A Community-Supported Fishery

[Chip-skiff]

I'll post this in a couple other places. I signed up for Sitka Salmon Shares, a community-supported fishery. They run a fishermen's co-op and pack and ship monthly shares of the catch. You can choose all salmon, all whitefish or a premium mix of fish, shellfish, etc. Each share and portion is labeled with the name of the boat that made the catch. On their website, you can look up each craft and get info on the skipper, crew, homeport, etc.



The share box is packed with dry ice inside a larger insulated shipping box, so the fish arrives hard-frozen.

Years ago, I spent a month in Sitka. A board member of the arts group that sponsored my residency was head of the Sitka Seafood Co-op, so I arranged to buy fish direct, mostly frozen whole salmon, halibut, halibut cheeks, etc. But FedEx is unreliable hereabouts, and a 60 lb. box of fish spent a weekend in their warehouse and came to me thawed (ugh!)

So, I was glad to find a reliable co-op source for Alaska seafood.

When we had to evacuate for a forest fire, the service reps got our September shipment delayed and stored in their stateside freezer. On our October delivery date, we also got the September share in the same box.



At a bit over USD $25 per pound, it does cost more than what we'd get on sale at the local market, but the quality is much higher. I'm also happy to support a local fishing fleet rather than Chinese fish pirates operating under false labels: a surprising amount of fish labeled "Alaska Wild-Caught" has a line of small print: product of China.

Since vacuum-packed fish keeps well in our chest freezer, we've got enough salmon for next year, so I'm pre-ordering a whitefish share (sablefish/black cod, Pacific cod, black rockfish, halibut, and lingcod) for 2021. Pre-orders placed before midnight Sunday get a discount.

https://sitkasalmonshares.com/

[Hans2]

As a commercial troller based out of Sitka, I thank you for your choice of wild seafood and to support small, family-owned fishing operations. I have several friends that sell fish to Sitka Salmon Shares and are generally happy with the arrangement.

More and more of us are moving away from the shore-based processor relationship and offering our own fish up for sale. As a Frozen-At-Sea freezer boat owner, I can produce most of my fish without being beholden to the oligarchy. It can be hard to find individual boats to buy from, and it may not be as convenient, but the value is great. I'm not sure how much I can elaborate without violating the advertising rules on the forum, so I'll leave it at that - with an invitation to all to reach out to me via PM if you're interested in more info.

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[stromborg]

I like the idea behind this project and we are consumers in two CSA programs. One for vegetables the other for beef and pork. The veggies we pick up, the meat is processed on two farms in different parts of the state, it gets frozen and delivered by van once a month. 20 pounds of frozen meat, wrapped in butcher paper put into a paper grocery bag.

Well intended but I'm having trouble getting past the carbon footprint of shipping 4.5 lbs of seafood from Alaska to my house.

Side note: I mentioned this to my wife an hour ago after looking at the website. She just opened her FB page to find Sitka Salmon prominently displayed in her feed (or something like that, I've never had a FB account). How does that happen? Maybe I do need to watch The Social Dilemma afte all.

[Chip-skiff]

Driving a 60 mpg hybrid, producing our electricity from PV panels, and not buying beef more than offsets the carbon footprint of shipping the fish.

Wyoming is not known for seafood. So it gets shipped from somewhere.

[Chip-skiff]

Just got our November share, which was albacore and black cod (sablefish).



If you've not tasted black cod, it's incredibly good: buttery, rich flavour, silky texture. Used a marinade and glaze of maple syrup, sesame oil, soy sauce, minced garlic, and ginger. Coated with sesame seeds. Baked at 350° for about 25 minutes. I ate part of mine before thinking to snap a picture.



With wild rice, a simple salad, and a bottle of Kim Crawford NZ sauv blanc.