08/31/2026
Roy Curtis
Roy Curtis was inducted into our Hall of Fame in 2000
Roy Curtis was born on April 27, 1921. He was the son of George and Elizabeth Nelli Curtis of Gray Rapids. Roy’s home was on the banks of the Main Southwest Miramichi River. He was the fourth eldest in the family of ten. The family used the river for weather reports and its seasons as a calendar; it was the touchstone for all they did.
From the time Roy was a toddler, he was drawn to the ever changing face of the river that flowed through his world. By age five he was fishing, and by eighteen he was an accomplished angler and boatman on any stream.
The world in which Roy and his siblings lived was so different from today it seems scarcely believable to younger generations. All the Curtis family was involved in the salmon business in one way or another. Over the years a large number of Curtis women or men, or their relatives, worked at Rocky Brook Camp as cooks, guides, or cleaners
During World War II, Roy joined the Canadian Army in 1939 but was discharged a year later because he developed scarlet fever. Upon his return, he worked in the logging camos in the winter and the river drive in the spring. Roy worked mainly as a sawyer in the woods and for a number of years his partner was Clarence Brophy, one of the Brophy boys form Cains River.
Roy worked mainly in the lumber industry until he met Ted Williams, but he also guided for Richard P Hallowell who operated a camp at White Rapids as well as the Miramichi Renous Club, Paul O’Hara’s Doctors Island Clun, Wade’s Fishing Lodge, and Tom Boyds Fishing Lodge.
Roy was a good friend of Ted Williams. Ted Williams was obsessive compulsive, a perfectionist. He was very picky when it came to his fishing guides. It wasn’t until he met Roy that he finally found a guide who suited him and a guide who would put up with him. In fact Roy, liked him, he thought he was just a big grown up kid. Dealing with the temperamental Williams gave Roy a chance to use the diplomatic skills he had learned so many years before in his Gray Rapids Home. Ted and Roy joked like life long buddies, as comfortable with one another as brothers.
Besides Roy, Ted also hired Roys wife Edna as his cook and cleaner. Being a cook and cleaner in Ted William's camp was a demanding job with long hours.
Roy married Edna on July 22, 1942 and had a family of 10. Ten seemed to be a popular number for a Gray Rapids Family in those days. The lives of Roy and Edna’s children revolved around the river. It was central thread that bound their lives to the land and to each other.
Roy tied fine salmon flies. He kept his fly tying materials and table a the had of the stairs of his house. One of his popular creations was the Renous Special, a fly used even today.
The stories of Ted and Roy are legion along the Miramichi and many of them have been printed in newspapers and magazines. The books written about Ted Williams always mention Roy Curtis.
Roy’s good humour turned to worry when it came to the changes happening to the river and woods. He regarded clear cutting, herbicide use and small or non existent buffer strips along streams and lakes as threats to the fragile ecosystem that supported the salmon. His wisdom gained from a lifetime of living close to nature taught him that severe damage to the Miramichi and tis closely connected wetlands, springs, feeder brooks, and main rivers ultimately destroy the salmon.
Roy worked until September 1988 and died in October of pneumonia
