
Veteran salmon setnetters in Kodiak’s Alitak District have struck a deal with Silver Bay Seafoods after long-time buyer OBI dropped the Alitak setnet fleet from its roster, citing economic concerns.
The former processor’s decision to drop the setnetters left them with no established means for gearing up remote fishing camps, fueling boats and selling their catch, according to veteran harvester Hannah Heimbuch.
Many of the 40 setnet fishing businesses affected by that Alitak decision are family operations with a multi-generational history in the fishery. Village residents, including commercial and subsistence fishermen, always have been able to purchase fuel, groceries and other goods and sell their commercially caught fish.
Heinbuch—also a fisheries policy and communications consultant with Ocean Strategies, a public affairs firm specializing in seafood fisheries and marine resources—said that OBI is working with community and tribal leaders to problem solve the most critical services, but it still feels like a long shot due to consolidations. OBI was formed by the merger of Ocean Beauty Seafoods and Icicle Seafoods four years ago, but is now primarily owned by Cooke Inc., a Canadian multinational seafood company.
This is the latest in a series of industry shake-ups in Alaska that began in December 2023 when Trident Seafoods announced plans to sell processing facilities in Kodiak, False Pass, Petersburg and Ketchikan, Alaska. Then, Peter Pan Seafoods shuttered its King Cover processing facilities, which have been there for over 100 years, and also lost its Sand Point plant to a fire.
After a spring of chaos, the fish ultimately pulled the fleet through in Alitak this year, Heimbuch wrote in Ocean Strategies’ latest fisheries policy report, released Oct. 1.
“While salmon runs statewide were inconsistent in both returning numbers and fish size, 2024’s returning cohort ultimately pulled through for Kodiak’s Alitak District in a short-order Hail Mary,” Heimbuch wrote.
All this came as the early run never did materialize, and there was a drought that hit the island in 2020 that likely wiped out most of that season’s eggs.
“But one day in August, the late-run sockeye poured into the bay, and didn’t stop. Day after day we drove to the net, and gradually replenished our hope, our fish holds and our freezers. The loan payments got made, another race in the books,” Heimbuch said.
A lesson learned, she added, is what happens tomorrow will depend on what is prioritized.
“For better or worse these shake-ups are trending, across Alaska and in other regions of the country, pushing coastal communities and fishermen to reconsider what resilience and prosperity look like today, and for the years to come,” she said. “Ecological well-being and biodiversity are fundamental to that resilience, and so are myriad factors of tangible and intangible community infrastructure—port facilities, workforce, market competition, etc.”
“Fishing operations function like a watch,” she continued. “It takes a series of gears working together effectively to make the hands turn. If one of those gears falters, so do the others.”
It was waterfront diversity that got setnetters through the good, bad and the ugly, Heimbuch said, adding that resilience isn’t about preventing change or even preventing crisis.
“Crisis gives us an opportunity to reflect on what keeps our working waterfronts working and our communities strong,” she stated. “Keeping the fleet going has a ripple effect within the port and maritime trades of a community—the welders and mechanics and boat builders.”
They pivoted to supplemental markets, like selling pink salmon to crabbers who needed fresh bait. These shifts took work and wrangling, but they helped make ends meet from beach to beach.
Margaret Bauman can be reached at margie@maritimepublishing.com