When Ottawans hear the name Mitch Owens, most think of the long, arrow-straight stretch of rural road that connects Manotick to Boundary Road near Highway 417.

Local history buffs may recall Owens as a pragmatic former Mountie turned businessman turned local politician, the ambitious son of Ukrainian immigrants who tried to hold on to his cultural roots despite the suspicion and casual racism he sometimes faced along the way.

The jovial, straight-talking former Gloucester mayor left politics in 1991, a year before the former Regional Road 8 would be renamed in his honour.

But here's the thing about Mitch Owens: That wasn't even his name, and his journey to local fame was anything but straight.

Mikhail Onsowitch (pronounced on-SO-vitch) was born on March 25, 1921, in the tiny farming community of Cook's Creek, Man. He didn't stick around long.

Mitch Owens, centre, enlisted in the RCMP in 1942. (Supplied)

Searching for scarce work during the Great Depression, the restless teenager left the family farm to ride the rails across the country, holding a succession of jobs along the way, from short-order cook to drugstore clerk to northern Ontario lumberjack, a job that suited his muscular, six-foot-two-inch frame.

In 1942, at age 21, Mikhail Onsowitch enlisted in the RCMP and made his way to Depot in Regina for training.

"You need to change your name," a superior told the young recruit when he arrived.

"During that time period there were questions and suspicions about people of Slavic background," said Owens's granddaughter, Cassandra Crowder, who still lives in the 170-year-old stone farmhouse her grandfather purchased in the 1950s.

Mitch Owens, right, peels potatoes aboard the RCMP schooner St. Roch as it sailed from Halifax to Pond Inlet. (Supplied)

On the phone from Florida, John Owens, 67, picked up the story about how his dad chose his new surname.

"He was in a hotel bar in Regina and just went through the phone book and just picked Owens as being the closest to his family name," he said.

The young recruit with whom Onsowitch had been drinking at the Hotel Saskatchewan accompanied him to the courthouse where he swore an oath to the true identity of his friend, thenceforth known as Mitch Owens.

"The family was not too pleased with the name change," John Owens laughed.

His new name made official, Owens embarked on an adventurous career with the Mounties. He was aboard the RCMP schooner St. Roch as it set off on its history-making east-west voyage through the Northwest Passage in 1943.

Owens quickly became enamoured with the North, its people and their customs. (Supplied)

Owens disembarked at the northern tip of Baffin Island, where he remained as commander of the Pond Inlet RCMP detachment for nearly four years. There, he formed a lifelong affection for both the land and its people.

The young Mountie, who already spoke Ukrainian, Russian and Polish, and could get by in other Slavic dialects, soon became one of the first RCMP officers to learn Inuktitut.

He was always full of stories — very pleasant stories — and I don't even think he embellished them. - Bruce Straby, former neighbour

Decades later, in his 90s and living at Orchard View retirement residence, Owens discovered one of the building's cleaners was Inuk and began speaking to her in her own tongue. The woman returned later in the week with two friends, and the foursome spent a pleasant afternoon sharing stories of the North.

"It was something he was very proud of, right to the end of his life," said Bruce Straby, 85, who built a house across the road from the Owens homestead in 1959, and who heard many of those same tales over the years.

"He was always full of stories — very pleasant stories — and I don't even think he embellished them," Straby said.

Cassandra Crowder stands in front of the stone farmhouse purchased by her grandparents, Mitch and Stella Owens, in the 1950s. Its address? Mitch Owens Road, of course. (Stu Mills/CBC)

In the mid-1940s, an American submarine and its escort vessels arrived at Pond Inlet, looking for permission from the local ranking officer to dock.

"No, you can't," said Owens, determined to protect Canadian sovereignty.

The fleet withdrew from the harbour and docked down the coast, out of sight of the local authorities. The submarine captain was nevertheless impressed by the young Mountie's guts, and the two men would go on to become lifelong friends.

After a few years in Pond Inlet, Owens was stationed in Ottawa, then England, where he vetted displaced persons and former POWs hoping to come to Canada.

Bruce Straby holds a treasured Christmas card from the Owens family. (Stu Mills/CBC)

He and his wife, Stella, would eventually return to the Ottawa area and settle into the stone house on Regional Road 8, chosen partly because it resembled the flat expanses of his childhood home in Manitoba, and partly because of what they'd witnessed in post-war Europe. Having seen hunger up close, they made the most of their 45 hectares, growing potatoes, beans, carrots, peas and fruit in the summer. Autumns were spent preserving food for the winter.

Owens retired from the RCMP after 21 years on the force and opened a mobile home community not far from his own homestead. Seeing his neighbours weren't as well represented politically as they could be, Owens decided to go into local politics.

It was that generosity of spirit that drew so many people to the man once known as Mikhail Onsowitch, and that helped forge so many lifelong friendships.

"He was always there for us, we were always there for him," Straby said of his former neighbour across Mitch Owens road.