ALEX McINTOSH September 04, 1889 – February 18, 1982

Entrepreneur: Alex McIntosh was born on a farm in Lancaster Township, Glengarry County, Ontario, the son of Scottish immigrants who had arrived in Canada in 1832. He was raised on the family farm and at 18 years of age came to western Canada on the “Harvest Excursion” of 1907-08 and, for that winter, worked in Transcona, Manitoba. For the next four years McIntosh worked in the Caribou District of British Columbia for a lumber and navigation company and for three more years for the Edmonton, Dunvegan and British Columbia Railway where his uncle, J.D.McArthur, had contracts to build the railways. He then joined the Royal North West Mounted Police (RNWMP), was stationed in the Peace River country and, during WWI, served overseas with the RNWMP. On his return to Canada he homesteaded at Rio Grand in the Grand Prairie region of Alberta .

In 1923 McIntosh arrived in the Lac du Bonnet area to work as a carpenter’s helper for J.D.McArthur. He worked for a while at Beaconia and the Manitoba Paper Company mill site in Pine Falls during its construction. However, he spent most of the next five years in charge of a sawmill at Great Falls.

By 1925 McIntosh acquired the 810 hectares (2,000 acres) of land from J.D.McArthur and an additional 10,880 square hectares(42 square miles) of forest along the Winnipeg River north of Lac du Bonnet. He continued to farm, operate sawmills and cut pulpwood. He had cut and delivered up to 10,000 cords of pulpwood a year to the Pine Falls mill.

During WWII as many as 200 men were employed running his saw and planing mills, operating his local lumberyard and cutting and hauling pulpwood to the Pine Falls mill.

McIntosh subdivided some of the 810 hectares (2,000 acres) for the development of residential lots in Lac du Bonnet. He often sold lots on credit and loaned lumber and bricks to buyers to build their homes.

McIntosh retired in 1950 having passed his farming and other enterprises on to his son, Ramsay. Alex McIntosh died at age 92.

McIntosh Street, in Lac du Bonnet, is named in his memory.