Angus Peter McKellar (1875 – 1918)

Angus McKellar was born in London, Ontario to parents Peter Paul and Mary McKellar. He joined the North-West Mounted Police in Regina in 1893 and was posted to Forty Mile in 1895. He was discharged in April 1896 and remained in the country to prospect and mine.1) He staked Claim 55 Below Discovery on Bonanza Creek on August 24, 1896.2) McKellar was a winchman on a Yukon Gold Company dredge after the gold rush.3)

McKellar called himself a locomotive mechanic in Dawson when he enlisted in the First World in 1916.4) Dawson’s Charley O’Brien, son of the brewery king, and Angus McKellar were both killed when a shell struck their armoured car near Bouchoir, France.5) He left his wife, Rosa Ethel McKellar of Dorking, Surry in England. Private McKellar is buried in Hangard Communal Cemetery Extension in Somme, France.6)

1) , 6)
D. Blair Neatby and Michael Gates, The Yukon Fallen of World War I. Whitehorse Legion Branch 254, 2018: 72.
2)
John Gould, “Yukon Order of Pioneers: A History.” Unpublished manuscript: 55
3)
D. Blair Neatby and Michael Gates, The Yukon Fallen of World War I. Whitehorse Legion Branch 254, 2018: 71.
4)
Library and Archives Canada, enlistment papers.
5)
Michael Gates, “Death toll rises with the approach of war’s end.” The Klondike Sun (Dawson), 6 April 2016.