Laura Power
Northern News Services
Published Monday, December 10, 2007

COLVILLE LAKE - Colville Lake resident and missionary Bern Will Brown has done a lot of travelling during his many years in the North. Now, in his two latest books, he travels back through memories of the places he's been and the people he's met.

Bern Will Brown of Colville Lake will have released two new books by the new year. - John Curran/NNSL photo

A couple of weeks ago, Brown released Free Spirits, his fourth book. It's a collection of about 25 short biographies about some of the people he has met along the way.

"During the years when I would meet an outstanding character, I would take notes. And I had a pile of these notes that I had compiled over the years and I thought to myself, 'these notes could be made into stories about these people,'" he said.

Some of the 25 people he wrote about include Slim Semmler from Inuvik and Hammer Nelson of Norman Wells, among others from all over the territory. In all of these people he found something unique and memorable that he felt should be recorded.

"I think it's important, because if I didn't do it I don't think anybody else would. They'd be lost," he said. "They'd all be forgotten."

Though Brown is well-known for his literary work, he has long been working on a photography project.

About to be released is another book he put together - this one about the places he has been. Brown started collecting photographs from around the North in 1949, and by 2005 he had collected more than most people will take in a lifetime.

"I sold all my photos, some 20,000, to the Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre, and before I got rid of all of those I picked out 100 which I thought were the best and we made a book about those photos," he said. "I had these thousands of photos, you know, and I wanted to be able to use them some way in a book form. And I toyed with the idea for 50 years."

The photos in the book come from within the borders of the NWT and from beyond. They were taken, he said, "all the way from Fort McMurray to Paulatuk."

The book, called A Time in the North, is set to be released this month.