Bern will brown biography

“That's where I knew I had to go,” he always tells me.
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Bern Will Brown lived in Canada's far North for over fifty years.

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Bern Will Brown was a Canadian painter.
Based on ArtValue.ca records, Bern Will Brown's estimated art value is CAD $1,000 (*)

Bern Will Brown's work could be available for sale at public auction with prices in the range of CAD $100 - $5,000, or even much higher.

From ArtValue.ca records, the highest price paid at auction for an oil painting work attributed to Bern Will Brown (1920-2014) was CAD $3,218 - paid for "Winter Gill Netting" at Levis in Calgary on Sat, Sep 21, 2024.
ArtValue.ca has 18 auction art sale records for their oil painting results, with prices in the range of CAD $100 - $5,000.

Notable Art Works

Saskatchewan NAC Auction House Biography and Notes

Bern Will Brown was born in 1920, in Rochester, New York in 1920. In 1948 he came to northern Canada as a priest with the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate. For the next fourteen years he worked in several northern communities, including Fort Norman (Tulita); Fort Franklin (Deline); Goldfields, Saskatchewan; Fort Chipewyan, Alberta; Aklavik; Fort McMurray, Alberta; and Nahanni Butte

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The face of the Canadian Arctic has forever changed since Bern Will Brown left his home in Rochester, New York, at the age of 28 to find adventure as a Roman Catholic priest in the far North.

Brown’s life has been filled with activity: mushing dog-teams down 70 miles of frozen river in 40-below blizzards, constructing beautiful churches and other buildings from hand-cut spruce logs, leading a native team on a 3,000-mile Centennial canoe race, helping unionize a mine, photographing the northern wastes, working as a medic, hunting herds of caribou, and painting realistic portraits of northern life.

In 1971, Brown received permission from Rome to marry; that summer, he and Margaret Steen, a native Northerner, were married by Bishop Paul Piché.

Bern Will Brown lived in Canada’s far North for over fifty years. He and his wife, Margaret, lived at Colville Lake, above the Arctic circle. Brown passed away on July 4th, 2014.

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Dear Artist,

Last night, my friend Bern Will Brown dropped by. Bern’s 86 now, but he’s still going strong. He’s spent the last 44 years in Colville Lake (pop. 100), an isolated outpost that is way up in Canada’s far north. Born in upstate New York, Bern spent his childhood looking across Lake Ontario and marvelling at the northern lights. “That’s where I knew I had to go,” he always tells me.

Bern Will Brown in the Genn studio checking out auction results of his work in the Canadian Art Sales Index, a publication he had never heard of.

In 1948 he became an Oblate priest and was sent to a northern diocese. As a kid, he had painted in oils — so he took his paints with him. In 1971 he took up with Margaret, a part-native woman from Tuktoyaktuk, and this event precipitated his eventual defrocking. Along the way he and Margaret established the Colville Lake Lodge, a hunting and fishing resort that has entertained some of the crowned heads of Europe, politicians, movie stars, and just plain rich folks. He has a museum and art gallery