Rags to Riches: The Nelson Bros. Fisheries Story

Richard “ Ritchie” and Norman Nelson were born in Norway and immigrated with their parents to Canada in 1909, where they joined two older Nelson brothers already established on the Fraser River in Sunbury, BC. By age thirteen, Ritchie was crafting gill-nets from discards and fishing the Fraser. In 1929, he and Norman co-founded Nelson Bros. Fisheries, an operation that by the 1950s stretched from the west coast of Vancouver Island to Alaska.

With endless energy and boundless bravado, Ritchie...