A. W. Walker (d. 1918)

A. W. Walker was the chef on the Yukon River paddle wheeler S.S. Selkirk. Both he and his assistant, Antone Mabins were black, as were many employed by British Yukon Navigation as cooks, mess hands, and deckhands. Both Walker and Mabins died when the S.S. Sophia sank in the Lynn Canal in 1918. There are photographs of Walker in the Yukon Archives.1) Many White Pass employees, including nine crew members from the S.S. Selkirk, were on the Sophia as it was the end of the Yukon River navigation season and the crews were headed south for the winter. Anthony Mabins lived in Victoria and was interred in the Mountain View Cemetery in Vancouver.2) Walker and Mabins had listed Seattle as their destination.3)

1)
Venturing North, Hidden Histories Society Yukon, 2023: 11.
2)
S.S. Sophia: Those who perished. Maritime Museum of British Columbia, 2028: 76, 122-23.
3)
Ken Coates & Bull Morrison, The Sinking of the Princess Sophia. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1990: 277.