William Herbert McDonald (1876 – 1918)

William McDonald was born in Portage La Prairie, Manitoba. He went to the west coast and arrived in the Yukon in December 1898. He worked for Mike Lane, packing with mules over the Ridge Road. He stayed with the Lynch Bros when they bought out Lane, and then started his own freight business in 1905. He and Emma Carlyon were married that year in Dawson, and they had three children. He was a member of the Yukon Order of Pioneers. In 1918, he and his family took passage on the Princess Sophia. He was taking twenty-four horses to Vancouver to sell and he planned to settle on the coast. The family was drowned when the Sophia went down in the Lynn Canal. They were buried in Portage La Prairie.¹⁾