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William (Bill) L. McDonald (1893-1971) was a geologist and prospector. Born in Lacombe, Alberta and raised in Edmonton, he attended the University of Alberta and studied mining engineering and geology. This career took him to Hay River and Windy Point with the Imperial Oil Company as early as 1920. He began working for the Consolidated Mining & Smelting Company in 1925. In 1958, he reported on the Mar Mineral Claims at Marian Lake. In the course of his prospecting and geological activities, he developed a strong interest in rare books about the history of the area and became an amateur naturalist.

John Turquand (Turq) McCollum was born May 12, 1923, in Toronto, Ontario. In 1953, he married Joan (nee Watson), and they had four children: Peter, Jenny, Kathy, and Maggie.

From 1954-1963, the McCollums lived in Fort Smith, where John was an Anglican minister of the Diocese of the Arctic. In 1963, the family moved to Beaverlodge, Alberta, where they lived until 1970. In 1970, the McCollums returned to the north and lived in Hay River. In 1975, John McCollum became Archdeacon of the Diocese of the Arctic. The McCollums continued to live in Hay River until their retirement to Calgary, Alberta, in 1988.

John McCollum died June 14, 2020, in Calgary, Alberta. He was buried with his wife Joan in Hay River.

Tom and Elizabeth McCallum (nee McCoubrey) operated the Yellowknife Lumber Company Ltd. sawmill, located near Fort Resolution, during the late 1930s and 1940s.

F.A. (Frank) McCall was born in Edmonton, Alberta on June 7, 1920. He attended public school in Edmonton and high school at Alberta College, where his father was principal. McCall began working at the Consolidated Mining and Smelting Company Ltd. (Con Mine) in Yellowknife between 1940-41, before enlisting in the military in 1941. In 1945, Frank McCall married Grace Howells in Banff, Alberta, upon his return from service with the RCAF in Britain. The couple had one daughter, Keltie, and two sons, Laurents and Owen. Returning to the North to work for the Federal Government, McCall held the position of game warden for Fort Chipewyan, Alberta and Wood Buffalo National Park. Frank McCall became Chief Game Warden at Aklavik (1948-1952), Chief Warden and Administrator at Fort Smith (1953-1957), Regional Administrator (including Mining Recorder and Land Agent) at Yellowknife (1957-1961), and Mining Recorder and Land Agent at Whitehorse (1961-1965). In 1966, Frank McCall took a position with the Federal Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development in Ottawa. The McCall family then returned to Yellowknife in 1967, where Frank McCall held the Regional Administrator position until 1970. Frank McCall moved to Ottawa in 1971 and continued to work for the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development until his retirement in 1977.

The photographs were taken by Vincent McCaffrey. Originally from Cobalt, Ontario, Mr. McCaffrey lived in the Yellowknife region from 1955-1969 and was employed as a foreman at Discovery Mine. He was also active in local politics and a member of the NWT Liberal Party.

Wilfrid 'Wop' Reid May (1896-1952) was born at Carberry, Manitoba, March 20, 1896. He was the son of Alexander E. May of Wellington County, Ontario and Elizabeth Reid of Teswater, Ontario. He was educated in public schools in Edmonton and attended Western Canada College in Calgary and Alberta College in Edmonton. He was married in November 1924 to Violet A. Bode and they had one son, Denny.

'Wop' May learned to fly in the Royal Flying Corps during World War I. He gained notoreity because he was the unintentional decoy in the last flight of Baron von Richtofen, famed World War I flying ace. May, on his first R.F.C. combat flight was being chased by the "Red Baron" when Captain Roy Brown noticed the action. Richtofen was brought down by Captain Brown and died in that 1918 crash. Throughout his career with the R.F.C, May brought down 13 enemy planes. After returning to Canada, he organized Edmonton's first airline, May Airplanes Ltd. He travelled extensively in the Northwest Territories and is remembered as a famous bush pilot involved with many mercy flights, including a flight into a small community near Fort Vermillion in 1928 to deliver diptheria serum. He made the first ever scheduled mail flight from Edmonton to Aklavik and in 1932, he flew the plane that guided Royal Canadian Mounted Police Officers in their chase of Albert Johnson, known as the "Mad Trapper of Rat River." He was awarded the McKee Trophy for his contributions to aviation and he was also awarded the O.B.E. (Order of the British Empire). In 1936, he was given an executive post by Canadian Airlines Ltd., which was later absorbed by Canadian Pacific Airlines. He filled various posts in Edmonton and eventually transferred to Calgary. In 1943, he organized a first-aid parachute crew, a plan he had been considering for years while becoming convinced that pilots who crashed in remote areas might survive if given treatment early enough.

'Wop' May died in January 1952 of a heart attack he suffered while climbing a trail to the Tinapanogos Cave National Monument in Provo, Utah.

John Phillip Matta was born in 1928 in Vancouver, British Columbia, the eldest of four children. His father worked in the mining industry and thus moved the family to mine sites in British Columbia and Quebec while John grew up. He graduated from high school in 1946, and worked in mines until 1953 when he chose to join the Royal Canadian Air Force. He spent 10 years in the RCAF as a photographer with photo intelligence. After leaving the Air Force he worked as a production manager for a photo finishing company until his retirement in 1991. He has lived in Calgary since 1954.

Charles Wesley Mathers was born in Ontario to Irish immigrant parents in 1868. In 1892, the photographers Boorne and May hired Mathers to work at their Calgary studio. Mathers purchased their Edmonton studio in 1893 and opened it under his own name. Mathers traveled extensively in western and northern Canada. In 1901, a trip with trader William Connors, took him along the Athabasca River north. He traveled to Fort Smith, Fort Resolution, Wrigley, Hay River, Fort Providence, Fort Simpson, Fort Norman, Fort Good Hope and Fort McPherson, keeping a photographic record of his trip. The album "The Far North" was produced from these photographs and marketed by Mathers' Edmonton studio. Mathers died in 1950.

John Fraser Marshall was born in Toronto on January 26, 1917.

After graduating from Central Technical High School with a diploma in Aircraft Meachanics in the fall of 1936, he was given the opportunity to got north as the flight engineer for Bill McDonough, a bush pilot based in Yellowknife. Bill McDonough, who flew supplies to prospecting camps located in the Great Slave Lake area wastaking an aircraft from Toronto to Yellowknife.

Fraser Marshall flew in the north from 1938 to 1939. With the onset of World War II, he enlised in the Ferry Command and moved to Montreal, Quebec. He flew missions from Montreal through the war, on routes varying from the North Atlantic runs though Gander over to the United Kingdom to the southern passages through Bermuda and across the Atlantic to North Africa and as far east as Pakistan.

Fraser Marshall passed away in Toronto on January 8, 1978.

Thomas Jabez Marsh was a missionary with the Anglican Church Missionary Society. He began work in the Diocese of Mackenzie River at Fort Liard in 1892. In June 1893, the church moved him to a small Dene community at the mouth of the Hay River where he established St. Peter's Anglican Mission. By June of 1894, with the assistance of the local Dene and Sheridan Lawrence, a missionary who had been sent to assist him, a mission house was constructed. This was later transformed into a boarding school that opened on October 11, 1894 with five students. In 1895, the Anglican school at Fort Resolution was closed and all its students were transferred to the boarding school at Hay River. In September 1895, Miss Anna B. Marsh, the sister of Thomas J. Marsh was sent to Hay River to assist him. Miss Marsh was a trained nurse but she also assumed the responsibilities of teacher at the mission. On August 7, 1897, Mrs. Marsh also moved to Hay River to join her husband. By 1900, the mission station was in contact with seven groups of Dene: the Dëne Sųłıné (Chipewyans), Tłı̨chǫ, Yellowknives, Dane-zaa (Beavers), Shúhta Gotʼı̨nę (Mountain Dene) and the Gwich'in. In 1904, a small church was constructed at the mission and a small hospital was added. In 1901, Thomas Jabez Marsh was ordained as a Minister in the Anglican Church by Bishop Reeve. Reverend Marsh continued to run St. Peter's Mission until 1907 when he was transferred to the Diocese of Caledonia. His replacement at St. Peter's Mission was Reverend A.J. Vale.

Janice Elizabeth March (nee Hurlbert) was born on January 3, 1938 in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia. She obtained her Bachelor of Arts at Dalhousie University. In September of 1959 Ms. March moved west to pursue her Masters degree in Anthropology at the University of Toronto. In May of 1961 Ms. March was offered a summer grant to do research in the community of Fort Good Hope into the the effects of age and sex groupings on the process of socialization of the individual. The grant was financed by the Department of Northern Affairs and National Resoures. She was partnered with Hiroko Sue, a student from Bryn Mawr College. The two students went into the community on June 14th, 1961 and left on September 21st of 1961. The photographs in this collection were created during this research venture.

Theodore H. Maranda worked as a Carpenter Foreman for Con Mine when it was first being established.

George Frank Magrum was born in Ohio on June 12, 1891. He moved to Saskatchewan to homestead land in 1914. In 1915, he married Ann/Elizabeth Brooks of Eton, England (d. July 12, 1957 Camrose AB). They had eight children, Madeline (Toots) (d. 1958), Bill (d. 1973?) John, Jim (d. 1975) and Wade, and Joan, Coleen and Marvel (Wally). George was well known as a barrenland trapper in the NWT after moving north in 1927, spending much of his time trapping near Aylmer Lake. After retiring in 1963, he remained active by taking part in walk-a-thon events to raise money for charity. He also provided noted author Ray Price with an interview which formed the basis of his "Trapper George" manuscript, which was never published. George Magrum died in January 1978.

Marion MacPhee was born in South Uist, Scotland in 1922. She transferred from Goldfields, Saskatchewan to Yellowknife in July 1941. She was employed by Consolidated Mining and Smelting Company of Canada Limited, and worked in the company hospital. Marion left Yellowknife in October 1942, but returned in July 1946 to work in the Lakeview Café, run by Lil Bretzlaff. In April 1947 Marion married Edward Limoges in a service performed by Father Gathy. They left Yellowknife in August 1947.