Highlights of History from The Whitehorse Star

The Whitehorse Pioneer Cemetery

Dateline: March 31, 2024.

The Weekly Star (Whitehorse, Y.T.), Friday, September 22, 1916

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    A man named McKillican, hailing from Fairbanks, arrived on the Selkirk Sunday and was taken from the boat in an unconscious condition to the General hospital, where he died Monday between 3 and 4 p. m., without regaining his senses. He was aged about 50 years.

    The only means of indentification was a letter from the Fairbanks igloo of Pioneers of Alaska recommending the deceased to the brotherhood, and a receipt from the Good Samaritan hospital in Dawson showing that he had been in that institution two days.

    From what we can gather McKillican has been in the country for 21 years and was being sent outside for treatment for some unknown ailment by the Pioneers of Alaska of Fairbanks. While awaiting in Dawson to make connections with an upstream boat for Whitehorse he was so ill he had to enter the Good Samaritan hospital. Just after leaving Dawson he become unconscious and remained in that condition until his death.

    Tuesday morning W. A. Puckett wired to the Fairbanks igloo to see if he could find out anything about the dead man, and received an answer Wednesday saying so far as known the deceased had no relatives, but recommending that Arthur MckKillican of Cornwall, Ontario, be communicated with and if no instructions otherwise were received from him to bury the remains in Whitehorse and forward the effects of McKillican to the igloo at Fairbanks.

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The Alaska Citizen (Fairbanks, Alaska), Monday, September 25, 1916

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    Fred McKillican, an oldtimer of Fairbanks and Dawson, died last Monday in the White Pass hospital at Whitehorse, according to word received by Henry T. Ray, secretary of the local igloo of Pioneers. He was on his way Outside from Fairbanks for treatment for a malady with which he had been a patient sufferer for a number of years. It is understood that the Yukon order of Pioneers has been instructed to attend to the funeral, and that it will probably be held at Whitehorse.

    The deceased was born at Starmount, Ontario, May 21, 1867. He went to Dawson in early days and came to Fairbanks in the stampede days of this camp. He was a blacksmith by trade, and enjoyed the respect of all who knew him. It is understood that his only surviving near relative is a brother, residing in Ontario.