Northern Exposure: Vogue Celebrates 125 Years With Women Who Fish in Alaska

For Alaskan women, fishing is not just a job – but a way of life.

Thank you Vogue and the amazing Evgenia Arbugaeva for capturing this community of hard-working women that we hold in such high esteem. What a day for this diverse group of strong and independent women to have a moment of recognition. We feel incredibly to lucky to be able to use our Salmon Sisters audience to highlight our larger community and Alaska’s commercial fisheries. 

To celebrate their 125th birthday, Vogue decided to photograph American women coast to coast:

"Our intention was to celebrate the extraordinary diversity of style, enterprise, and values (in every sense) that defines us today. We asked the photographers we admire most to shoot communities that we (and they) found riveting. Commissioned and curated by our Visual Director, Suzanne Shaheen, American Women came to encompass 15 portfolios of video and portraiture on subjects as diverse as salmon fisherwomen in Alaska and service members stationed at Hickam Air Force Base in Honolulu. Every person photographed for this project is captivating, dynamic, gorgeous . . . that is, everything Vogue has presented, and represented, for 125 years."

We're proud that our community was included in these stories of diverse, unfiltered, and breathtaking women. Here are some of our favorite of Evgenia's photos, below. 

Wendy McCune and her husband, Mike, co-own Ocean Swell Ventures, which plans custom outings like surfing, stand-up paddling, and hunting and fishing for tourists.

Margo Reveil at the oyster farm she runs with her husband, Frank, in Jakolof Bay. Margo and Frank and their two sons sailed into Homer the summer of 2012, after three years sailing the Pacific.

Kristin Vantrease, a third-generation fisherwoman, now is a high school English teacher in Anchorage, but every summer she comes back for the salmon, and her family.

After 15 years of maritime experience and five seasons spent as a marine technician on research vessels in Antartica, Amy Schaub bought her own Seine salmon fishing boat, the “Norsel,” in 2015.

Lisa Krebs runs her own fishing site in Bristol Bay in the summer. In the winter, she welds.

“We love to work—we grew up working,” Neaton says. “Everything we do for Salmon Sisters doesn’t feel like a job.”

Claire Neaton and her sister Emma Teal Laukitis, cofounders of Salmon Sisters, have been fishing all their lives. “There’s the routine of being able to do it every season,” Neaton says. Laukitis explains: “Once you start prioritizing fishing as your job, the rest of the year is dictated by that.”

The Salmon Sisters founders’ credit their mother, Shelley, with teaching them to value financial independence.