the ship was kept from its return home to Great Britain by an early winter 1833 and pack ice closing the route. The ship's crew had to spend the winter on the deserted Charlton Island. Rae's skills as a hunter and doctor, as well as his knowledge about fauna and its pharmaceutical merits managed to keep most men alive throughout the winter despite heavy cases of scurvy, which took two lives among the crew. He went to work for the Hudson's Bay Company as a surgeon, accepting a post at Moose Factory, Ontario, where he remained for ten years. While working for the company, treating both European and indigenous employees, Rae became known for his prodigious stamina and skilled use of snowshoes. He learned to live off the land like a native and, working with the local craftsmen, designed his own snowshoes. This knowledge allowed him to travel great distances with little equipment and few followers, unlike many other explorers of the Victorian era. After a year spent learning surveying techniques, Rae spent the next nine years in Arctic exploration from 1845 to 1854, becoming one of the first Europeans to overwinter in the high Arctic. In the course of these he travelled 6555 miles on foot with or without snowshoes, 6700 miles by boat and surveyed 1765 miles of land previously unexplored5. His first and fourth expeditions were for the purpose of surveying; the second and third were undertaken in the search for the missing Franklin expedition; on the fourth, while surveying the Boothia peninsula, he learned from the Inuit of the fate of Franklin’s crew and also discovered the Northwest Passage. None of the Rae children chose to remain in Orkney. John’s siblings opted for Canada, his sister remaining in Stromness6 only until their mother died in 18557. John returned to Canada after he resigned from the Hudson Bay Company, marrying there in 1860, but eventually making his home in London, where he died in 1893. Of interest to folks with ancestry, genealogy or Scottish Family Roots in Scotland who may wish to visit one day. Find things to see and do in Scotland where you are always welcome. Meteorological Autumn or Fall is different from standard and astronomical Autumn and begins September 1 and ends November 30
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