Richard George McConnell (1857 - 1942)

Richard McConnell was born in Chatham, Quebec. He graduated from McGill in 1879 with a degree in natural science. He was hired by the Geological Survey of Canada the following year and became George Dawson’s principal assistant. He did field work in Quebec before going west in 1881 to undertake geological studies in Alberta in 1881. He worked in the west and northwest over the next thirty years.1)

McConnell was a member of the 1887/88 Yukon Expedition with George Dawson and William Ogilvie. In 1888, he ascended the Yukon River and his reports gave the first geological information on the district below Fort Selkirk. In 1902, McConnell and Joseph Keele worked together to expand George Dawson’s work on the Pelly River up to the Macmillan River.2) McConnell spent the summer of 1907 investigating the Whitehorse copper belt.3)

1)
Allen A. Wright, Prelude to Bonanza. Gray’s Publishing, 1976: 167-68.
2)
H.S Bostock, Carmack District, Yukon. Canada Department of Mines Memoir 189. Ottawa, 1936: 1-2.
3)
Helene Dobrowolsky and Rob Ingram, “A History of the Whitehorse Copper Belt.” DIAND Open File 1993-1 (1): 14.