Robert McDonald (1829 - 1913)	
	
Robert McDonald was of Scottish and Cree heritage. He was born at Point Douglas, Manitoba to Neil McDonald and Ann Logan. Robert attended school at the Red River Academy and then worked on his father’s farm. He went to Norway House to teach at the Methodist mission at age nineteen, and in 1850 he returned to Red River and entered the ministry.((“Memorable Manitobans: Robert McDonald (1929-1913).”  Manitoba Historical Society website: http://www.mhs.mb.ca/docs/people/mcdonald_r.shtml)) He attended St. John’s College in Winnipeg and graduated with honours.((Manuscript "Summery of the Anglican Church in Yukon" by Archdeacon Allan Haldenby of Dawson in 1957 and updated by Lee Sax and Bishop Ronald Ferris in 1991.)) He was ordained deacon in 1852 and priest in 1853. That fall he was put in charge of the Islington Mission on the Winnipeg River [240 km northeast of the Red River settlement]. He learned Ojibway and translated the minor prophets.((“Memorable Manitobans: Robert McDonald (1929-1913).”  Manitoba Historical Society website: http://www.mhs.mb.ca/docs/people/mcdonald_r.shtml))
	
In 1862, McDonald was recruited by W. W. Kirkby and he went to join him to minister to the Gwich’in and establish a Church Missionary Society mission at Fort Yukon. McDonald travelled down the Mackenzie River, over the mountains and down the Porcupine River.((Sally Robinson, //Robert McDonald Annotated Journals.// 2024 website: https://www.academia.edu/121998320/Robert_McDonald_Annotated_Journals)) He discovered the first reported gold in the Yukon River Valley in the Birch Creek district.((Walter R. Hamilton, //The Yukon Story.// Vancouver: Mitchell Press Limited, 1964: 155, 146.)) The creek was later called Preacher Creek.((Alfred Hulse Brooks, //Blazing Alaska's Trails.// Fairbanks: University of Alaska Press, 1953: 311.)) 

McDonald arrived at Fort Yukon at the same time as Father Sequin. Father Sequin did not have many converts, as the Hudson’s Bay Company supported the Anglicans.((Sally Robinson, //Robert McDonald Annotated Journals.// 2024 website: https://www.academia.edu/121998320/Robert_McDonald_Annotated_Journals)) In 1864, McDonald experienced chest pains and requested a leave.((Old Log Church Museum website, 2006: http://www.virtualmuseum.ca/Exhibitions/BishopStringer/english/mission-mcdonald.html)) He had done a good job of integrating the Anglican church into Gwich’in culture, but the Catholics were poised to move into the area if it was vacated. Mission workers were difficult to locate in Canada, and Bishop Anderson took his appeal to England during a speaking engagement in England in 1865. Thirty-one year-old William Bompas answered the call.((H.A. Cody, //An Apostle of the North.// Introduction by William R. Morrison and Kenneth S. Coates. The University of Alberta Press, 2002: XLI.))

McDonald travelled to Peel River but then felt well enough to sign up for more years in the north and returned to Fort Yukon in August 1865. He returned to experience a devastating epidemic of influenza and scarlet fever that killed large populations of First Nations people. He credited his recovery to Indigenous tonic made from a root called “Toayashi” meaning “it helped cure his uncle’.”((Old Log Church Museum, 2020 website: http://www.virtualmuseum.ca/edu/ViewLoitDa.do?method=preview&lang=EN&id=15212.)) 

McDonald continued to experience poor health but travelled extensively.((Sally Robinson, //Robert McDonald Annotated Journals.// 2024 website: https://www.academia.edu/121998320/Robert_McDonald_Annotated_Journals))) He visited Noukelakayet, near the mouth of the Tanana River two or three times before the Russians owned Alaska.((Francois Xavier Mercier, //Recollections of the Youkon: Memoires from the Years 1868-1885.// Edited by Linda Finn Yarborough. Anchorage: The Alaska Historical Society, 1986: 38, 43.)) In 1869 McDonald left LaPierre House in May and travelled down the Porcupine and Yukon rivers in a birchbark canoe, accompanied by an interpreter.((Francois Xavier Mercier, //Recollections of the Youkon: Memoires from the Years 1868-1885.// Edited by Linda Finn Yarborough. Anchorage: The Alaska Historical Society, 1986: 38, 43.))  William Loola and Natthui paddled McDonald to a gathering near the mouth of the Tanana River [Nuklukayet/ Noochuloghoyet].((Lee Sax and Effie Linklater, //Gikhyi: One Who Speaks The Word of God.// Diocese of Yukon, November 1990.)) They arrived at Noukelakayet on June 10th.((Francois Xavier Mercier, //Recollections of the Youkon: Memoires from the Years 1868-1885.// Edited by Linda Finn Yarborough. Anchorage: The Alaska Historical Society, 1986: 38, 43.))

The chief of the Kutcha Kutchin, Shahnyatti, asked some to stay at the gathering and listen to McDonald. All the chiefs rose to volunteer: Kwiyate of the Tunun Kutchin, Bikkienchatti of the Tranjik Kutchin, Tevisinti of the Netsi-Kutchin, and Nootlete of the Han-Kutchin.((Lee Sax and Effie Linklater, //Gikhyi: One Who Speaks The Word of God.// Diocese of Yukon, November 1990.)) McDonald taught catechism before continuing to St. Michael where he stayed for several weeks before returning to his mission.((Francois Xavier Mercier, //Recollections of the Youkon: Memoires from the Years 1868-1885.// Edited by Linda Finn Yarborough. Anchorage: The Alaska Historical Society, 1986: 38, 43.)) William Loola learned from Reverend Robert McDonald and was appointed a Christian Leader in December of that year.((Lee Sax and Effie Linklater, //Gikhyi: One Who Speaks The Word of God.// Diocese of Yukon, November 1990.))

Robert McDonald was joined by his brother Kenneth and they moved from Fort Yukon to Rampart House, Alaska in 1872.((Old Log Church Museum website, 2006: http://www.virtualmuseum.ca/Exhibitions/BishopStringer/english/mission-mcdonald.html)) The Anglican Church had a bias towards ministers trained in England and in 1874, the relatively newly-arrived William Carpenter Bompas was named Bishop. In 1875, McDonald was made the Archdeacon of Mackenzie and, after a year at Rampart House, McDonald moved to Fort McPherson in 1876.((Old Log Church Museum website, 2006: http://www.virtualmuseum.ca/Exhibitions/BishopStringer/english/mission-mcdonald.html)) 

Rev. McDonald and Julia Kutug, a young Gwich’in woman, were married in 1876. McDonald performed his own marriage instead of asking Bompas to do it when he visited.((Cheryl Gaver, “Solitudes in Shared Spaces: Aboriginal and EuroCanadian Anglicans in the Yukon and the Northwest Territories in the Post-Residential School Era.” Thesis submitted for a Ph.D. in Religious Studies to the Faculty of Arts, University of Ottawa, 2011: 77, 82.)) 

Sarah Simon noted that McDonald came as a young man to teach the people using a large piece of paper to show God in heaven. He went over the mountains by foot to Fort McPherson and travelled and lived with the people, cooking over an open fire and teaching in people’s tents. He learned to speak the language right away. He trained the boys and girls by teaching in stories so people could relate to the stories in the bible.((“Interview with Sarah Simon.” Old Log Church Museum research files.)) Archdeacon McDonald held to a policy supported by Church Missionary Society William Venn that trained First Nation ministers so they could travel to the far-flung congregation. Many of these Christian Leaders were already shamans or religious leaders.((Lee Sax and Effie Linklater, //Gikhyi: One Who Speaks The Word of God.// Diocese of Yukon, November 1990.))

McDonald travelled to Europe in 1882 to have his Tukudh translations of the Book of Common Prayer and the Old and New Testaments published and to recover his health. Julia went with him to Winnipeg and then returned to Fort McPherson with their children. McDonald returned in 1886 and continued his mission until 1904 when bronchitis forced his retirement to Winnipeg.((Sally Robinson, //Robert McDonald Annotated Journals.// 2024 website: https://www.academia.edu/121998320/Robert_McDonald_Annotated_Journals)) McDonald received an honorary doctorate in divinity around 1887.((Cheryl Gaver, “Solitudes in Shared Spaces: Aboriginal and EuroCanadian Anglicans in the Yukon and the Northwest Territories in the Post-Residential School Era.” Thesis submitted for a Ph.D. in Religious Studies to the Faculty of Arts, University of Ottawa, 2011: 77, 82.)) McDonald’s Gwich’in grammar and dictionary were published in 1911. McDonald’s papers are in the Archives of the Ecclesiastical Province of Rupert’s Land at the Archives of Manitoba. McDonald Avenue in Winnipeg is named in his honour.((“Memorable Manitobans: Robert McDonald (1929-1913).”  Manitoba Historical Society website: http://www.mhs.mb.ca/docs/people/mcdonald_r.shtml))

Robert McDonald’s enduring legacy was his laying the foundation for an Indigenous Church and an Indigenous Christianity in the north and the enduring faithfulness of generations of Tukudh Gwitch’in.((Cheryl Gaver, “Solitudes in Shared Spaces: Aboriginal and EuroCanadian Anglicans in the Yukon and the Northwest Territories in the Post-Residential School Era.” Thesis submitted for a Ph.D. in Religious Studies to the Faculty of Arts, University of Ottawa, 2011: 77, 82.))