June 13, 2025 — “I’m going to Alaska for three months to fish for sockeye salmon,” were the words spoken by my boyfriend, a commercial fisherman I’d been with for almost a year. Sure, we long-distance dated and saw each other one or two times each month, but a three-month separation? Did he realize the sacrifice I was making to be in this relationship? More importantly, did I?
I didn’t understand commercial fishing, but I knew it was dangerous. (There was a show called “Deadliest Catch,” after all.) As my boyfriend explained further, I realized that the lifestyle paralleled the military wives I was surrounded by as an Army kid. I saw parents go to war while the others stayed home to manage the family and household responsibilities. I knew there were support groups for military spouses, so I searched Google for one about commercial fishing that could help me. “How to Date a Commercial Fisherman,” I typed. I was stunned; no single blog post or resource about this unique lifestyle popped up for women.
With seven years of journalism behind me, I figured I needed to change that and wrote a piece called “9 Things to Know When Dating a Commercial Fisherman” to have something on the internet for women like me (were there women like me?). I hit “publish” and forgot about it.
Yet, as blog comments and emails came from women worldwide saying they felt the same, I was relieved that others understood a life that neither my friends nor family could relate to. This niche needed attention, so I wrote more about the lifestyle and interviewed these incredible women to learn how they got through challenges in commercial fishing and to show POCFs that there are others like us.