In 1873, he moved to Fort Garry (now Winnipeg) where he worked as a fur trader and completed his education at Manitoba College.

In 1877 this work brought him to Edmonton, where he decided to settle, but not before returning to Ontario in 1878 to marry his high school sweetheart, Lovisa Jane Amey (1878-1943),[1] with whom he had three sons and three daughters.

The pair settled in Edmonton in 1879, where McDougall commenced trading furs in competition with the Hudson's Bay Company.

This business advertised itself as "general merchants, wholesale and retail; buyers and exporters of raw furs; dealers in land scrip and north west lands; outfitters for survey parties, traders, trappers, miners and others for the north, and suppliers for country stores."

Besides the fur trade, McDougall & Secord did a major business in buying Metis scrip and re-selling it at a profit.

During his second term as mayor, he installed an automatic telephone system in the city and oversaw the establishment of a street railway as a municipal operation.

He served his term, but did not seek re-election in 1913, when he was 59 years of age and decided to devote his energies to his business activities.

McDougall & Secord, Limited exists in Edmonton to this day, believed to be the oldest surviving company in Alberta.