Duncan D. McDonald (1871-1953)

Farmer, municipal official.

Born at Renfrew, Ontario on 19 May 1871, he came to Dauphin, Manitoba in 1900. He was on the Dauphin council for many years and served two terms as Mayor of Dauphin. He was elected Vice-President of the Union of Manitoba Municipalities at the 1914 convention in St. Boniface and in November 1916 at Brandon became its president, serving until 1918. At the 1922 convention in Portage la Prairie, he undertook the duties of secretary-treasurer following John Cardale, a councillor of the Rural Municipality of Blanshard, who had held that office from the Union’s formation at Brandon in 1905. McDonald held this office until 1930. He was described as “an orator of the old school with a scholarly background and a great love for poetry.”

McDonald was involved, along with Dauphin lawyer J. H. McFadden, in the founding of Riding Mountain National Park, in 1930.

For the last several years of his life, he made his home with his daughter in Copetown, Ontario. He died on 7 February 1953, while visiting Florida. He was buried in Riverside Cemetery in Dauphin, Manitoba.

More information:

Birth Pangs of a National Park by Charles T. Thomas
Manitoba Pageant, Volume 15, Number 1, Winter 1970

Sources:

Ontario birth registration, Ancestry.

Western Municipal News, April 1953, pages 105, 117.

We thank Liz Houghtling for additional information used in this profile.

Profile revised: 26 September 2009

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