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Request from the people at Pigeon Lake for John McDougall to return to the Woodville Mission.
11 November 1869
Pigeon Lake, Alberta

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The McDougall's lived through turbulent years in the history of Canada's West: the sale of Hudson's Bay Company lands to the Canadian government, the signing of treaties and the near disappearance of buffalo as a food source, as well as epidemics and conflict among Aboriginal communities facing these disruptions. Both George and John served as a link between First Nations people, the government and settlers. They also worked to develop missions that also provided health care and schooling.

In his later years, John McDougall, wrote his memoirs. His popular style fed romantic notions his readers held of the West. Still, his writings describe the environment and people of Western Canada in detail and discuss many of the debates that occurred during that turbulent period. After his retirement in 1906, McDougall served as a commissioner for the Dominion Government and Department of Indian Affairs and later ran as a Liberal representative in Calgary. He died in Calgary in 1917.