Marl Brown Receives “Visionary Award” from Northern British Columbia Tourism

During the 2012 Northern BC Tourism Annual General Meeting, Marl Brown was awarded the Walter Smith Visionary Award.  Together with his wife Mavis, Marl Brown gratefully accepted the honour and humoured the crowd when musing whether the award, a hand-carved Haida bowl, would fit as a hub cap on his 1908 Packard.
“Words of a true collector, and capturing the spirit and character of the man that we all know and love,” said Jaylene Arnold, Economic Development & Tourism Officer Northern Rockies Regional Municipality.
Marl was quick to praise the work done by the Katimavik workers who did much of the heavy lifting during the building of the Fort Nelson Historical Museum.
Bruce Wishart, in his address to the Northern BC Tourism Association, October 29th, 2012 said “Walter Smith was a volunteer and advocate for tourism in Prince Rupert and the North for 74 years. For his achievements in tourism Mr. Smith held the freedom of the City of Prince Rupert, was recipient of the provincial William Van Horne Visionary Award, and was a member of the Canadian Tourism Hall of Fame. The Walter Smith Visionary Award was created in his honour by Tourism Prince Rupert and the Northern BC Tourism Association in 2007 to recognise the pioneers and visionaries of tourism in Northern British Columbia.
“Marl Brown grew up in the small farming community of Delburne, just east of Red Deer in the parkland of south-central Alberta, and came north in 1957 to work as a mechanic for the Royal Canadian Army at Mile 245 of the Alaska Highway. He, and his wife Mavis, must have been confirmed northerners from the very beginning, because a few years later, in 1961, the Browns opened Prophet River Esso Service at Mile 245, just across from the army camp, and ran it until moving to Fort Nelson in the mid-1970s. In Fort Nelson he took care of the municipal water supply until he retired in 1996,” Wishart said.
“Yet in many ways it’s wrong to say that Marl Brown retired. It’s probably more accurate to say that working for the municipality was getting in the way of his work at the Fort Nelson Heritage Museum.”
The Fort Nelson Historical Society had been registered as a society in 1973, yet the struggle to achieve the society’s dream of building a museum had been a long one. Like many small societies, the Fort Nelson group were creative in their fundraising efforts. One of the more creative ideas, on April 17th, 1982, was to hold an Old Timer’s Dance where tickets cost $100 each but also bought a log to help build the museum and had the donor’s name enshrined on the museum’s honour roll.
“Marl Brown was already an important and well-respected figure in Fort Nelson. He was already the figurehead of a movement to create a local museum. But, unbeknownst to him, he was about to become a legend that night.
“Because as the night wore on, at that well-attended Old Timer’s Dance, somebody yelled, ‘Hey Brown, how about auctioning off your beard!’

“A frenzy of bidding followed, that night of the Great Fort Nelson Beard Auction of ’82, but when whiskers settled a bare-cheeked Marl Brown had helped raise over $10,000 toward the museum fund.
“Construction of the Fort Nelson Heritage Museum began in 1985, and the museum opened in 1987.
“The vision Marl demonstrated in the long years of fundraising and construction would alone have left us in his debt. But the story doesn’t end there. Of course the museum holds many artifacts and displays that commemorate the men and women who built the Alaska Highway and details the hardships they faced, but the theme of the museum is, fittingly enough, transportation. And the heart of the collection is Marl’s personal collection of historic cars and trucks, all of which he lovingly maintains in working order.
“He’s made those vehicles ambassadors for both Fort Nelson and its heritage museum. One of his first epic treks was in 1975, in the dead of winter, when he drove a 1926 Model T from Fort Simpson to Fort Nelson, years before the road now known as the Simpson Trail was built. In 2008, just to celebrate the 100th anniversary of his 1908 Buick Model 10, he and Mavis, along with co-pilot Bill McLeod, drove the car from Fort Nelson to Whitehorse.
“He used the same car, in 2010, when he was the community’s choice to carry the Olympic Torch to light the cauldron for the Fort Nelson community celebration. All of these things brought media attention, and Marl used every one of those opportunities to promote Fort Nelson, its heritage museum, and the Alaska Highway.
“In 1992 Marl was awarded the Canada 125 medal, which recognizes Canadians who have made a significant contribution to their fellow citizens, to their community, and to Canada.
“When asked to describe Marl Brown to the Vancouver Sun a couple of years ago, one longtime resident said simply, “Marl Brown is Fort Nelson, and Fort Nelson is Marl Brown.”
“Mr. Brown, through this award we recognize that you are much more than that. This summer friends of mine, real northerners who operated a business in Prince Rupert for a half-century before retiring to the Island, traveled the Alaska Highway by RV. I met them in Prince Rupert, and they told me that one of the most memorable moments in this amazing experience was talking to a fellow named Marl Brown at the museum in Fort Nelson.
“So you see, for those of us who promote our communities as a part of a northern BC experience, you’ve provided a memory that will be talked about for years to come. That may well encourage others to travel the same road, and I’ll wager that those folks end up visiting all of our communities. That’s how it works. It really is that simple.
“I’ve noticed that when people from Fort Nelson refer to Marl Brown they actually mean Marl and Mavis Brown. I think that we all recognize that you could not have accomplished what you have without the support of your family, particularly in the days before there was a museum to store your collections, and we recognize what that support has meant for all of us.
“Mr. Brown, you will modestly say that you just thought it was a shame that so many vital pieces of your community’s past were leaving and that something should be done about it. Many people, in many communities, say things just like that every day. Most of those people have their sentimental moment of nostalgia, but in the end they’re willing to contribute no more than words. People like you are of a different order altogether. People like you are rare.
“Mr. Brown, we can’t even begin to express our gratitude for your 40 years of effort to establish the Fort Nelson Heritage Museum, and to promote the astonishing heritage of the Alaska Highway. It would be impossible to find a more deserving recipient for the 2012 Walter Smith Visionary Award,” Wishart concluded.

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