The pain of twelve long years of not knowing

It's now 12 years since Donald went missing looking for Noah's ark.It's now 12 years since Donald went missing looking for Noah's ark.
It's now 12 years since Donald went missing looking for Noah's ark.
It’s hard to believe that it’s 12 years since Donald MacKenzie from Stornoway went missing in the mountains of Turkey on an expedition to find the resting place of Noah’s Ark. He was 47 at the time, a “maverick”, fit and highly resourceful and no stranger to the country or the customs of its people.

But in the end it wasn’t enough to keep him from harm’s way, whatever that ultimate end was. His disappearance is still shrouded in mystery all these years later and likely always will be – and for his mother, Maggie Jean, the memory is as raw as if it was just yesterday.

When she recalls the young boy that grew up in Stornoway, it’s clear that a normal path in life was never what was destined for Donald, a rebel who eventually found a noble cause that in the end proved his ultimate downfall.

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It’s exactly 12 years ago that the family got a phone call from a Turkish friend of Donald’s to say he hadn’t heard from him and was worried. It started a process that uncovered different elements involving potential corruption, religious politics, a tough mountainous wilderness, history, civil war and futile international diplomacy. And somewhere within that heady mix of complexities lies the truth about Donald.

“The thing that made us worried was that he was normally so good at keeping in touch, so when we heard he was missing we thought right away it doesn’t sound good,” said Maggie. “He was so good at things, too, and always well-prepared.”

Maggie says “we don’t know what happened to Donald”, but there’s clearly an awful lot surrounding his disappearance which just doesn’t sit right and gives rise to all sorts of theories.

Donald’s brother, Derick, headed out to Turkey with a TV documentary crew to see if they could find out more about what happened. That was two years after his disappearance, when all other attempts through official channels had been exhausted.

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“Donald was well liked out there, certainly by the Kurds” said Derick. “He started several businesses with people, but the thing is there are different elements out there and Donald was never afraid of speaking the truth… to anyone.”

The region surrounding the mountains of eastern Turkey has been engaged in internecine civil war for decades.

It is the spiritual and ancestral home of the Kurdish people, who want separation from Turkey to create a new Kurdistan, or at least greater autonomy, as they see themselves as ethnically and culturally different to the rest of Turkey. Their demands have, of course, been resisted by the Turkish government... fiercely so.

Around about the time that Donald went missing the Turkish army had wiped out 500 Kurds - “terrorists” as they would regard them - at Mount Ararat.

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Maggie said: “There were two Americans who came down the mountain around the time and met the army. The only reason their lives were spared was because the US had an army base there. These two Americans said at the time: ‘God help anyone who comes down that mountain and meets the army.”

Is that what happened to Donald? It is but one of a number of possibilities.

“The interesting thing is that the reason Donald went out there was because he had seen this Chinese group claiming to have found the ark,” said Derick. “And he said: ‘I’ve got to go and find out if this is real.’

“They claimed to have found the ark inside the mountain in a tunnel. They’ve got videos supposedly of them discovering it and were selling, supposedly, bits of wood from the ark. But it turns out this was all just a big hoax.”

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This particular aspect was a central part of Derick’s own investigations when he went out there 10 years ago.

“This Chinese group paid locals to take up bits of wood to the mountain that they could then claim was the ark,” he said.

"I forget his proper name but there was a guy there working with them called ‘Parachute’. He had already got Donald arrested before, so he was connected and had power and as far as Donald was concerned he was an out and out gangster, just a bad egg. What were they capable of? Did Donald come across their hoax? Who knows.

“When I was out there with the TV crew we were in this hotel, which was part-owned by the best-known guide in the area. If you want to go up the mountain, this is basically the guy you speak to.

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“There he was sitting in reception in the hotel and I just casually went up to him and said: ‘Do you know my brother Donald?’ ‘Of course,’ he says, just like that. He told us about the Chinese thing and so we know it was a hoax and we also know it was exactly what Donald was going to find out about.”

“But then again,” continues Derick after a pause, “maybe it was an accident. These mountains are known for wolves and if you have a fall or an accident they won’t be leaving any trace of you once they’re finished; they’ll eat the whole lot.”

Initial contact with the Turkish authorities after his disappearance was complicated by the fact that Donald did not have the required permit for being up the mountain. Due to the ongoing conflict, authorities insist that all visitors are accompanied by an official guide.

“Basically they were saying it’s his own fault for being there,” said Derick. “They did send up a search party but it was way after he went missing. I had this guy on the phone telling me what they were going to do, but to be honest I didn’t trust a word he was saying.”

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THE MOUNTAINS of eastern Turkey are a world removed from growing up in Stornoway.

Maggie fondly remembers the boy who, despite having a more colourful side, was a devoted and helpful son.

“He was so good to me,” she said. “I remember one time I was going to get a new car, but Donald said no he would fix the other one. He spent ages on it and do you know what, that car lasted for ages. He was so good with things like that.

“I have a press cutting from the time he was in the Territorial Army and they were away at a shooting competition. I still have it. It says: ‘Part-time soldier from Stornoway beats the professionals’.” Maggie laughs with the beaming smile of a proud parent.

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“He was a great engineer, so meticulous,” said family friend Alasdair Murray, who employed Donald on and off over the years.

“I remember giving him a very tricky job to drill a 5mm hole, but the casing was very sensitive. I was sure he wasn’t going to manage without breaking it and thought I’m away to get a replacement. But lo and behold he managed it; you had to be so careful to get that right. But he was great at things like that; turn his hand to anything.

"I remember another time he was unemployed and I gave him a wee job. I put some money in envelope and told him: ‘Now that’s for your mother, not for you.’ Well, what did he do? Did he not go to the dole office and told them he did a wee job and got this money but it wasn’t for him it was for his mother.”

Alasdair shakes his head and laughs at the same. “He didn’t need to do that. They took his dole money off him because of it. He had no need to tell them at all. He was being overly honest. But that was Donald,”

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Mr Murray is convinced that more could have been done to get to the bottom of his disappearance. He finds it very odd how little attempt wa made by the Turkish authorities to find out what happened.

"Can you imagine if that was in this country?” he says. “Say someone went missing up in the mountains of Lochaber; a search party would be up there like a shot. But that didn’t happen and it was so difficult just to get through to anyone.

"Part of the problem was they’re not part of the EU, so it was difficult to go through the channels and it’s almost as if they just wiped their hands off it.”

Then he turns to Derick. “You found his big jacket in the van the police had. Why would be go up the mountain without his big jacket? No-one would do that and certainly not him.”

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Whatever happened to Donald he will certainly be remembered by those that knew him.

The family does not sugar coat his past; he is what he was and that’s part of his enduring story. Back in his younger drinking and pub-going days, he was known to be involved in the odd altercation, though it seems that trouble was drawn to him as much as the other way round.

But his life changed dramatically when he became a committed Christian and a member of the Free Presbyterian Church. He embraced that calling with the same gusto and commitment he had with everything else.

“He was probably out in Turkey maybe nine times in 10 years,” says Derick. “He used to say: ‘If I find the ark they'll all have to believe’. To be honest I thought it was a bit of nonsense.

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"I used to say to him, no, they won’t because, as it says in the Bible: ‘If they believe not...neither will they believe, though one rose from the dead .’ But he did other missionary work as well; taking bibles out there, and I was fully supportive of that.”

“He was like a wild bird,” adds Alasdair. “He just had to fly and you couldn’t clip his wings.”

Maggie said she tried several times to talk him out of going on dangerous expeditions, but to no avail. “What if something happens to you I’d say and he would just say: if it does, it’s God’s will.”

Remembering the boy that was a devoted son is what Maggie clings to. For her and the rest of the family, 12 years is no time at all and that fateful phone call could as well have been last month. To lose a son or daughter is the ultimate heartbreak for a parent, in circumstances unknown makes it all the more bitterly painful, if that were at all possible.

“It’s horrible,” says Maggie, “the nights are the worst”, the mask of emotional strength slipping from her face for a moment as she stares into the middle distance.