Alexander “Big Alex” McDonald (1856 – 1909)
	
Alex McDonald was born in Antigonish, and left Nova Scotia in 1894.((“Alex McDonald (prospector).” //Wikipedia,// 2018 website: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_McDonald_(prospector) )) He spent fourteen years in the Colorado silver mines and then worked at Juneau, Alaska.((Pierre Berton, //Klondike.// McClelland and Stewart Ltd., 1977: 77-78.)) He came into the Yukon River drainage in early 1895 and was mining on the Sixtymile River when he heard about the Klondike discovery.((John Gould, unpublished notes.)) He bought half of Claim No. 30 on Eldorado from John Zornowsky for a sack of flour and a side of bacon and the claim proved to be one of the richest in the Klondike.((“Alex McDonald (prospector).” //Wikipedia,// 2018 website: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_McDonald_(prospector) ))
	
Instead of mining the claim himself, McDonald let a section out on a lease, or lay, to Charles Myers and Dick Butler for a percentage of the recovery.((Pierre Berton, //Klondike.// McClelland and Stewart Ltd., 1977: 77-78.)) Five men took out $5000 in twenty-eight days from a forty sq. ft. area. This was exceptional even by early Klondike gold rush days.((Joseph Ladue, //Klondyke Nuggets: A Brief Description of the Great Cold Regions in the Northwest.// 1897: 127.)) In forty-five days, Myers and Butler had recovered thirty-three thousand dollars in gold and McDonald got half.((“Alex McDonald (prospector).” //Wikipedia,// 2018 website: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_McDonald_(prospector) ))

McDonald washed 39,000 tons of gravel from his Eldorado claim and recovered $2,2000,000 between 1897 and 1899.((Walter R. Hamilton, //The Yukon Story,// Vancouver: Mitchell Press Ltd., 1964: 239.)) Four pockets of gravel yielded eleven thousand dollars.((Information from the 1902 //The Dawson News, Golden Clean Up Edition// in “Yukon History.” Canadian Gold prospecting Forum, 2019 website: http://gpex.ca/smf/index.php?topic=17421.20.)) By 1898, McDonald had an interest in seventy-five mines making him the largest landowner and employer in the area.((“Alex McDonald (prospector).” //Wikipedia,// 2018 website: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_McDonald_(prospector) )) McDonald was the early owner of Claim No. 19 Eldorado. He also owned Claim No. 14 with Bill Young, Jim McNamee, and Tom Scouce; Claim #22 with Rony and Dunc McDonald; Claim No.27 with Calder; Claim No. 30 with Oscar Ashley; and Claim No. 26 with Simon Stiles.((Walter R. Hamilton, //The Yukon Story,// Vancouver: Mitchell Press Ltd., 1964: 239.)) A photo in the Yukon Archives shows a pan of gold from McDonald’s Claim #2 Above Bonanza worth $1,348.((Yukon Archives, Finnie family fonds 81/21 PHO 140))
	
McDonald formed a partnership with Hugh Alexander Ferguson, a Scots immigrant who arrived in Prince Edward Island in 1840. Their McDonald Bonanza Klondike Company Ltd. was established in London, England in the winter of 1899, and they floated bonds, using agents at Winchester House London, to finance their mining efforts.((J. Clinton Morrison, //Chasing a Dream: Prince Edward Islanders in the Klondike.// Summerside, PEI: Crescent Isle Publishers, 2004: 103.)) 
	
McDonald invested in more than mining. The Yukon Telephone and Telegraph Syndicate was organized in the fall of 1897 by E. Leroy Pelletier. When it became a reality, stockholders included Alex McDonald, Dr. LeBlanc, Bill McPhee, Geo Demars, and John Ericson [Erickson]. The syndicate owned a plant, eighty miles of wire, twenty-five long-distance transmitters, one hundred drop switch boards and a complete outfit. In June 1898, telephone lines were planned to run up the gulches connecting to a city exchange.(("Telephone Plant Arrives." //Klondike Nugget// (Dawson), 28 June 1898.)) McDonald also provided capitol for the McDonald Iron Works Co. to gain control of making special equipment for the mining industry. George W. Waltenbough, a mechanical engineer from Pennsylvania who ran the Atlas Iron Works and Pacific Axle Works in San Francisco, provided the expertise. The president was A.R. Williams who handled supplies and marketing. The company imported iron, steel, boiler plates, piping, fittings etc., but also manufactured equipment from raw materials. They located local sand ideal for their purposes. The first piece made in the foundry was a pulley hanger in 1900.((Ken L. Elder, ed., "42. McDonald Iron Works Co." //Study Tour of the Yukon and Alaska.// Ottawa: Society for Industrial Archaeology, 1990.)) 
	
In 1901, they made a steam cylinder for the steamer //Tyrell// that weighed 2800 pounds. By 1902, they were manufacturing cast iron brick lined boilers. They ran a store with their manufactured items and raw materials such as steam fittings, pumps, steam hose and clamps, blacksmith coal and coke. In 1903 Waltenbough sold his interest to Alex McDonald. In 1905 the stock and buildings burned in a fire caused by faulty electrical wiring and the company may have ceased to exist.((Ken L. Elder, ed., "42. McDonald Iron Works Co." //Study Tour of the Yukon and Alaska.// Ottawa: Society for Industrial Archaeology, 1990.)) 
	
McDonald introduced steam powered water pumps on Hunker Creek to move water up the hillside. He wanted to sell the water to hillside claims. His company, Treadgold and McDonald, purchased a new Horizontal Reidler Pump and Corliss Engine in 1902 and assembled it at Hunker Creek in 1904. Few miners could afford the seven to eight dollars an hour that McDonald charged. Mechanical failures contributed to the costs and the pumps were soon abandoned.((Ken L. Elder, ed. "63. McDonald's Pumps" in Study Tour of the Yukon and Alaska. Ottawa: Society for Industrial Archaeology, 1990.))
	
McDonald was also interested in the Yukon fleet of steamers. He financed the building of the 229-ton //W.J. Mervin [W.K. Mervin].// She was built in Seattle in 1883 and left Dawson for Nome on May 31, 1899. She was lost in a storm off the Nome beach.((W.D. McBride, "Saga of Famed Packets and other Steamboats of Mighty Yukon River." //Caribou & Northwest Digest,// Spring 1949: 114.))
	
McDonald was known for his generosity and community contributions. The first Catholic Church in Dawson was destroyed in a fire almost as soon as it was built in 1898. Father Judge was able to rebuild it immediately through contributions from the community and a donation of $30,000 from Big Alex McDonald. In response, Pope Leo XIII made him a Knight of St. Gregory. McDonald’s fortune disappeared over the years. He continued to buy land but much of it was worthless. He died of a heart attack while chopping wood outside his cabin on Clearwater Creek where he was prospecting.((“Alex McDonald (prospector).” //Wikipedia,// 2018 website: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_McDonald_(prospector) ))