In her personal essay, fisherwoman Melanie Brown reflects on growing up around set-net fishing from a very young age and the Indigenous women in Bristol Bay, AK, whose ingenuity created and sustained this fishery. The story appeared in National Fisherman for the first ever International Fisher Women’s Day.
Brown shares how she learned set-net fishing as a child on the Naknek River and how five generations of women in her family have carried this work forward. She explains that Bristol Bay’s early set-net techniques were created by local women who needed to catch salmon while men were away on company boats. Brown also describes the ongoing, often overlooked labor women perform in fisheries—managing the home, caring for families, and harvesting salmon. Her story highlights the leadership and resilience of fisherwomen in Bristol Bay and across the world.
Main image: Five generations of Brown’s family of fisher people in 1994. Photo courtesy of Melanie Brown.