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Following article posted September 10, 1999 Vol. III No. 16 
By: William Norin, appleglo@cyberg8t.com Research Breakthroughs Can Happen Anytime My ancestors were Scottish emigrants who settled in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. Their name was Mac Donald. In about 1984 while I was visiting the graveyard adjoining the small parish where my grandfather was baptized in East Bay, Cape Breton, I came across an interesting stone for a Dougal Mac Donald. The inscription said that Dougal died in an avalanche at Rodger's Pass, British Columbia in 1910. I later learned while back there that Dougal was a third cousin. Years later my wife and I, while on vacation in Canada, had occasion to pass through Rogers Pass, one of the highest passes in the Canadian Rockies, and while at the visitor's center we viewed an excellent film which described their "Snow Wars". It seems that for several decades the Pass has been plagued by fearsome avalanches which without warning would cascade down tons of snow upon the tracks and close down the Canadian Pacific Railroad for weeks at a time. Therefore, the RR hired crews of day laborers to dig out the tracks following these natural disasters. On one such occasion, on Mar. 10, 1910, while a crew of 62 workers cleared the track from an earlier snow slide there was a tremendous roar and down came the mountain again, killing all sixty-two men. Before leaving the Pass I picked up a book at the gift shop which provided additional info. It confirmed that a burly foreman by the name of Dougal Mac Donald had been one of the victims. Early newspapers in nearby Revelstoke described how Dougal's body was taken home for a large family funeral and burial in the small cemetery adjoining his home parish in East Bay, Nova Scotia. I thought that ended my record keeping on Dougal Mac Donald for, obviously, there would be no descendants. A number of years later I learned how mistaken I had been. In the Spring of 1996 I was contacted by a priest in Ontario Canada who was seeking genealogical information for a Clarence Kennith Mac Donald, grandson of Dougal. I informed the priest this couldn't be so for Dougal died aa a single man at Rogers Pass. The good father informed me I was only partially correct for although single, Dougal, nonetheless, had impregnated a young girl before his death. She immediately, before anyone could get her name, left the baby at an adoption home. Well, the baby grew up and now one of his three sons was looking for his grandparents. I would like to say that I helped him to find his grandmother but I did not. Up to this time all he has learned about her was that she was probably from a prominent local family in Revelstoke. However, I have provided Bruce with contact to lots of living relatives and he has visited that small cemetery where Dougal is interred, Dougal, whose seed was not wiped out by the avalanche and who did leave a legacy. Shopping Cart & Order Desk Global Genealogy & History Shoppe 1-800-361-5168 ( 9-5 Monday to Friday )
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