Tag Archives: mother Julie Decker

New memorial scholarship honors Wrangell commercial fishing siblings Sig and Helen Decker

21-year-old Sig Decker and 19-year-old Helen Decker grew up commercial fishing with their parents on the family boat. “That was a really fun time as a family. It’s sort of the most genuine family time you can get is all being in a little tiny boat in the middle of nowhere and working together,” says Julie Decker, Sig and Helen’s mom. “At a certain point, I think they wanted more. So then they started crewing on seine boats and were on a couple different boats, and then eventually were in the same boat, the summer of 2020.” On July 27, 2020, Sig and Helen and two other crewmates, 29-year-old Ian Martin of Petersburg and 37-year-old Dennis Lord of Elmira Heights, New York, were killed in a car crash on Mitkof Island south of Petersburg while on a break from commercial fishing. >click to read< 15:14