McKee Creek flows west and southwest into Atlin Lake about 14 kilometres south of the community of Atlin. The creek is about 12 kilometres long and has been worked primarily in the middle-third section of its length. Hydraulic mining was started in 1903 and accounted for most of the gold recovered from McKee Creek. Some underground work was also done on the creek in the mid-1930s. From 1898 to 1945, approximately 1,369,123 grams of gold were recovered from the creek making it the 5th largest producer in the Atlin Camp (Bulletin 28).

The creek flows over primarily mafic greenstone of the upper Mississippian to Permian Nakina Formation (Cache Creek Complex) and upper Mississippian to Permian ultramafic rocks (Cache Creek Complex). Cherts and argillites of the Mississippian to Triassic Kedahda Formation (Cache Creek Complex) overlie the Nakina Formation and are exposed at higher elevations. There is also a small exposure midway down the creek of quartz veins within a shear zone hosted in chert and near a small diorite plug (see Harvey, 104N 117).

The stratigraphy of McKee Creek consists of a thick till overlying a 30-metre-thick glaciofluvial sequence. Underlying this is a layer of coarse boulders which overlays the auriferous channel gravels. The gold can be very coarse, and as elsewhere in Atlin, it is found in fractures in highly weathered bedrock down to a depth of 1.2 to 1.8 metres.