Geologist.
Born at Winnipeg on 19 January 1913 to Evelyn Hildred McCamis (1891-1966) and George Henry Ruttan, he graduated from the University of Manitoba in 1936 with a Masters degree in Science. It was there that he met Mary Isobel McLeod (1916-2011) of Regina, Saskatchewan. They married in 1938 and went on to have four children.
He held several geology jobs in northwestern Ontario and northern Manitoba. His work took them to the small mining towns of Red Lake, Ontario and Snow Lake. The couple led a rugged, pioneer life over the next 15 years, raising a family in isolated conditions, with wood-burning cookstoves and furnaces. In 1951, he acquired a position at the newly created town of Lynn Lake in northern Manitoba, where he attained the position of Chief Geologist for Sherritt Gordon Mines and over time helped find and develop several mines, including the Ruttan Lake Mine, which was named for him at the suggestion of his staff.
In 1939, he joined the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum, and became a life member of that organization upon his retirement in 1975. After retirement, he and his wife lived at Sidney, British Columbia.
He died at Sidney on 15 January 2005.
Obituary, Winnipeg Free Press, 21 January 2005.
Obituary [Mary Isobel Ruttan], The Globe and Mail, 22 June 2011.
“George Douglas Ruttan,” Franco Ielapi family tree, Ancestry.
This page was prepared by Lois Braun.
Page revised: 1 September 2022
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