Meet Alaska Sea Greens: Farmers, Fishers, and Homesteaders on Kodiak Island
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By Fisheries.Noaa.Gov, fisheries.noaa.gov.
If you want to visit Kodiak Island in Alaska, you have two options. You can take a flight from Anchorage, about 250 miles away, or take the Alaska Marine Highway Ferry from Homer, which takes about 10 hours. Kodiak is stunningly beautiful and very remote. For the roughly 13,000 people who live there, it’s what makes Kodiak home.
This is certainly true for Adelia Myrick and Tollef Monson. As off-grid homesteaders on Kodiak’s western coast, the wife and husband duo make their living off the water. Owners of Alaska Sea Greens, they farm kelp in the winter and fish for salmon in the summer.
“Salmon brought us to this corner of the world. I think it’s pretty amazing that our fishing skills, our boats, our knowledge of lines and knots, all transfer to kelp farming!” said Adelia Myrick. This seasonal blend of fishing and farming help Adelia and Tollef earn a living on Kodiak, while maintaining a deep commitment to environmental sustainability.
From Tide (and Farm) to Table
Homesteading, a loosely defined eco-conscious lifestyle centered on producing your own food, has become popular on social media in recent years. Adelia isn’t here to influence you. She wants you to know that homesteading isn’t as glamorous as it looks online—it’s really hard work!
“Homesteading, to us, means living completely apart from a town or village or a grocery store! We’re pretty self sufficient. We make our own electricity through solar and batteries (we do have a backup generator), and we rely on a lot of subsistence food. It’s about being closely involved with the environment,” said Adelia.
Adelia grew up in Kodiak. Every summer she, along with her parents and twin sister, fished for salmon. In 2016, she decided she wanted to homestead full-time. Adelia returned to Kodiak with her husband to build a life as close to nature as possible. They forage, fish, and grow fruit and vegetables in their greenhouse. This process of homesteading profoundly influenced her relationship with food.
