Captaining a 117-year-old schooner, hand-framing wooden hulls, catching salmon from Alaska to Washington on a 7-woman crew, leaving for college, returning home. Being out on the notoriously brutal Pacific Northwest waters takes grit and hard work. But the one thing these women could count on was their all-women crew.
Meet Ilsa, Amber, Emma, and Nellie: four badass women leading the next generation of fishing and boating in their community.
Raised in Port Townsend, Ilsa cut her teeth salmon fishing in Southeast Alaska as part of a father-daugher crew across three families—definitely not your average fishing squad.
“When I got old enough to do the physical work, around age 13, it became way more apparent that I, a woman working on boats, was not the norm. But I wasn’t the only one–we sought each other out and created a supportive community.”
Ilsa fished for six years with the sister crew, then seven more years on other boats. Boating is infamous for its challenges, including storms and equipment failures. They talk about the frustrations of the gender divide as breezily as they tell the story of rescuing crew that fell overboard mid-race with 2,000 feet of sail up.
“Working on fishing boats is primarily made up of misadventures. I can’t count the number of times I’ve been stuck on a broken down boat in the middle of nowhere Alaska with a net in the water and a current pushing us towards a rock or another boat.”
That calm under chaos allows them to carry on, manually shifting a transmission from the engine room when the hydraulics go out, or waking up to water dumping on their head through the focsle hatch.
Amber fished for about ten years, alongside her three sisters and Ilsa’s family. The women grew up working hard and playing harder along the Gulf of Alaska. In this tight-knit crew, each woman brought their own strength and skill: the calm in the storm, the fearless thrill-seeker, and the ace at keeping all things organized.
The seven-woman crew created such a strong sense of community, resilience and respect. Amber is confident that her time on the water would have been so different (likely for the worse) without her salmon-fishin’ sisters.
These days Amber is off the water, but badass as ever. She travels worldwide advocating for women’s rights and supporting policies that can change their lives.
Eighty-four-foot wooden schooners are rare, and female captains of these classics are even rarer–but not in Port Townsend. Here, two historic tall ships have women at the helm.
Born and raised on Puget Sound, Emma brings a ton of experience. With her 100-ton master mariner’s license and sailing adventures that span the globe (literally!) she’s the one you want when things get messy. Calm under pressure and tough as nails — she fixed an engine solo in the middle of the Atlantic as smoothly as she manages overnight sailing trips with the kids in her boating program. Up early from bunks stacked three high, the kids fall in line for knots skills and drills and lessons on how to set the “gollywobbler” sail.
By day, Nellie hand-planes wooden boats. By night, she rocks out in a metal band called Flesh Dump. She approaches life by throwing herself into her passions.
Although she prefers warm climate with shorts and a tee as her daily uniform, she somehow always lands in places that bring the chill, and the Olympic Peninsula is no exception. But what drew her to the PNW was the notorious Northwest School of Wooden Boatbuilding. It’s a one-of-kind school with a one-of-a-kind-leader where you get to work on one-of-a kind boats. Run by Betsy Davis, the first woman to take charge in 43 years, the marine systems class is now made up of 50% women. That’s a big change in an industry that historically had been dominated by men.
These women are the driving force behind change in Port Townsend. They’re steering the ship and making waves. Showing how small changes can make a big difference.
