John MacIssac
	
John MacIssac came to the Yukon around 1925 and worked on the dredges near Dawson. He worked as an electrician and saved his money to buy equipment. He received a contract in the mid-1940s to cut pilings for the Alaska Highway bridges from Watson Lake north. In 1950, he received a cost-plus contract to finish twenty-five miles of the Mayo Road from the Alaska Highway cut-off. This job had been started by Mannix, the prime contractor who had built the rest of the road to Mayo. MacIssac had two D-6s and a fleet of dump trucks.((Jane Gaffin, //Caching In.// Whitehorse: Word Pro, 1980: 68, 116-127.)) 

MacIssac often stopped at the Silver Dollar Lodge near the Teslin River on the Alaska Highway so he knew Al Kulan and his partner and lodge owner Bert Law. In mid-June 1952, Al told MacIssac that Joe Ladue had supplied a lead to an interesting Little Salmon mineralized zone. MacIssac grubstaked Al to look at the prospect and paid the airfare for a ten percent interest. The partnership dissolved at the end of August when Hudson Bay Mining and Smelting rejected an option on the "Kulan" and "Tosella" lead-zinc claims. ((Jane Gaffin, //Caching In.// Whitehorse: Word Pro, 1980: 68, 116-127.))

Al and Joe Etzel were to look at the Little Salmon area in early September but they were weathered out. Al organized trip up the Canol Road in late September but weather interfered again. Bert Law refused to support a 1953 expedition and relinquished interest in the Porcupine property. Al made a new verbal agreement with MacIssac who, for twenty percent interest, paid one-way airfare for Al and Chinery Sterriah to re-examine the nickel-copper showing. They prospected for eleven days, staked claims and then walked the hundred and fifty miles home. In May, Al and Art John drove William Smitheringale (geologist for Conwest Exploration) to the Porcupine property on the North Canol but it was too low grade. Al and Art John then were guests on a Con west flight into Little Salmon Lake's west end to a copper prospect. Smitheringale, Law, and Joe Ladue travelled on to a lead-zinc discovery for which an option agreement was signed but the prospectors never received any payments. By June, Al and Bert were broke and MacIssac had failed to keep up his part in the partnership.((Jane Gaffin, //Caching In.// Whitehorse: Word Pro, 1980: 68, 116-127.))

Paul Sterriah described a rusty gossan to Kulan and he located the great brown stain and a mineral discovery of galena and spahalerite. In July, Al and Bert tried without success to interest Ron Price, resident geologist for Hudson Bay Mining and Smelting. MacIssac promised to take the samples to Alec Berry, a Conwest employee who could assay them in the company's Keno Hill lab. Prospectors Airways heard of the discovery and after Ted Chisholm examined the samples they flew out to the location. Bert and Al staked discovery claims over the visible outcrop that became the Vangorda's focal point, about seven miles up from the mouth of the creek and Prospector's Airways optioned the property. MacIssac had run out of money and was in default on his partnership agreement.((Jane Gaffin, //Caching In.// Whitehorse: Word Pro, 1980: 68, 116-127.)) 

In an altered agreement on September 1954, Prospector's Airways decided against making any more payments to the prospectors until an extensive drilling program was carried out. Kulan and Law accepted a ten percent reduction in payments and a drop to twelve percent vendor's share in Vangorda Mines. MacIssac filed a lawsuit at this time, claiming a twenty percent interest for his grubstake. The court case took two years before Al and Bert made an out-of-court offer in order to get a settlement and pay off the First Nation prospectors.((Jane Gaffin, //Caching In.// Whitehorse: Word Pro, 1980: 68, 116-127.))