George McDougall

George Millward McDougall (September 9, 1821 – January 25, 1876) was a Methodist missionary in Canada who assisted in negotiations leading to Treaty 6 and Treaty 7 between the Canadian government and the Indian tribes of western Canada. He was also responsible for the theft of the Manitou Stone. Holly Quan wrote: "To the Blackfoot and Cree of the western plains, the Iron Stone was the embodiment of powerful spirits, a source of strength, power, protection and luck...To the Reverend George McDougall, the Iron Stone was a pagan symbol. With considerable effort, in the early spring of 1866 he had the stone dug from its resting place...to be proudly displayed on the lawn of the Methodist college where he was trained...That spring, when the Cree and Blackfoot came again to visit the Iron Stone...their link with the buffalo spirits...had mysteriously vanished. The elders predicted war disease and starvation. All their predictions came true." Biography McDougall was born in Kingston, Ontario (then Upper Canada). In 1842 he married Elizabeth Chantler and they eventually had nine children. After attending Victoria College in Cobourg, he was ordained in 1854. In 1860 he was sent to the Rossville near Norway House. In 1863 he established the Victoria Mission near Edmonton, the earliest Methodist mission in the West, and was superintendent of Methodist missionary work in the Saskatchewan District. In 1871 he founded a permanent mission at Edmonton House, a Hudson's Bay Company outpost at what is now Edmonton, Alberta. McDougall also helped prepare the Natives for the signing of Treaty 6 and Treaty 7. He died in a blizzard while on a buffalo hunt near what is now Calgary, Alberta. There is a cairn to mark the place of George's death, on Panora Way NW in Calgary. He and his son John McDougall served missions over a wide area, ministering to Indian groups at Pigeon Lake, Stoney Lake, Saddle Lake and Whitefish Lake.