CATCHING UP WITH THE SALMON SISTERS
Claire and Emma – The Salmon Sisters
As Alaska and PNW begins to open back up, how have things in your world been?
Winter and slower season has given us the opportunity to turn in, tune-up, and prepare for what’s looking like a busy summer season. The past year, we have focused on getting wild fish onto people’s plates – through our online direct to door sales and through our Give Fish Project, which donates wild salmon to our community through the Food Bank of Alaska. It feels good to provide people with healthy wild food nationwide as demand for Wild Alaska Seafood grows.
This year has been difficult for so many small businesses and families, and we’ve faced our fair share of challenges but we’re grateful to be weathering through. After keeping our retail locations closed last season, we are thrilled to have opened our Flagship shop and a new small Fish Shop in Homer this summer. Our team is excited to welcome our community back! We’re so grateful for our customers’ support, we would not be here without all of you. We’re more inspired than ever to create quality gear to get people outside into nature – wild places have gotten us through a hard year, and we want to give people the confidence they need to go out and discover their surroundings.
As you prep for the next fishing season, what do you expect will be the same or different? What are you looking forward to?
We’re excited that the summer season is upon us and are about to head to sea with our family. Fishing is demanding work, but it’s a break from routine and keeps our bodies strong and perspectives fresh. Our annual migration between land and sea feels like an essential part of our identity at this point, and we love that our jobs let us feed the world with the most incredible, sustainably harvested food. Emma will be kicking off the season in Copper River gillnet fishery and is looking forward to catching that first gleaming salmon of the season, giving it a kiss of thanks, and letting it swim back to tell its family that it has been treated with respect. Claire will be in Prince William Sound this summer, tendering for the salmon seine fleet, and we’ll both head west to the Aleutian Islands later in the summer to longline for halibut near Dutch Harbor with our parents. We’re excited to explore Alaska’s wild coastline that is only accessible by boat – and to be constantly in awe of the beautiful place we get to work and call home. Summer in Alaska is wild with flowers, berries, and edible plants. We see more seabirds, whales and bears than we do people. It’s going to feel like summer has really started when we’re on the beach with friends with a fresh fish cooking over the campfire.
Salmon Sisters products are designed in Alaska, inspired by nautical tradition, and made for a community of fishermen, adventurers, and ocean enthusiasts.