Robert McDonald (1829-1913) was the Anglican missionary who did most to establish the gospel in the Yukon, although he is the least known. During 40 years in the north he worked to integrate Christian teachings into the culture of the First Nations, and translated the Bible, the Anglican prayer book and 300 hymns into the Loucheux language.
McDonald's maternal grandmother was Ojibway, and he spoke the language fluently, as well as speaking English and French. After working on the family farm in Manitoba and as a schoolteacher, McDonald entered the ministry, becoming a priest in 1853. In 1862 he was sent to Fort Yukon. A year after his arrival he found coarse gold near Birch Creek, the site, 30 years later, of the gold rush town of Circle City.
McDonald worked hard at Fort Yukon. He held services for the people of the First Nations and the few non-natives at the fort, and taught both the indigenous people and illiterate propectors and traders to read. By 1866 he knew enough of the Loucheux language to preach without an interpreter.
After Fort Yukon was taken over by the Americans in 1870, McDonald moved to Fort McPherson and began serving the entire Yukon basin, travelling more than a thousand miles a year across the Richardson Mountains to visit individual bands. In 1875 he was made Archdeacon of Mackenzie, and a year later married Julia Kutug, a 17-year old Indian woman 30 years his junior.
Because he wasn't European, McDonald was never made a bishop. But he was an unassuming and admirable man who gained the respect of the Loucheux. He retired in 1905 and died in Winnipeg in 1913. His wife returned to the Yukon and died in Dawson City in 1938.
