Gerald Harris Bisbee

Gerald Harris Bisbee

October 20, 1954 – January 8, 2026

Gerald passed peacefully at home in Halfmoon Bay, British Columbia, surrounded by family and close friends, after living with Parkinson’s Disease for 26 years. He was 71 years old.

When a life is written, two dates are listed: the day a person arrives and the day they leave. But a life is measured in the dash between them - the choices made, the people loved, and the places that shape a person’s heart. Gerald filled his dash generously.

Born in Ingersoll, Ontario, Gerald was pre-deceased by his mother Ruth Marie (Harris), his sister Leslie Ann, and his father Frank Leslie. He leaves behind his wife of 41 years, Sylvia (Hewgill) Bisbee; his son Brett and Brett’s spouse Kirstin Esparate; his daughter Emily (Bisbee) Spencer and Emily’s husband Wylie Spencer; and his beloved granddaughter Summer, who brightened his final years with laughter and love.

Gerald’s dash held adventure from the beginning. Early summers were spent in the family’s little Boler trailer in New York, where his father trained trotters and pacers. Gerald made his spending money at the track, shining shoes and helping wherever a willing kid could. Later, when they had their own horses, days often ended in the winners’ circle, and the spark of competition lodged itself early.

Yearly trips to “The Hunt Camp” in Port Loring, Ontario, with close family, cousins, and many friends meant waterskiing from dawn until dark, ongoing euchre games, and the kind of time together that stitched loyalty, laughter, and belonging into him. Between racetracks, lakes, football fields, hockey rinks, and card tables, those early years shaped the caring family man Gerald would become. Sports were an early and lasting love, hockey, football, baseball, and golf. Both played and watched. After high school he headed west with thoughts of Australia, but the rugged beauty of the British Columbia coastline claimed him for good. There he met Sylvia, married, and they built a family on the Sunshine Coast.

He spent most of his working life on tugboats, honest, demanding work that matched his quiet fortitude. The rhythm of being away and being home gave him something rare: slow mornings, walks to school, field trips, rink time, and all the ordinary moments of family life that become the best memories.

On the water, Gerald was most himself. Aboard his 32-foot troller, The Long Way Home, he and Sylvia explored fishing holes, Texada, Jedediah, Desolation Sound, Pendrell Sound, Hakai Pass, Fury Bay, and countless coves where the tide hushed the world and time felt suspended. Fishing lines, crab traps, prawns in a bucket, and dogs at his heels became part of his marriage and his story, rituals that seemed to hold Parkinson’s at bay for many years.

His dash was not confined to one coastline. It carried him from Ingersoll to the West Coast, and onward still: Australia and Bali, Nova Scotia’s rugged edge, and cruises through Alaska, Southeast Asia, and eventually the Panama Canal, memories charted not in miles, but in wonder.

Gerald lived his dash with quiet integrity. He was committed, honest, kind, and dedicated to his work, to his family, and to the friendships he gathered and kept. He was gentle, steady, and good in all the ways that matter.

His dash was not long enough, but it was full, salt water and cedar, tugboats and tide lines, ski hills and card tables, dogs at his heels and laughter close by. Such things do not end; they settle into memory and into the hearts of those who loved him.

In Summer’s bright eyes, in the coves and inlets he loved, and in the hearts of his children and his wife, his story goes on, taking the Long Way Home.

If desired, donations in Gerald’s memory may be made to the Parkinson Society British Columbia.

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