Donald Baxter MacMillan was born in Provincetown in 1874. MacMillan’s father was the captain of a Grand Banks fishing schooner who was lost at sea off the coast of Newfoundland when MacMillan was nine. It was the end of 1883 when, finally accepting her husband’s death, Mrs. MacMillan placed a stone over an empty grave marked 'Lost at sea on passage to Newfoundland.'

MacMillan’s early years were difficult. Sarah MacMillan, his mother, was ill prepared both physically and financially to support her children by herself after her husband died. Unable to pay her rent, she made some tough choices. She gave up one daughter for adoption to a couple in Freeport, Maine. The oldest boy stayed with his grandparents, while the three younger children, Donald and his two sisters, remained with their mother. Finally she did the only thing she knew how to do to make money to feed her children, she took in washing. Neighbors brought food and helped out when they could, but the family remained poor. Donald MacMillan tried to help out by diving for pennies off Railroad Wharf, picking cranberries and selling copies of a book entitled 'Provincetown, or Odds and Ends from the Tip End' to tourists. In March of 1886, MacMillan’s mother died, just three years after his father. MacMillan went to live with the family of Captain Murdick MacDonald. Two years later he went to live in Freeport Maine with his sister and her husband.

MacMillan excelled in school and graduated from Bowdoin College with a degree in geology. He taught Latin, physical education, and mathematics for the next 10 years in various schools in Maine and Massachusetts. In the summer he worked in a camp teaching seamanship to boys. It was here that he caught the attention of Robert Peary. MacMillan tutored Peary’s son, and a year later Peary invited MacMillan to accompany him to the Arctic. In the spring of 1908 Donald MacMillan signed on as Peary’s assistant. On this expedition Robert Peary discovered the North Pole. It was the first of many expeditions MacMillan would make to the Arctic.

MacMillan spent the next few years doing ethnographry in Labrador. In 1913 he organized his own Arctic expedition to Greenland called the Crocker Land Expedition, sponsored partly by the American Museum of Natural History. Crocker Land was described by MacMillan in one newspaper clipping as the 'world’s last geographical problem.' He is quoted as saying, 'In June 1906, Commander Peary, from the summit of Cape Thomas Hubbard, at about latitude 83 degrees N, longitude 100 degrees W., reported seeing land glimmering in the northwest, approximately 130 miles away across the Polar Sea. He did not go there, but he gave it a name in honor of the late George Crocker of the Peary Arctic Club. That is Crocker Land. Its boundaries and extent can only be guessed at, but I am certain that strange animals will be found there, and I hope to discover a new race of men.' For two days MacMillan and Ensign Fitzhugh Green, U.S.N. made an excited dash across the ice fields catching glimpses of land in the distance. Unfortunately, Crocker Land proved to be a mirage. Because of heavy ice conditions, the expedition was stranded for four years in the Arctic. In 1917 they were rescued by Robert Bartlett in command of the Neptune. His experiences on the Crocker Land Expedition are described in 'Four Years in the White North.'

As one might imagine, MacMillan had a lot of time to think while he was stranded, and he used the time to formulate the plans for a ship specially designed to withstand the rigors of Arctic exploration. When he returned to the United States, war had broken out and MacMillan joined the Navy. After the war he began to raise money to build the ship he had dreamed of while waiting for rescue. In 1921 the schooner Bowdoin, named after MacMillan’s alma mater, became a reality. That summer he sailed her to Baffin Island on the first of many Arctic expeditions.

In 1935 at age 60 MacMillan married Miriam Look, the daughter of an old friend. She was only 30. At first MacMillan refused to let Miriam come with him on his trips north, but she soon convinced him of her abilities. After the war the two continued their trips to the Arctic, taking supplies to the MacMillan-Moravian School, which MacMillan had established. MacMillan made his last trip to the Arctic in 1954. He was then 80 years old. Donald MacMillan died on September 7, 1970. He is buried in Provincetown.

Many Provincetown residents remember MacMillan as a stern man who was an entertaining speaker. He frequently visited the local schools and always took students on trips to the Arctic as crew. Some of the artifacts he collected are still on display at the Provincetown Museum.

Donald MacMillan won numerous awards in his lifetime. He did extensive scientific and pioneer exploratory work on Ellesmere Island, the Polar Sea, Baffin Island, Labrador and Greenland. He was the first to land on King Christian Island and the first to use airplanes over the far North. One wonders when Provincetown’s own Polar explorer and hero will begin to get some of the kind of attention currently being given to Antarctic explorer Ernest Shackleton.