Letter from Elsie Reford to her Husband Robert Wilson Reford about her Success Fishing on the Metis River

Elsie Reford is unusual in the annals of fishing in being a woman and owner of a fishing camp. She was given Estevan Lodge and the fishing rights on the Metis River in 1918. It was a gift of great consequence to her life. It gave her a property that covered as much as 1,000 acres of fields and forest and the banks of the Metis River for its entire length to Price.

With ownership came many responsibilities. And Elsie Reford took her obligations seriously. She had more than 40 men and women in her employ, farmers on the farms, guardians on the river, gardeners in the gardens and a large number of household staff. In spite of these tasks, she still had time to fish…and to garden. Fishing was her first love. She was talented with a rod and her fishing book shows that she could land as big a salmon as her husband or other members of her fishing party.