Bern Will Brown has had a life-long interest in painting (his first painting, done when he was a child, hangs in his study at Colville Lake). He received encouragement from A.Y. Jackson when that renowned artist, a member of the Group of Seven, visited Father Brown at his mission at Camsell Portage in northern Saskatchewan in the early 1950s. It wasn’t until he led a more settled life at Colville Lake after establishing the mission there in 1962 that Bern had time to devote to painting as a vocation.