Some of the earliest Europeans to settle in Gaspé were from Jersey, and many Jersey companies set up shop on the peninsular with as many as fifteen hundred islanders employed in the cod trade by the end of the 18th century - spending their summer months in Gaspé.

In fact in those days Gaspé folk found it easier to get their shopping from Jersey than from the 'mainland.'

Sadly we have long lost any evidence of a Jersey fiddle style, but Jersey players have been known to play a few Gaspé tunes (not least in the musical The Ballad of Jersey Jacques, in which a Jersey smuggler lad goes native in Newfoundland for a while).

Tom Bliss