Alan Haig-Brown of New Westminster was born in 1941 in Campbell River. He seined salmon and herring until 1973, and served for eleven years as coordinator of First Nations education in the Cariboo-Chilcotin. He also taught school to Indigenous students on Quadra Island and the Cariboo. Haig-Brown became editor of the West Coast Fisherman in 1986 and later founded The West Coast Mariner and The West Coast Logger. Alan Haig-Brown photographs and writes about commercial boats and their crews, from tugs to fishing, for a wide variety of magazines including Professional Mariner magazine. He also supported a global travel habit by doing some writing for a marine engine manufacturer.

His chronicle of one ship in the commercial fishing industry since 1926 is The Suzie A (Pacific Educational, 1991). His award-winning books for Harbour Publishing include Fishing for a Living (1993) and The Fraser River (1996). He also wrote Canada is Hell No We Won't Go: Vietnam Drafter Resisters in Canada (Raincoast, 1996) which includes profiles of several writers such as environmentalist Paul George, poet Norm Sibum, singer Jim Byrnes, Stephen Eaton Hume and Fred Reed.

He is the son of Roderick Haig-Brown [see entry].

Review of the author's work by BC Studies:
The Fraser River
Still Fishin': The BC Fishing Industry Revisited

BOOKS:

The Suzie A (Pacific Educational, 1991)
Fishing for a Living (Harbour, 1993)
The Fraser River (Harbour, 1996) $49.95
Still Fishin': The BC Fishing Industry Revisited (Harbour, 2010) $26.95
Random Walks: New West From the Street (Image West, 2022) $29.95 9780994817525

[BCBW 2023] "Fishing"