Real estate developer.
Born at Kenora, Ontario on 18 February 1922 to Mae Philbin (1891-1962) and Christopher Hugh McKinnon (1889-1976), he excelled in academics and basketball as a youth, and worked summers as a surveyor's assistant in the forests of northwestern Ontario. In 1944 he joined the Canadian Army as it advanced across Europe, working as a bombardier in a special rocket artillery unit, where he was responsible for last-minute wind corrections. At the end of the war, he enrolled for a time as a student at the Biarritz Army University in France. After the war, he moved to Winnipeg to study commerce at the University of Manitoba.
He then found work at the Minnesota and Ontario Paper Company in Minneapolis. Upon his return to Winnipeg, he worked as an investment dealer for Mills Spence Company, and was later made a director of the company. He eventually left Mills Spence to form his own investment company, and was involved in developing property subdivisions north of Kenora and around Lake of the Woods, Ontario. In the late 1970s, he purchased W. J. Christie, a real estate management company, and turned it into a family business.
Believing in the importance of community, he was responsible for the fundraising campaign that built the Winnipeg headquarters of St. John Ambulance. He was made a Knight of the Order of St. John, and was Honorary Treasurer, Vice-President, and President of the Manitoba Council from 1961 to 1970. He was also a United Way volunteer, long-time member of the Rotary Club, and a lifetime member of the Manitoba Club.
In the early 1950s, he met Margaret Doreen Wright (1927-2014). They were married at Kamsack, Saskatchewan by the parish priest for whom McKinnon had served as an altar boy in Kenora years earlier. They made their home in Winnipeg and with their three children spent summers at Lake of the Woods. In later years, the couple enjoyed travelling to Europe and spending winters in Florida and British Columbia.
He died at Winnipeg on 4 September 2011 and was buried in the Lake of the Woods Cemetery at Kenora.
Obituary, Winnipeg Free Press, 7 September 2011.
“John Christopher McKinnon,” Conners Family Tree, Ancestry.
This page was prepared by Lois Braun.
Page revised: 2 January 2026
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