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.
William Barker (prospector) William Barker (prospector) William "Billy" Barker (1817–1894), was an English prospector who was famous for being one of the first to find a large amount of gold in the Cariboo of British Columbia. He also founded Barkerville which is preserved as a historic town. Barker was born in 1817 in March, Cambridgeshire, England and was baptised on 7 June 1817 in St Wendreda's Church, March. As a child he worked as a waterman on the waterways of England. He married Jane Lavender in Earith, Cambridgeshire in 1839 and had one daughter named Emma Eliza. Jane died in the workhouse in