Alex McDonald (prospector) Alex McDonald (prospector) Alexander "Big Alex" McDonald (1859–1909) was a Canadian gold prospector who made (and lost) a fortune in the Klondike Gold Rush, earning himself the title "King of the Klondike". The son of Scottish immigrants, McDonald was born in Antigonish, Nova Scotia. He was an unsuccessful prospector, having tried his luck in the Colorado gold fields, before heading to the gold rush in Juneau, Alaska, in the late 1880s. In 1895 or 1896, he was in the Yukon, employed by the Alaska Commercial Company at Forty-Mile to buy mining properties. Gold was discovered in the region in 1897.
Richard Harris (prospector) Richard and Joe were sent with Kowee by George Pilz, an entrepreneur from Sitka. Richard and Joe traded with the natives much of their grubstake for hoochinoo. When they returned to Pilz empty-handed, he promptly sent them back to the Juneau area. There, Kowee took them beyond Gold Creek (which today flows beside the city's United States Federal Building) to Silver Bow Basin. Today, a creek on Douglas Island is named Kowee Creek. After the discovery of gold in Juneau, Richard and Joe loaded approximately 1,000 pounds of gold ore back to Sitka. The town did not take its current