The Story of the Alert Bay Trumpeter

Jerry Higginson and his forebears have called the coastal islands of north Vancouver Island home since his great-grandfather Wes Huson married a queen of the Tlingut people and settled in the area in the late 1800s. Wes set up the Suquash mine, the Andesite mine on Haddington Island, and a saltery on Alert Bay which turned into a cannery.

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One day in 1996, when Jerry was living on Alert Bay, he decided he would take his boat out to entertain passing cruise ships with some of his favorite tunes on the trumpet. To this day, Jerry has given over 1000 performances in the Johnstone Strait from his boat, to the roaring cheers of thousands of passengers - which keeps him hooked!