(died 8 Nov. 1913, aged 46), bookkeeper. Born presumably in GC. His father was D. H. MacLennan, of the 2nd Concession of Charlottenburgh Township. Ewen MacLennan left home about 30 years before his death, therefore about 1883, and settled in Alaska in 1896. He is described in his obituaries as a well-known Alaskan. In his later years at least, he worked in Alaska as a “bookkeeper for a Council City merchandise firm.” There is some evidence that he was a Klondike resident at some point, presumably in his earlier years. He died in Seattle, shortly after arriving there by boat from Nome. He was the co-author of the following book of poems on Alaskan life: Ewen MacLennan and Charles Wilbert Snow, Songs of the Neukluk (Rockland, Maine, Opinion Publishing, 1913; pp. 30; includes illustrations). Council City was the village latter known as Council (it recently had an airstrip but virtually no population), 60 miles from Nome. Ewen MacLennan was evidently unmarried. An obituary stated, “all who knew him unite in saying he was a man of superior education.” He was survived by six siblings, who included two sisters in GC and Dr P. A. MacLennan of Vancouver and Dr A. A. MacLennan of Buena Vista, Colorado.
His co-author Charles Wilbert Snow (1884-1977), a young man with a master’s degree, came to Council City, Alaska, as a teacher and “reindeer agent.” In his autobiography, Snow describes MacLennan, rather conventionally, as tall and square-shouldered. A portrait Snow prints shows MacLennan, moreover, as rather distinctively middle-aged in his thickened body. He first impressed Snow by warning the rash newcomer to stop his dangerous practice of asking people he met about their backgrounds–too many people in Alaska were in flight from some disgraceful episode in their lives. Thereafter, “We became great friends.” Snow found that like himself, MacLennan (or “Mac,” as Snow knew him, or chose to call him) loved poetry and wrote it. MacLennan, he says, was particularly fond of Burns, and could quote extensively from Scott. As winter’s entertainments in the North, MacLennan, a noted leader in social activities, sometimes wrote and staged his own one-act plays. Snow reported that MacLennan was imbued with a zeal for pioneer regions–the mountains and the unnamed waters. Snow found that MacLennan had a disastrous drinking problem resulting in delirium tremens. A sourdough correspondent informed Snow a few years later that MacLennan’s death was the result of a drinking binge begun on the boat from Nome.
In their joint volume of poetry, Snow’s contributions are markedly weak, but MacLennan’s poems include one of force and distinction, a portrait of sourdough life (under the title “Mariar Jane,” with spelling thus ) written in the manner of Kipling’s depictions of rough life. MacLennan’s poems also included a Habitant poem, in the manner of William Henry Drummond. His poems in the volume have no GC references, unless, somewhat obscurely, “Doctor Ramsay” is an allusion to Dr D. D. R. (“Randy”) McLennan of the Yukon.
Snow, who lived to be 93, was for more than 30 years a professor of English at Weslyan University in Connecticut. He wrote a great deal of poetry, but did not include any poems from the Alaska 1913 volume in his Collected Poems (Wesleyan University Press) of 1963. The title of his autobiography, Codline’s Child (Wesleyan University Press, 1974), reflects his upbringing in the New England fishing industries. Deeply involved in politics, Snow ran unsuccessfully for governor of Connecticut, but was elected lieutenant-governor of the state in 1944. In Dec. 1946-Jan. 1947, for 12 days he was actually governor of Connecticut, filling in between the terms of two elected governors.
Cornwall Freeholder 27 Nov. 1913 , Glengarry News 28 Nov. 1913, both using Seattle Times * works by Snow as cited, and his life in ANB