Lögberg-Heimskringla - 30.05.2003, Blaðsíða 6

page 6 • Lögberg-Heimskringla • Friday, 30 May 2003
“Any man ’s death diminishes me, for 1 am involved in mankind ... No man is an island, entire ofhimself. ”—John Donne • “Maður er manns gaman. Hávamál
Spotlighting lives lived and milestones in the lives oflcelandic North Americans.
Brian Campion Threw Himself Heart and Soul into Anything He Did
Whitehorse legal community loses beloved member
PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE WHITEHORSE STAR
Brian Campion in his single engine Cherokee. He loved to
fly, and “just loved the opportunity to take you somewhere,”
according to friend Jon Rudolph.
Sarah Elizabeth Brown
and Stephanie Waddell
Whitehorse, Yukon
The flying lawyer who
trekked to the Yukon’s
community criminal court cir-
cuits in his early days and who
visited mining clients later in
his career from the cockpit of
his own airplane has died of
complications after heart sur-
gery.
Brian Campion was fifty-
four when he died in a
Vancouver hospital December
15th, 2002. A Yukoner through
and through, he was bom in
Swift River 1948. His father
Chess ran the highways depart-
ment and the family “bounced
around the highway system,”
said his brother Greg Campion.
As a lawyer, his friends and
clients describe him as com-
mon sense, honest and incredi-
bly sharp. Campion practised
law in the territory since 1978,
when he was made a partner in
Erik Nielsen’s old law fírm.
By then he was thirty, and
already had a motley collection
of jobs under his belt. Out of
Argyle Transfer Ltd.
Specializing in livestock
transportation
Wally & Linda Finnbogason
Stonewall, MB
Wally 467-8822 Mobile 981-1666
Daryl 322-5743 Mobile 981-5460
high school, Campion went
straight to the University of
British Columbia in engineer-
ing. Early in his university
career he broke his back, end-
ing his summer jobs driving
trucks for highway resurfacing
projects. “He had to find some-
thing in life to do that didn’t
require him to do physical
work,” his brother said.
After heading back to
school and earning an account-
ing degree, he came back to
Whitehorse and became a full-
fledged accountant. “I don’t
know why it took him so long
to decide this, but he just hated
it,” Greg said. At that point he
decided to become a lawyer
and ventured off to Dalhousie
University in Nova Scotia.
Both Greg and Brian
shared a love of flying, and in
1972, Brian got his pilot’s
license. In 1990 Brian bought
his plane, and a few years later
he and his brother built a hang-
er to tinker on planes and
snowmobiles. “Some of my
big cherished moments are
Brian and I. We both had great
plans, but this was a place to
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sort of putter around ... geared
to our later years for retire-
ment,” he said. “Of course
that’s a big hole for me now,”
Greg said. “I go up to the hang-
er now and there’s no Brian.”
Friend Jon Rudolph recalls
Campion’s beautifully main-
tained single-engine Cherokee.
“He just loved the opportu-
nity to take you somewhere,”
said Rudolph, whose Golden
Hill Ventures was one of
Campion’s clients. “He’d book
off work, he’d reschedule
things, anything to go flying.”
Another client, Norm
Ross, who owns the Yukon’s
largest placer mining company,
recalls a time a few years ago
when he had to make a wrench-
ing personal and business deci-
sion. Campion knew he would-
n’t be able to think clearly in
the midst of his Dominion
Creek operation, so the lawyer
flew up to the mine site outside
Dawson City and flew Ross to
Whitehorse for a few hours of
quiet reflection. Calling
Campion his “stable rudder” in
business matters, Ross said,
“There was my stability there
when I needed him, and I did-
n’t request it. That’s just the
kind of guy he was.”
Campion wrote up the
shortest but most encompass-
ing mining agreements of any
lawyer he’s dealt with, Ross
said, calling him “the ultimate
red tape cutter” because he
thoroughly knew the Placer
Act, how claims systems and
water licences worked, as well
how to integrate regulations
between various government
departments. “He knows how
to do things in very few words,
and that’s not a mark of his
trade in general,” said Ross,
chuckling.
It’s not only his clients who
recall Campion as extremely
thorough. Grant Macdonald, a
co-partner at Anton Campion
& Macdonald, worked with
Campion for 22 years.
“He always threw himself
heart and soul into anything
that he did,” the lawyer said.
Campion particularly
enjoyed doing mining legal
work that took him to mining
recorder’s offíces in the com-
munities — another chance to
hop in his plane. And because
he could visit these far-flung
offices himself, Campion was
able to get work done much
faster than anyone else, said
Macdonald.
Another of Campion’s
favourite areas was defending
“lowly placer miners fighting
against the federal bureaucra-
cy” in environmental cases,
added Macdonald. Campion’s
legal stamp has been on many
of the Yukon’s big mining proj-
ects over the years, such as
Cyprus Anvil, United Keno
and Curragh, as well as advis-
ing the Klondike Placer Miners
Association for free over the
years.
Playing was just as impor-
tant as work for Campion.
Involved in the annual bathtub
races, he loved good food,
snowmobiling and exploring
the territory and even the conti-
nent in his plane. But the
Yukon outdoors, and especially
its rivers, held a special allure.
Every year he made a point of
taking off for a few weeks to
explore the Yukon River.
“I think you could easily
say the Yukon was in his
blood,” said friend Gregg
Jilson.
“He was a guy you’d sure
want to have with you if you
were in the bush. In my experi-
ence, I never saw anything he
couldn’t fix. That was sort of
the common sense he had, was
just an unbelievable ability he
had to scrape together a few
pieces of metal and wood and
fix things and get you moving
again in the bush.”
“He was a very wise man,”
added Jilson, a semi-retired
mining engineer and current
chair of the territory’s water
board. “Full of common sense,
with an incredible background
in experience, not just in the
law but in driving trucks, oper-
ating equipment. He’s one of
those rare people ... who was a
jack of all trades and yet at the
same time he was a master of at
least two — the law and fly-
ing.”
Brian was the grandson of
Jón and Ingunn Steinthorson
and great-grandson of Johannes
and Ólöf Johnson, pioneer fam-
ilies of the Manitoba Interlake
area. His was the son of Helga
and Chess Campion. Besides
his brother Greg, he had two
sisters Anne and Jillian. He
was married to Carol, and they
had two children Cara born in
1979 and Colin born in 1983.
The Yukon Foundation has
established the Brian Campion
Scholarship Fund in his memo-
ry. Donations may be made to
the Foundation at PO Box
32096, Whitehorse, Yukon
YIA 5P9.
Reprínted with permission from the
Whitehorse Star, Friday January 3,
2003.
The Yukon outdoors, and especially its rivers, held a special
allure for Brian Campion. Every year he explored the
Yukon River with family and friends
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