By James Turtle | North of Polite
First Nations and Métis Veterans — Part One

Before George McLean fought at Vimy Ridge, he had already served in another war on another continent. Before either conflict, he was a rancher in British Columbia. Remembering him properly means keeping all three parts of that life in view: the man, the soldier and the veteran who returned wounded.

McLean belonged to the Head of the Lake community in the Okanagan, identified by the Vernon Museum as Nk’maplqs. His story takes us from western Canadian ranch country to South Africa and then to the battlefields of France. It is a fitting place to begin a series about First Nations and Métis people whose service belongs in Canada’s military history.

A rancher goes overseas

McLean served with the Canadian Mounted Rifles during the South African War, commonly called the Boer War, fought from 1899 to 1902. Veterans Affairs identifies his unit as the 2nd Canadian Mounted Rifles.

This was a war involving the British Empire and the Boer republics in southern Africa. Canada sent volunteers to serve alongside British forces. McLean’s participation places First Nations service within that early chapter of Canada’s overseas military involvement, well before the trenches of the First World War.

Recognizing his service does not require romanticizing the conflict or assigning him motives the record does not establish. The fact that matters here is that he went, served and came home. More than a decade later, he volunteered again.

Back into uniform

Veterans Affairs identifies McLean as 41 when he enlisted for the First World War. He served in France with the 54th Canadian Infantry Battalion, known as the Kootenay Battalion.

At an age when many of the men around him would have been much younger, he was returning to soldiering with previous overseas service behind him. We cannot know from those facts alone what he expected or what private doubts he carried. We can say that his second period of service brought him to Vimy Ridge in April 1917.

There, the action for which he received the Distinguished Conduct Medal would place his name in the official record of Canadian bravery.

Nineteen prisoners, one soldier

The central achievement is recorded plainly in his medal citation: “Single-handed he captured nineteen prisoners.”

Veterans Affairs describes an attack using Mills bombs, the hand grenades carried by infantrymen. The citation records that, although wounded, McLean also dealt unaided with a further threat involving five men attempting to reach a machine gun. It credited his actions with preventing numerous casualties.

There are more elaborate accounts of the encounter. A contemporary newspaper report, preserved by the Canadian Letters and Images Project’s From the Front collection, describes McLean carrying a wounded officer to safety, returning to the fighting and confronting Germans in a dugout. It recounts a bluff in which he claimed to have 150 men with him.

That detail belongs to an attributed historical account, rather than an invented scene. The essential accomplishment does not depend on adding dialogue or imagining his thoughts. The medal citation already establishes extraordinary courage under dangerous conditions.

The Distinguished Conduct Medal was second only to the Victoria Cross among gallantry awards available to British Empire army non-commissioned officers and other ranks at the time. McLean had earned a major decoration, not a routine acknowledgement of service.

The war came home with him

McLean was shot in the arm during the action. Veterans Affairs records that he returned to Canada for medical treatment. The Okanagan Military Museum’s account describes lasting impairment to his left arm and his eventual discharge as medically unfit for further service.

The injury matters as much as the medal. A decoration records what a soldier did during an exceptional moment. A damaged arm affects the work and ordinary tasks that follow for years.

McLean returned to British Columbia. Veterans Affairs says he later worked as a fireman in the Vancouver region and died in 1934. The available summary leaves much of his postwar life untold; it would be wrong to fill that silence with assumptions about his benefits, finances or personal feelings.

What we can do is refuse to let the battlefield achievement become the whole man. He had a life before the citation and years to live after the wound.

Remember him by name

First Nations military service should be part of how Canada tells its history throughout the year. That requires more than a collective tribute. It requires learning individual names, identifying communities accurately and distinguishing the documented record from stories repeated without checking.

George McLean was a First Nations rancher, a veteran of the South African War, a soldier of the 54th Battalion and a recipient of the Distinguished Conduct Medal. He served overseas twice and returned from his second war wounded.

Those facts are substantial enough to remember without embellishment. When Canadians speak about Vimy Ridge, George McLean belongs in the conversation.

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Sources

• Veterans Affairs Canada — Native Soldiers – Foreign Battlefields, “A Veteran of Two Wars,” pages 13–14
• Veterans Affairs Canada — George McLean, service number 688302
• Okanagan Military Museum — At Vimy Ridge with Private George McLean DCM
• Vernon Museum — Vernon Serves, community identification and biography
• Distinguished Conduct Medal citation compilation — search service number 688302
• From the Front — October 7, 1917 newspaper account of McLean’s action
• Veterans Affairs Canada — South African War, 1899–1902

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