Renny Burian (b. 1908)
Renny Burian was born in Germany and moved to British Columbia with his family when he was six. He spent his youth in Haney but with no prospects for a local job during the Great Depression he joined his older brother Alfred in the Yukon in 1931. During his first winter, Renny drove a truck for T.C. Richards between Minto and Pelly, hauling everything from oil drums to sides of beef. There were no bridges over the Pelly River and cargo had to be unloaded and hauled across the river by sleigh. The truck had no heater and only a canvas cover over the cab. At seventy-five below, he threw his lunch away as the sandwiches were too frozen to eat. After that experience, Renny cut wood for George Ryder and Antoine Cyr who sold it for household heating and to White Pass for running the sternwheelers’ boilers.1)
Renny’s brother Alfred ran all of the wood camps on the Stewart River and after he drowned in 1940 Renny and another brother Rudolph [Rudy] took over the operation. Rudy looked after the lower river camps while Renny took over the upper part. Renny travelled from his base camp at Twenty-six Mile to supervise four or five camps. There were two men at each camp, and they got a cabin, food, and $6 per cord of wood cut – that was if they stayed the whole winter. One man could cut 150 to 200 cords of wood in a winter. It was Renny’s job to use a little three-track cat to haul the cut wood to the riverbank, and he hauled about 1,000 cords of wood in a season. The sternwheeler Keno could use 200 cords for one round trip from Mayo to Stewart Island. Renny remembered one season all the sternwheelers on the Yukon were making the run because low water the previous year had caused a backlog of ore bags on the dock at Mayo. Running the 185-mile stretch against the current could take four days. Renny would travel to his camps using his own gas-powered motorboat or hitch a ride on the White Pass boats. The crew would let him pilot the big steamers while they went for a break and once he had the wheel all the way to Mayo.2)
Mary [Miyo] Yoshida was born in Vancouver after her parents emigrated from Japan. She moved to Mayo in 1931 and Renny and Mary married in 1943. 3) Their son Harvey was born in Dawson in 1944. The Burians moved back to their wood camp at Twenty-Six Mile after the war. Mary home-schooled Harvey with lessons that came from Victoria. The camp was isolated, but they had a radio with mostly Alaskan stations, and they had a ham radio so the police could check on them.4) Mary also got her chance at the wheel of a sternwheeler alone while the pilot went off to get a coffee. After the riverboat traffic declined and then stopped in the 1950s, Renny ran a sawmill for a couple of years and then he and his wife decided to leave the Yukon. A brief trip outside for six months saw their return with a vow never to leave again. They lived in Mayo, and Renny worked a few jobs before taking a position in the United Keno Hill Mine machine shop.5)
Renny worked as a master mechanic in the Elsa machine shop for more than fifteen years. The family lived in Mayo and he had to drive to work on the gravel-surfaced road. He worked under Jim McLaren and then “Tramline” Tony Sgotsgelski after Jim left.6)
After Renny’s retirement, he and Mary moved to Whitehorse where they became involved in many service and volunteer organizations. In 1977, Renny and Mary Burian were voted Mr. and Mrs. Yukon during the annual Sourdough Rendezvous.7)