Fishing for Copper River salmon aboard the F/V Acadian
For as long as we can remember, our family’s life has followed the rhythm of Alaska’s fisheries. We grew up as cannery kids in False Pass and spent our summers on fishing boats—sitting in the bow of a skiff, watching salmon come over the roller, washing down the deck after a halibut set, and learning that the quality of a fish depends on how carefully it is handled every step of the way.
The gillnet boat we grew up fishing on as kids, the F/V Lucky Dove, at the False Pass dock
Emma & Claire grew up fishing with their family in Western Alaska
Seining for salmon in Prince William Sound aboard our family's 58-ft boat the F/V Stanley K
Claire and Emma setting halibut long line gear in the Bering Sea
Those experiences shaped Salmon Sisters. They also continue to shape the work our family is doing on the water and along Alaska’s working waterfront.
Over the past year, we’ve been part of several projects exploring a simple but important question: How can we take even better care of the fish we harvest—and make sure that care carries all the way to the person who eats it?
Quality Begins on the Boat
This winter, two of our family’s fishing boats were outfitted with OptimICE® machines from KAPP, an Icelandic company with a long history of developing chilling, freezing, and processing technology for the seafood industry.
Instead of conventional flake ice, the machines produce a flowing mixture of seawater and tiny ice crystals. This slurry completely surrounds the fish, cooling it quickly and evenly to just below 32°F without freezing it. Rapid chilling helps protect the fish’s texture, flavor, and shelf life from the moment it comes aboard.
The 58-ft F/V Halcyon and F/V Oracle work year-round harvesting Pacific Cod, Black Cod, Pacific Halibut, and tendering for salmon.
For fishermen, installing a new system like this requires an investment of time, money, space, and energy. It also changes familiar routines on deck. But we believe that if we want to produce exceptional seafood, we have to begin by giving fishermen the tools to protect quality at its source.
"Being lifelong commercial fishermen we have always worked to raise the bar on a quality product for the consumer. Now having switched to slurry ice I realize the changes were small in comparison. Straight out of the water bleeding and dropping the core temperature of the fish immediately provides the highest standard of quality possible. This is the gold standard in seafood products." - Dave Morey, skipper of F/V Oracle
Insulated totes aboard the F/V Halcyon
We weren’t the first Alaska fishermen to recognize the potential of this technology. Our friends at Kaia Seafoods, a fellow Homer-based, harvester-led business, have pioneered the use of careful onboard handling and liquid ice in the Bering Sea. Their work demonstrates what can happen when fishermen take greater ownership of quality, from the moment a fish is harvested onward.
Our first season was made possible by a network of collaborators, including KAPP and Sæplast/iTUB, whose insulated containers helped us maintain consistent temperatures as the fish moved from boat to processor. The fish from this initial project were sold through Ice Alaska Seafood, with Silver Bay Seafoods providing custom processing at its False Pass facility.
Teagan Carlson, fishing crew on the F/V Halcyon, holds Pacific Cod | F/V Halcyon loading cod pots at the dock in Dutch Harbor.
"The seafood industry in Alaska is constantly evolving. After 40 years of fishing we decided to do our part and move the quality of our seafood ahead once again. There has always been super high quality but never 100% consistency. Our motto is the customer should never have a bad taste." - Buck Laukitis, owner of F/V Halcyon and F/V Oracle, Ice Alaska Seafoods
Each partner played a different role, but we were all working toward the same goal: preserving the quality created on the boat throughout the fish’s entire journey.
This past summer, the Halcyon also participated in a pilot program focused on small-scale Cook Inlet salmon deliveries. Fishermen delivered carefully-handled salmon to the Halcyon, to be transported in totes filled with slurry ice back to land for processing.
Salmon boats offload their catch of Cook Inlet Sockeye to the F/V Halcyon
The program brought together fishermen, dock crews, drivers, processing teams, and many others. It was small and community-oriented by design, allowing everyone involved to pay close attention, learn quickly, and see how daily deliveries and improved chilling could influence the final product.
"After switching from the traditional method of refrigerated sea water to the slurry ice program, the difference in quality was instantly noticeable. Each fish is given the cleaning and care it deserves and the result is impressive. As a consumer, you won't find a better product. Bright, clean, firm fish in which you can taste the difference." - Peter Neaton, skipper of F/V Halcyon
The Work Behind Salmon Sisters Seafood
The seafood side of Salmon Sisters has grown slowly and personally. It is still a small family operation, built over a decade of learning, adapting, and taking risks.
Emma creates much of the storytelling and educational work around cooking fish, honoring the catch, and carrying forward our family’s traditions. Claire manages purchasing and processing operations, helping move the fish safely and thoughtfully through each stage of its journey. Our teammate Dori helps customers understand wild seafood—where it comes from, why it matters, and how to prepare it with confidence.
Our kids are part of it, too. We’re deep in the season of raising young families, which has taken us off the water more often in recent years and brought us further into the retail and processing sides of the seafood industry. We’re still figuring it out, often with children underfoot and many jobs happening at once.
During the pandemic, our seafood-box business grew quickly as people looked for ways to have wild Alaska fish delivered to their homes. We have since transformed that experience into a fish shop on Homer’s working waterfront, connected to our small processing facility. There, we can welcome locals and visitors, offer samples, answer questions, and simply talk fish.
The Salmon Sisters Fish Shop on the Homer Spit
That direct exchange has become one of the most valuable parts of our work. It gives us an ongoing connection with the people eating the seafood and helps us understand what they want to know: how a fish was caught, who harvested it, what makes one species different from another, and how to cook it without feeling intimidated.
For the past five years, we have also learned how a small seafood-processing operation can complement the seasonal rhythms of mariculture, e-commerce, and a brick-and-mortar shop. Each part of the business teaches us something that informs the others.
The Dream of Selling Our Own Fish
For generations of commercial fishermen, the dream has been to sell their own fish—to carry their responsibility for the catch beyond the rail of the boat and have a closer relationship with the people it ultimately feeds.
To us, this work is about more than creating a premium product. It is about finding ways for fishermen to participate in—and benefit from—the value created through exceptional handling. It is about wasting less, sharing knowledge, and helping people feel confident cooking and gathering around wild seafood. Most of all, it is about maintaining a connection to something real: healthy oceans, resilient coastal communities, meaningful work, and food harvested with care.
We want our children to have the chance to crew on their family’s boats, just as we did. We want them to learn personal responsibility, resilience, and respect for the natural world. We want them to understand what an extraordinary privilege it is to harvest a wild, renewable resource—and how much care that privilege demands.
These quality projects are still evolving. There is much more to learn and no shortage of logistical challenges to solve. But we’re encouraged by what can happen when fishermen, processors, equipment makers, retailers, and customers begin with a shared belief: Alaska’s seafood is worth taking exceptional care of.
Thank you for following along as we learn, experiment, and slowly build what comes next in the pursuit of delicious-tasting wild Alaska seafood. Shop Salmon Sisters seafood here.