Mark Johnson Mark Johnson was a 24th century Human male . In 2371 , he was engaged to marry Starfleet Captain Kathryn Janeway . ( ) As a gift to mark their engagement , he gave Kathryn a copy of " Dante ' s Inferno " . ( ) Following the loss of the , Johnson was devastated , but he held out hope that Janeway and the rest of the crew were alive longer than most people did . Eventually he realized that he was clinging to a fantasy . He began living his life again , meeting people and letting go of the past . Kathryn Janeway had a picture of Mark and her dog Mollie in her ready room aboard the ship . ( ) In 2372 , Q salaciously encouraged Janeway to forget Mark in favor of him , as part of an attempt to persuade her to rule in the Q Continuum ' s favor during Quinn ' s political asylum proceedings . ( ) In early 2374 , six months after Starfleet Command had declared " Voyager " lost with all hands , Johnson married a woman who worked with him . He was relieved when it was revealed four years later that " Voyager " hadn ' t been destroyed and was in fact trapped in the Delta Quadrant . He sent a letter to Janeway , telling her what had happened in his life and that he was sorry . He additionally told her that her dog Mollie had given birth to a litter , and that he found homes for most of the puppies , and the others got along well with his kitten . Although saddened , Janeway did not blame him and logically had expected that he would have moved on by then . ( ) In 2375 , a falsified letter transmitted to Janeway by an alien lifeform was supposedly from Johnson . This letter had him being engaged rather than married and stated that the engagement had broken off . ( ) Appendices . Background information . Mark Johnson was played by Stan Ivar in and . His surname was never said aloud on screen , but it can be read from the " Dear John " letter Kathryn received in " Hunters " . The VOY Season 2 DVD trivia text version of gives his name as Mark Hobbes Johnson . In the first draft script of " Caretaker " , Mark was described as " a civilian man [ . . . ] who is used to this flurry of activity from the woman he loves . " Apocrypha . The Jeri Taylor novel " Mosaic " contains additional information about Mark , namely that he was born in the year 2333 in Bloomington , Indiana and raised by traditionalist parents in an agricultural community . It goes on to reveal that when he was six , he lost a pet dog and he had a very difficult time getting over it , and while a youth , he went by the name " Hobbes " ( his full name being " Mark Hobbes William Johnson " ) . Furthermore , it states that he attended The Meadows school and when he was nine , he began taking tennis lessons with Epkowicz , but refused to quit even though Epkowicz told him to . Two years later , he was taking lessons with coach Cameron , who also coached Kathryn Janeway . In 2349 , Johnson was swimming with Kathryn Janeway in a cave system under Olympus Mons on Mars . When trying to find an entrance to an underground cave , Johnson was pulled into a trench and Janeway saved his life by helping him get out . In 2351 , Johnson began attending Indiana University . He still played tennis occasionally , but he was a part of the school ' s prestigious swim team . He graduated from Indiana with a degree in philosophy . By 2359 , the novel explains that Johnson was part of a respected philosophical symposium based in South America called the Questor Group . By then , he had decided to switch to using his first name , " Mark " . In an alternate timeline featured in the " " novella " A Gutted World " , " Voyager " was never stranded in the Delta Quadrant and Janeway and Mark were married by 2373 . He was widowed when the ship was destroyed in that year by the Cardassian s .