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Long, adventurous life
THE CHRONICLE-JOURNAL
09/20/2009

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The first-born son and patriarch of a pioneer Lakehead family has marked his 100th birthday.

Burt Brown, who ran the popular Brown‘s Resort at English River for 22 years still lives independently in Thunder Bay.

At the first of three busy birthday events, Brown spoke fondly of “feeling lucky” – for his longevity and enduring health, for the presence of nearly all of his family from across the country, and for 64 years of marriage to the love of his life, his late wife May.

Born Sept. 16, 1909, Brown was one of six children of the late local historian W. Russell Brown of Port Arthur and his wife, the former Georgia Smith, of Westfort.

Russell Brown, who lived to 104, came to Port Arthur in 1883 at the age of two. The Brown family resided in a stone home at 42 Madeline St. and the children attended local schools.

Burt Brown spent his early years in mining and mechanical pursuits. He serviced Star and Durant vehicles at his father‘s City Hall Motors in Fort William.

In wartime he was assistant chief engineer at the RCAF flight training school at the local airport.

He had purchased his property at English River in 1935. After the war, and just as the Trans-Canada Highway was being built through Northwestern Ontario, he turned his full attention to developing this business, located on a picturesque lake midway between Upsala and Ignace.

At the height of its popularity in the 1950s and ‘60s, Brown‘s Resort hosted guests from across North America for prime hunting and fishing experiences. Brown had boats and motors on some 20 lakes in the English River area and personally guided repeat visitors when he could find the time. Many remain close friends and now summer at their own camps at English River.

The lodge was a favourite for highway travellers and at one point Brown‘s was the second largest volume retailer of Esso gasoline in the district.

“My primary endeavour, owing to my past automotive interests, was to have a good service station,” he wrote in his memoirs, “but every tourist was looking for virgin lakes to provide good fishing, so half my efforts went to cottages with boats to rent.”

The memoirs, Through the Years with Burt Brown, From 1909, chronicle a life of adventure and many firsts. Among them, in this area:

• He was first to drive from Toronto to Thunder Bay in winter, in a 1926 Chevrolet.

• He had the first inboard speedboats at the Lakehead, in the 1930s – a succession of four vessels with automotive engines, each named Miss Behave.

• He was the first Canadian boater ever to report to U.S. Customs at Grand Marais, and the first Canadian to dock at Lutsen Resort. He later took an 18-foot boat on a trip down the Mississippi River to Florida and a 19-footer from Florida to the Bahamas.

Perhaps his most notable adventure came when he purchased a J5 Bombardier, sight unseen, from a mining company that had it stored at Kesaga Lake, well north of Sioux Lookout. He and a friend hired a plane to take them to the site in the winter of 1963, and after seeing the machine was there and confirming the owner‘s assurance there was fuel for it, he waved the pilot away.

Unfortunately, the transmission was full of ice, the starter was a mass of rust and the stored fuel was diesel, not the required gasoline. “It looked like it would be a bit of a chore to get it in shape to travel,” he wrote with considerable understatement.

He did find the battery which had been stored for 2 1/2 years and was so pleased that it worked, he wrote the manufacturer to see if they were still in business “as I didn‘t see how they could survive upon replacement orders,” he wrote.

After making repairs he found 20 gallons of stove gas, mixed it with what little was in the gas tank and made a mixture of diesel and gas to get back to civilization, 100 miles away. The gruelling trip, which included winching the machine up and down waterfalls, ended seven days later with two gallons of fuel to spare. Brown‘s companion died shortly after of a severe heart attack.

Brown maintained a home at English River until selling it this year, but plans to continue summering there as a guest of his former guests.

“I don‘t know of any reason why I can‘t go on to live as old as my dad, given how I feel,” he said Thursday.

Asked what, besides the family genes, might be responsible for his surprisingly good health and condition at 100, Brown laughed, “Eating blueberries and moose meat!”

Years of work in the outdoors helped, he said, “and clean living had a lot to do with it. Like my dad, I never once smoked or drank.”

Burt has a daughter Bonnie (Mel) Hazell of Kingston and son David of Edmonton. His elder sister Audrey MacLeod of North Bay turned 101 on Thursday. His youngest sister Marion McLennan lives in Kingston. He has two grandchildren and 15 nieces and nephews. He lost his wife, the former May King, a son Jordee, sisters Marjorie Armstrong and Betty Pattison of Thunder Bay and brother Mort Brown of Toronto.
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