The F/V Champion was built in 1935 by the Western Boat Company in Tacoma, Washington for $22,000. The boat was originally built for herring seining in Southeast Alaska. In the succeeding decades, the boat had several owners. Steven W. Axelson, a third generation fisherman, bought the boat in 1993 and ran it as a gillnet tender. Early on, Steven tended near Juneau before shifting to Ketchikan around 2003. Steven is now a marine pilot guiding cruise ships safely through the Inside Passage. In the summers, he hires a skipper to run the boat and tends for the crab and herring fishery in the winter.