North by Northwestern: A Seafaring Family on Deadly Alaskan Waters

In the tradition of Sebastian Junger and Linda Greenlaw comes Captain Sig Hansen’s rags-to-riches epic of his immigrant family tree’s struggle against deadly Alaskan seas, freezing shipwrecks, and dangerously brutal conditions to achieve the American Dream

Sig Hansen has been a star of the Discovery Channel’s Deadliest Catch from the pilot to the present. Seen in over 150 countries, the show attracts more than 49 million viewers per season, building it one of the most successful series in the history of cable TV. With its daredevil camera work, unpredictably treacherous weather, and a setting as unwarrantable and unforgettable as the frigid Bering Sea, The Deadliest Catch is unlike anything else on television.

But the weatherworn fishermen of the fishing vessel Northwestern have tales that don’t come through on TV. For Sig Hansen and his brothers, commercial fishing is as much a part of their Norwegian heritage as their names. Descendents of the Vikings who roamed and ruled the northern seas for centuries, the Hansens’ tie to the sea stretches from Alaska to Seattle and all the way to Norway. And after twenty years as a skipper on the commercial fishing vessel the Northwestern–which was his father’s before him–Sig has lived to tell the tales.