Where Do You “Catch” Them?"

Logan preparing stacks of market ready oysters.

We don't—we farm them!

Oysters are farmed, not caught! When people think of seafood in Alaska, they think of fishing boats and wild-caught salmon. But all oysters in Alaska are farmed Crassostrea gigas (Pacific oysters). Pacific oysters aren't native here and they can't reproduce in our frigid waters, so there's zero chance of them establishing non-native wild populations.

Every oyster starts somewhere else—as spat (baby oyster seed) purchased from hatcheries in southeast Alaska, Washington, or Hawaii. We bring them to Jakolof Bay and grow them out in suspended gear.

What suspended culture means

"Suspended culture" means our oysters grow in gear that hangs in the water column rather than sitting on the bottom. Think of it as living in the flow—they're constantly bathed in nutrient-rich water as the tides move past.

And those tides are no joke. Jakolof Bay's currents are powerful enough to move whole trees as fast as a skiff. They'll rip gear apart if you're not careful. Frank and Logan spend their days maintaining our setup, checking gear, and harvesting when conditions allow.

But here's the tradeoff: those same brutal currents deliver massive quantities of phytoplankton right to the oysters' filter-feeding mouths. After 2-3 years of constant feeding in this extreme environment, only the strongest survive. What you get is a plump, mineral-rich oyster with clean Jakolof Bay flavor.

Why we farm this way

Farming means we track each cohort — we know where it came from, what we did (or didn’t) do to it, and how each cohort is performing (and whether they need more or less attention from us). When it’s ready for harvest, we know its exact history. Frank, Logan, and I are hands on at every step of each harvest—from pulling them out of the bay, through our processing plant, to packing them for pickup. Most of our oysters reach customers within days of leaving the water.

It's a different relationship than buying seafood that's traveled through distribution chains. You know the farm. You know the farmers. And you know these oysters were swimming in Jakolof Bay just days ago.