This old settler in the territory was born in Scotland in the year 1856, and from a child showed the steadiness of purpose and the manly strength of character with which he was endowed. He reached the Falkland Islands in 1875 and worked there for ten years during which he acquired the knowledge and practice that later stood him in good stead for the enterprise on which he was to embark. In 1885, he crossed over to Patagonia and was employed as a shepherd in the Straits. In 1886 and 1888 he made two journeys to Rio Negro, the first one with the object of bringing out some mares, and the second in search of sheep to set up with them on his own account. It took him more than two years to drive the sheep home and the incidents of the journey, the hardships undergone in order to carry the flock through it all, to the Santa Cruz lands, were innumerable. Only a man of iron will with a large reserve fund of vital energy could crown an undertaking like the one described, with success; for in the first place there was the struggle with nature and then, the vastness of the region to be traversed, an immense desert peopled only by pumas, guanacos and ostriches, and one or another Tehuelche Indian tent, whose occupants were too poor to offer any but the most precarious hospitality to the traveller.

On reaching the territory, he took his sheep to pasture on the lands which form the present day estancia "Paso del Medio" until he acquired the rights over the land held by Messrs. Paris and Grünbein, and situated on the right bank of the River Coy-Inlet where Mr. MacGeorge founded the establishment which he named "Guakenken-Aike" meaning in Tehuelche "Place of the Race Course".

At the time when this old settler began his labours, provisions were sometimes brought in carts from Sandy Point and sometimes directly from England to the port of Rio Gallegos, in exchange for the wool exported by the sheep-farmer. The mails arrived from time to time from the Chilian port named Punta Arenas, in carts, and the expenses of the journey were defrayed by the settlers in the district.

Mr. MacGeorge continues to manage his establishment personally; it is, as already stated in another part of this book, one of the most important in the region. The figure of this old-time worker is well-known throughout Patagonia both by the Argentines and the foreigners resident there, and as for his fellow-countrymen, they are pleased to look up to Mr. MacGeorge as one of the most characteristic members of the community. He has donated the building wherein is established the English Club at Rio Gallegos, so that Britishers should have a pleasant place for meeting and enjoyment.

The pioneer whose biography we have sketched, married in 1898, Miss Agnes Halliday, eldest daughter of William Halliday, another old settler in the territory.