The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
Jonathon Naylor Editor Retirement has proven better late than never for one of the giants of Flin Flon business. At the ripe age of 83, Steve Novak has sold his last remaining commercial entity, the Royal Hotel, marking the end of an era for the energetic entrepreneur. 'It's time,' says Novak, who now lives in Winnipeg. Novak at one time owned the Royal Hotel and the Kelsey Trail Motel (now the Victoria Inn) and was co-owner of Arctic Beverages. Originally from southern Manitoba, he worked as a bookkeeper and, later, at a soft drink company in Winnipeg. In search of new opportunity, Novak ventured north in 1962 when he purchased the Gateway Hotel in The Pas. After selling the business in 1965, he moved to Flin Flon, where in December of that year he assumed ownership of the Royal Hotel. It wasn't quite the landmark it is today, but it was a bustling place with its 39 rooms, bar and familiar sign hanging off the side of the building. Novak was still tying up some loose ends on the sale when, on Jan. 27, 1966, a blaze ripped through the bar and 10 rooms above it. 'It was a very trying time to say the least, because we hadn't completed all the paperwork on the hotel at that time yet,' he recalls. Right business Repairs took over nine months to complete, but Novak never doubted he was still in the right business. He is, after all, a people person. 'I enjoy meeting people and seeing new faces, seeing old faces again, that type of thing,' he says. A backbone of the Royal was always the downstairs bar, whose heyday of the '60s and '70s came when Flin Flon was younger and its main employer, HBMS, operated on traditional shifts. 'The business during the years when the company used to have people working the eight-hour shifts, you could hardly find a seat (after work),' Novak says. Novak says the bar 'slowed down considerably' when company workers went to 12-hour shifts and had less time and, presumably, energy to go out. Other changes, namely technological advances, took a bit of a bite out of the demand for hotel rooms. 'It used to be very busy with rooms,' Novak says. 'Salesmen used to come up to Flin Flon an awful lot at one time and bring their wares. That changed with the advent of...the electronic age. That reduced the number of people that travelled to Flin Flon.' But the Royal wasn't Novak's only source of income. In 1975 he purchased the Kelsey Trail Motel as well as some adjacent property on which he built a three-storey hotel. With nearly 100 rooms, the revamped facilities became the Victoria Inn after Novak sold the business in the late 1980s. Around the same time, Novak also sold Arctic Beverages, the highly successful soft drink producer and bottler he co-owned. See 'Found...' on pg. 7 Continued from pg. 6 A highly respected figure, Novak was one of those business owners who always found time to give back. He could often be found volunteering with the Trout Festival, regional and provincial tourism associations, and the Flin Flon and District Chamber of Commerce. By 1996, now closing in on his 70s, Novak and wife Lavinia decided to enjoy semi-retirement in Winnipeg. Son Steve and daughter Bonnie stayed behind in Flin Flon, running the Royal Hotel as the family business it always was. As the years marched on, the family's thoughts increasingly turned to an eventual sale. Last month, after owning the Royal for nearly five decades, they sold the business to entrepreneurs from Winnipeg. For Steve, the type of man who likes to stay busy, it means finding fresh ways to occupy time. He plans on fishing, taking in new forms of entertainment and making trips up north. For a man who grew up in the 1930s and '40s, Steve has seemingly boundless energy. So what's his secret? 'I don't know, I just love to work,' he says.
