Sir John Richardson (1787 - 1865)

John Richardson was only one of a handful of the original members who returned from Sir John Franklin's first Arctic expedition. Richardson’s journal recounts their journey across the Barren Grounds, providing many details not found in Franklin's own 1823 narrative and posing questions about Franklin's ability as a leader. In addition to his achievements as a doctor, meteorologist, and cartographer, Richardson was the first great naturalist to study the North American arctic. His journal made such an outstanding contribution to ornithology, ichthyology, botany, and geology that much of modern arctic research is founded upon his observations.1)

Richardson was the foremost early naturalist of the North American Arctic and a veteran of numerous trips to the far north when he led the expedition in search of Sir John Franklin. His published account includes a number of images of a sub-Arctic Athapaskan people, the Gwitch’in, whom he visited in 1848. These published images and Murray's original drawings, known to scholars only through photostats in the British Columbia Provincial Archives, are the best early images of the Gwitch’in from that era.2)

The Richardson Mountain Range was named for Sir John Richardson.

1)
McGill-Queen’s University Press. Promotion for The Journal of John Richardson, Surgeon-Naturalist with Franklin, 1820-1822. McGill-Queens University Press, 1994. Edited by C. Stuart Houston and illustrated by H. Albert Hochbaum. ISBN 0-7735-1223-3.
2)
Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Description of Arctic Searching Expedition: A Journal of a Boat-Voyage through Rupert's Land and the Arctic Sea, in Search of the Discovery Ships Under Command of Sir John Franklin…. London, 1851.