This summer, Paul and Belinda Burston spent a week up in the remote First Nations community of Mishkeegogamang, bringing donated food and other supplies to offset the high cost of goods in northern Ontario, and helping to run a summer program for local youth.
Paul, who has organized the outreach for over a decade, was accompanied by a group of about 20 volunteers - including Belinda, who was this year's cook, preparing meals each evening for the volunteers and their friends in the community.
The Pickle Lake area was hit with some tough conditions earlier in the year - including a forest fire that came dangerously close, and a tornado that swept through just a week or so before the volunteers arrived. But for the week of the program, “the weather was the best it’s been in years,” Burston said.
As for the kids, he was impressed.
“They’re making great strides. There’s the poverty still, and the challenges up there,” but compared to when he started, the energy and self-confidence have grown. “It’s night and day,” Burston said.
The Burstons got back from Mish in time to celebrate their 50th Wedding Anniversary, on Aug. 23.
This week, Mayor Rob Keffer and Ward Councillor Ron Orr dropped by their Bond Head home to deliver a certificate and congratulate the couple.
“It’s one of the nice things to do with the job, to celebrate a couple that’s done a lot for the community and the province,” said Mayor Keffer.
The Burstons were married in England, just weeks before emigrating to Canada.
“I was 19 and Paul was 22,” Belinda said.
“We just came over here with $100. We didn’t know,” said Paul. He didn’t have a job lined up, or a place to stay; on arrival, they discovered that Belinda was pregnant with the couple’s first child.
But, said Paul, “I’d always had that dream of coming to Canada."
“Looking back on it, you really believe in faith,” said Belinda, noting, “He didn’t actually ask me to marry him. He asked, would you come to Canada?”
For decades, Burston worked with Christian Horizons, and with the province, helping to close the provincial institutions where Ontarians with physical and mental disabilities had been ‘warehoused.’ He oversaw the process of integration back into the community, and helped to guide changing attitudes towards the disabled.
“It’s a very different day now,” Burston said; the change in attitude, both in schools and in society, “is making all the difference in the world.”
And he added, “I don’t regret ever emigrating and coming to live here. It’s been a wonderful adventure” - an adventure he has shared with Belinda.
