Allan John “Hardrock” MacDonald
Hardrock MacDonald explored all over the northern Yukon between 1920 and 1960. In 1920, he was a teamster on the silver ore haul from Keno Hill to the sternwheeler landing at Mayo. He stayed on to become a catskinner on the Treadwell Yukon ore haul. When he heard about the development of the oil field at Norman Wells, NWT he walked from Keno over the mountains to the Mackenzie River. He was the first to talk about the silver-lead deposits in the Kathleen Lakes area. In the 1930 he flew out of Mayo to prospect an area he was unfamiliar with and, much to his own surprise, ended up on the Porcupine River. In 1928, MacDonald was one of Wenecke’s prospectors in a Yukon-wide air reconnaissance program that sent out prospecting parties. MacDonald was known as a man of incredible endurance.1)
Whitehorse lawyer George Van Roggen told Erik Nielsen a story about Hardrock MacDonald. When George first got to Whitehorse in 1949, he stayed at the Whitehorse Inn. One of his fellow guests, Hardrock MacDonald, had been out in the bush a long time and was hungry for fresh food. He went to Burn's butcher store where they a fresh shipment of chickens. He bought a couple, put them in a sack and took them back to his room. He then got drunk and plucked the live chickens. When the chicken had only pin feathers around their heads, Hardrock passed out. Later in the night he awoke to the sight of two naked birds perched on the end of the bed. He reached for his rifle and shot one of the birds. The noise brought the hotel proprietor who burst into the room. The other chicken took off down the hall. George had been drinking in his room and when he looked out in the hall to see a naked chicken streaking past, he returned to his window and poured out the rest of his gin.2)
Mount MacDonald in the Mayo area is named for Hardrock MacDonald.