Charles Edward MacDonald (d.1901)

Captain Charles MacDonald supervised the construction of the steamer Anglian at the south end of Teslin Lake in 1898. He saw the work through from start to finish in three months. The boat was 85 feet long and drew 33 inches of water. She was fitted with powerful engines and had good passenger accommodations.¹⁾

Captain Charles McDonald, cook Ransom, and a fireman were drowned on Lake Laberge when the steamer Goddard was wrecked in a storm. The Goddard was towing a barge and the rope parted [or was more likely chopped]. The captain kept steering into the wind until water on the deck put the fire in the boiler out, and the boat breached and capsized. Captain MacDonald and C.P. Snyder clung to the pilot house, but the captain was washed overboard. Robert Clarke, of Clarke & Sons of Dawson, went into the lake in a small boat and dragged Engineer Stockfeldt and C.P. Snyder in, although both men were unconscious from the cold and exposure.²⁾ The body of the captain was recovered on 3 May 1902 near Lower Laberge and was buried in the Whitehorse cemetery. The bodies of Charles Johnson and Herming W. Nelson were found and buried in Whitehorse. Ernest William’s body was not found until the following summer and he was buried on 19 May 1902.³⁾