Odds ‘n’ Sods: War hero died prospecting in Red Lake area

Chistopher O’Kelly, who won the Victoria Cross at Passchendale in October, 1917, and the Military Cross at Vimy Ridge in April, 1917, became a prospector in 1922. He came to Red Lake, Ont., in October that year with E.L. “Bill” Murray, an army friend. They planned to prospect the claims staked by Herb Tyrrell, Ole Gustafson and Ole Sand on McKenzie Island in Ontario’s Red Lake area.

O’Kelly found visible gold in the quartz veins in his trench. He then moved 50 ft. along strike and found visible gold again in his second trench. The partners made plans to go out for the winter and return next summer.

Gustafson and Sand loaded their canoe and left for Hudson, Ont., where they had a business. Tyrrell and Carroll left in their canoe followed by O’Kelly and Murray down the Chukuni River for the 45-mile trip to Gold Mines Post, a Hudson’s Bay Co. store on the west end of Lac Suel.

Tyrrell and Carroll bought winter supplies and left for their winter camp.

O’Kelly and Murray loaded their canoe with winter supplies. Then the Post manager, Robert Young, watched them leave for their winter camp on Bluffy Lake, 20 miles away. They paddled toward Goose Island on Lac Suel.

Two weeks later, when ice had formed on Lac Suel, an Indian trapper was walking past Goose Island when he heard a whining noise. He looked on shore where a small dog came to him. He brought it back to the Hudson Bay Co. where manager Young recognized it as Murray’s dog.

They took three men and walked out over the ice to search the shores of Goose Island. They found no trace of the missing men.

Next May, when the ice and snow melted, Murray’s body, with his eiderdown sleeping robe around his shoulders, was found partly submerged near shore. O’Kelly’s body was never found.

They had both miraculously survived the horrendous battles of the First World War only to be accidentally drowned near Goose Island.

Officers of the 9th Winnipeg Battalion erected a Memorial Cross on Goose Island to O’Kelly’s memory.

The claims on McKenzie Island, where he discovered gold, came open and were restaked in 1925. They were incorporated as The McKenzie Red Lake Gold Mines in 1934 and went into production for 30 years yielding $24 million in gold bullion and paying $2 1/2 million in dividends to the shareholders. LAC Minerals now owns this mining property.