The Grave of J.J. McDonald

There are many solitary graves scattered across the Yukon from the times when people were spread out more across the landscape and were buried where they died.   Some were recorded in one sort of account or another, whether in a journal notation or something more official.  The death and burial of J.J. McDonald is one of these.  

This story started with a picture at the Yukon Archives of a grave that was taken in 1942 by Robert Hays, who was working with the US Army on the construction of the Alaska Highway.  The photo was of a sturdy wooden fence and a wooden marker saying “In memory of J.J. McDonald, Died Kloo Lake Feb. 5^th, 1939”.  It looked to be located on a small grassy hill with a range of hills behind.   I was intrigued by the picture and set out to find the grave and determine who J.J. McDonald was.

The hills in the photo looked like the Kluane Hills near Kloo Lake, northwest of Haines Junction, but a drive along the Alaska Highway in that area did not produce a match of the hill profiles.  Another look in the winter at the wide open view available from the ice of Kloo Lake showed that the hills were the ones to the west of the lake.  This narrowed the search area, but not enough to give a good idea of the location. 

The second question, about the identity of J.J. McDonald, was similarly difficult at first.  Historical records in the earlier 1900s often seemed to use an initial rather than a first name, and there were many J. McDonald’s to be found.  The break came with the finding of an online Library and Archives Canada file called “Estate of J.J. MacDonald, Yukon Territory”.  Although the last name was misspelled, it was a Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) report about the death of Joseph Jardine McDonald at Kloo Lake in 1939.

The file consisted of a half dozen pages of RCMP documents relating to McDonald’s death and burial.  They revealed his full name, that he was believed to have been born in New Brunswick, and that he was interested in prospecting.  It was also stated that he was well known in the Yukon, having lived here for 41 years, some of it in Mayo.  The report further said that he had no known next-of-kin, no will and no assets, and that he was now indigent (meaning poor and needy) and drawing an allowance of $20 per month from the Yukon Government.

With the information about McDonald’s full name, place of birth and approximate age, a further search of historical records showed that he was actually from Nova Scotia and was born in about 1869, making him about 70 years old at the time of his death.  He was at Lake Bennett in late May 1898 with the scores of other gold rush stampeders waiting for the ice to go out to begin the boat trip to the Klondike.  By 1901 he was a miner at Selwyn on the Yukon River, 220 kilometers upriver from Dawson City, and by at least 1910 was in the Kluane area, presumably to try his luck with the gold prospects there.

Whether McDonald stayed in the Kluane area for the next three decades until his death is not known, but the RCMP report said that at his death, he was a woodcutter and had been living for two years in a cabin belonging to Frank Sketch, owner of the trading post at Kloo Lake (see link below to related story).  He had complained to Sketch several times during the winter of ill health and was subject to fainting spells.

Sketch’s statement to the RCMP was that on February 2, 1939, Joe McDonald did not show up at the trading post at the end of his working day as normal.  Sketch went out with a flashlight to where McDonald was working, about 250 yards from the trading post, and found him lying on his back unconscious.  He packed him back to his cabin, placed him in his bed and warmed him with hot packs of salt.

The next morning Sketch sent Mae Stick from the nearby First Nations village to Ruby Creek, 18 kilometers away, to ask a woodcutter/sawmiller named Mickey Blackmore to go to Burwash Landing, a distance of about 90 kilometers, and get word to the RCMP.  These  journeys, or at least the longer one, would have been by dog team.  On February 7, almost four days later, the RCMP in Whitehorse received notification of McDonald’s situation.  The message said that Joe McDonald was found unconscious in the woods at Kloo Lake and asked the RCMP to advise if a plane would be sent to pick him up.

The Whitehorse RCMP requested instructions from their headquarters in Dawson City and received the following reply:  “plane not authorized.  Patrol by dog team as previously instructed if not already left to investigate when in the district”.  Whatever  this message was saying, the end result was that an RCMP dog team patrol did not come to Kloo Lake until February 26, three and a half weeks after McDonald’s collapse.  Whether the RCMP knew at some point that McDonald had died is not known, but the only real outcome of the trip was the statement taken from Frank Sketch.

In the meantime Joe McDonald had lain in bed and groaned for two and a half more days, but never regained consciousness and died in the early morning of February 5.  Sketch and another man who had been there during that time, Joseph Selby, buried McDonald on February 11 in a grave they dug by thawing the ground, a laborious process.  They buried him on a small knoll near the trading post that at the time had a nice view of the surrounding landscape.  Perhaps they had heard that the RCMP was not immediately coming and therefore proceeded with the burial.

The information about McDonald’s burial suggested his grave was likely not too far from Sketch’s trading post.  A trip along the trail from the Alaska Highway to the trading post site with Brad MacKinnon of Haines Junction eventually resulted in locating it.  Much of the area is now covered by a mature spruce forest and there are no obvious hills as indicated in the photo, but the grave was found through a combination of intuition, observation and luck, as is often the case.  It would have been in plain sight from the trail for a long time, but after nearly 80 years of forest growth it had become well hidden.

The dominant feature of the grave now is a large spruce tree growing up in it.  The fence and wooden marker are still quite solid, and other than the paint being worn away they look much the same as when they were placed.  The wording on the marker is very legible, as most of the black paint of the inscribed lettering still remains, although faded.  At some point the marker rotted at its base and fell over, and has since been propped up outside the fence.  The fact that the picture of the grave was taken by a US Army photographer, along with the quality of materials and workmanship of the fence and marker, has made me wonder if they might have been provided by the Army. 

McDonald’s death underscored the consequences arising from distance and slow methods of communication in that era.  The RCMP report surmised that McDonald likely died of a stroke due to his advanced age. 

Joe McDonald’s gravesite is now a relatively secluded location on Champagne and Aishihik First Nations settlement land. Perhaps it is an appropriate place for a person who may have been somewhat of a loner. It is also a testament to those who cared for him in the last days of his life, provided him with a proper burial, and erected a fine fence and marker for his final resting place.

Link to related article: Frank Sketch’s Kloo Lake Trading Post