We are a husband and wife team that met in Southeast Alaska aboard purse seiners in 1998. Seth, a third generation fisherman, began traveling to Southeast Alaska on his step dad’s purse seiner and also to Bristol Bay on his dad’s gillnet boat, helping where he could when he was only seven years old. By age ten, he was spending his entire summers working on boats in Alaska. He graduated from Carroll College in Helena, Montana with a degree in Finance. At age 21, he skippered his first boat and was well on his way to becoming a lifelong fisherman.
Meanwhile, I (Tori) grew up in a tiny town in Eastern Montana, where my grandmother hosted deer and pheasant hunters coming from Washington state year after year, many of whom were commercial fishermen. Once in college, I got the opportunity I had been looking for when one of the hunters agreed to take me seining in Southeast Alaska. After just one summer, I was hooked. I finished out my degree in Finance at Montana State University, returning to Southeast Alaska each summer to seine for salmon.
Together, we have grown our fishing business and our family. I eventually stepped out of fishing to pursue a career in finance and to raise our children. Even now, I feel a little left behind when the fleets of boats gear up and head north each season. Our children, Ryker and Kya spend a lot of time on boats and started taking trips to Alaska when they were two and four. They love to visit their dad and hang with the crew, but we try to head home before the fishing gets too intense so we aren’t in the way.
A man of few words, Seth is not likely to share any heartwarming stories about what fishing has meant to him. However, I can make up for his lack of story-telling with my own, and we can leave the hard work of catching the fish up to Seth and his crew. My grandmother used to visit Lopez Island, WA every year and spend time freezing and canning the best berries and jams I’d ever eaten. She would also bring back the biggest, most delicious fish I had ever seen that her brother had caught in Alaska. She would cook them up at her cattle brandings in Montana for all the friends and neighbors that were there to help. They would rave about it until the next spring when it was time to brand again! For years, Seth and I have been experiencing that same excitement from friends and relatives when we cook our Alaskan fish for them. We had always hoped to expand our fishery business so we could offer our fish directly to consumers. Cedar Plank Seafoods’ mission is to provide the same high quality, wild Alaskan fish that our family and friends have had the privilege of enjoying for years, to our customers.
