Photo of Valerie Westman giving water by the bucket to minks in individual pens in her father's minkyard. A border collie dog sits by her side. Her father, Jack Westman, originally started a small mink operation in Tollendal with one shed before expanding to three sheds in 1949. Jack and his wife Fran worked this labour-intensive job for many years feeding, breeding, harvesting, and selling minks. They were able to pelt approximately one thousand mink per year, with larges ranches being able to reach around 2,800 per year. A bout of distemper among the mink hit the Westman farm particularly hard, but even after a vaccine had been developed it was costly and difficult to inoculate each mink. The farm was located on what is now known as Cox Mill Road.
