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Speaker 1: That's f I R S T L I T E
Speaker 1: dot com. Okay, folks, saddle up or put your life
Speaker 1: jackets on, because we're going to talk about whaling, modern
Speaker 1: day whaling, specifically the traditional and modern day whale hunting
Speaker 1: practices and challenges of the Macaw tribe from Washington State's
Speaker 1: Olympic Peninsula. We're joined by depends how you look at
Speaker 1: either three or four guests. We have Chairman TJ. Green,
Speaker 1: who is the chairman of the Maca Tribal Council and
Speaker 1: his areas of expertise include policy, legal hurdles, tribal politics,
Speaker 1: and historical organizational context.
Speaker 2: Okay, you've been with the Tribal Council for nine years.
Speaker 3: Yes, all right.
Speaker 1: We got Daniel Green, who's the Vice President of the
Speaker 1: Whaling Commission and has been involved in whale hunts, butcher
Speaker 1: and wales, all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 4: All the above.
Speaker 1: We have loop a castanata am I saying that right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: who's a ye.
Speaker 2: Who's a council member and a first foods expert.
Speaker 1: He's gonna help us understand a little bit about nutrition,
Speaker 1: health impacts, and environmental.
Speaker 2: Toxins that can be found in whale meat.
Speaker 1: And we have Chris Martinez who he's he's just hanging out,
Speaker 1: but just quick tell tell people what you do do.
Speaker 5: I'm the chief of staff for the McCAT Tribal Council.
Speaker 5: I also sit as secretary of the McCaw Wheeling Commission.
Speaker 2: Got it?
Speaker 4: So I'm here just hanging out, all right.
Speaker 2: So let's let's start with this man and uh TJ.
Speaker 4: You can answer this question.
Speaker 2: Explain who are the Macaw okay and and what does
Speaker 2: that word mean?
Speaker 3: All right?
Speaker 1: And and what what do you regard as like like
Speaker 1: what do you guys regard as your your traditional homeland
Speaker 1: and what what do you regard as your homeland?
Speaker 3: Now, well, the McCaw tribe is very northwestern tip of
Speaker 3: Washington State. We've been there since the first light. Is
Speaker 3: how we say it, okay. Yeah. And and we're you know,
Speaker 3: we got about thirty one hundred members and sixteen hundred
Speaker 3: live on a reservation. It's a Federal Indian reservation, now, okay.
Speaker 3: And you know we're we're ocean people. You know, we're
Speaker 3: connected to that ocean. That's been the lifeblood and our
Speaker 3: spiritual existence and our cultural practices all revolve around activities
Speaker 3: on that ocean. And so you know, that's that's who
Speaker 3: we are. You know, Macaw is not our word. Okay,
Speaker 3: it's not it's not our word. It's a Salish word.
Speaker 3: You are our neighbor, neighboring tribe. It was a Salish
Speaker 3: nation called us Macaw and that means generous host.
Speaker 2: Oh, because a lot of times those names are like
Speaker 2: a lot of times there's names that get picked up
Speaker 2: that are not great. Yeah, that translate to sort of
Speaker 2: like a like you know, like the enemy, the enemy
Speaker 2: or whatever. You know, generous hosts, generous host.
Speaker 3: Even though we had wars with that nation. Oh did
Speaker 3: that's what they called us.
Speaker 2: That's what mcca means.
Speaker 3: That's what was.
Speaker 2: Your traditional like like not traditional, but what was what
Speaker 2: what what what did the Macaw call themselves at the time?
Speaker 1: That the sailors started calling them the Macaw quiditch chat.
Speaker 1: Oh what's that mean? That's that's a hard word to say.
Speaker 3: People who live amongst the rocks and seagulls.
Speaker 2: Oh really, yeah, that was the name.
Speaker 3: That's sens.
Speaker 2: Do you guys still use that name now?
Speaker 3: We do?
Speaker 2: Okay? Yeah, see yeah, so so.
Speaker 1: But in your relationships with the government, you're like in
Speaker 1: the media, you're the Maca tribe, the Macaw.
Speaker 3: Correct. That's during the treaty negotiations eighteen fifty five treaty
Speaker 3: in the Abbay, that's what the governor Stevens govtnor Isaac Stevens,
Speaker 3: you know he was. He couldn't say quidditch chat. I'm
Speaker 3: sure so like me. He was like me and man,
Speaker 3: he couldn't say it.
Speaker 2: Huh. That's interesting, man, here's.
Speaker 1: One for For For the most part, you guys can
Speaker 1: just decide amongst yourselves who's best to answer a question,
Speaker 1: or if you want to both take a stab at,
Speaker 1: you both take a stab at. But I wanted to
Speaker 1: ask because Daniels had experience with you know, sort of
Speaker 1: on the ground experience, and maybe all you guys have
Speaker 1: had on the ground experience with whaling but.
Speaker 2: We like his store.
Speaker 1: And is it annoying if I say historically, no, okay,
Speaker 1: because that's the thing, like a white dude's heads.
Speaker 2: A lot of times there's you know, you can you
Speaker 2: know this and white and white dude's heads. There was
Speaker 2: like there was Native Americans and they kind of like stopped,
Speaker 2: do you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: People view it like they like stopped. And it became
Speaker 1: that something different happened. So if I say to you
Speaker 1: historically and you're like, what do you mean, I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't know, like a while ago or you know,
Speaker 1: but in this question, I mean historically, how serious how
Speaker 1: serious were the macaw about whaling?
Speaker 2: You know what I mean? Like, how did it? How
Speaker 2: did it fit into the seasonal?
Speaker 4: Well?
Speaker 3: If I can just start out, yeah, it was it was.
Speaker 3: It was the focal point of our society. Okay, it
Speaker 3: was our main nutritional It's how we fed our people.
Speaker 2: Got it.
Speaker 3: You know, we have no big rivers out there that
Speaker 3: are lush with salmon or anything.
Speaker 4: Okay.
Speaker 3: So so we were out on that ocean and whales
Speaker 3: were women there and we yeah, so we understood we
Speaker 3: harvested them for an nutritional source. And then it became
Speaker 3: a source of wealth for us in the society that
Speaker 3: we built for over thousands of years.
Speaker 2: Explain that when you say wealth as a trade item,
Speaker 2: absolutely yeah.
Speaker 1: And what components of a whale would be used? What
Speaker 1: components of a whale would be? I mean I can
Speaker 1: imagine the parts that would be used internally, But what
Speaker 1: would be an item that you could that you could
Speaker 1: barter with or that you could monetize off a whale?
Speaker 3: What whale oil is is one that's you get a
Speaker 3: lot of whale oil from.
Speaker 2: An interior Like I imagine like interior people would want it,
Speaker 2: right because they didn't have something, they didn't have an equivalent. Correct, Yeah,
Speaker 2: I got it, I got it.
Speaker 1: And then how how we're like how we're whales hunted?
Speaker 1: I mean physically? Like how were they hunted? If you
Speaker 1: went back just pick like pick a tile. Let's let's
Speaker 1: say we go.
Speaker 2: Back to.
Speaker 1: I don't know, two hundred years ago, three hundred years ago,
Speaker 1: how was a way elk caught out.
Speaker 3: Of a We'd go out in a cedar dugout canoe. Okay,
Speaker 3: you'd have you know, seven paddlers or so on in
Speaker 3: that canoe, and everyone had their own their own job.
Speaker 3: Someone harpooned it. Someone steered steered the canoe and and
Speaker 3: then you had your paddlers and we had a The
Speaker 3: harpoon was made of you would shaft, and it was
Speaker 3: in three pieces, so it would come apart. You know,
Speaker 3: we probably learned that the hard way, right, probably stabbed
Speaker 3: a whale with a one that wasn't in three pieces,
Speaker 3: and that whale rolled around probably smacked the heck out
Speaker 3: of people.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, that's a good point. Many imagine that, right, Yeah.
Speaker 3: So it comes apart. And the harpoon tip was made
Speaker 3: of muscleshell really, yeah, muscleshell and and elk, what part
Speaker 3: of the bone? I need a little help on that.
Speaker 6: Yeah, like the vow the toggle close to that mic bud,
Speaker 6: Oh it is the toggle.
Speaker 2: The Yeah, that muscleshell would be like like barbs or
Speaker 2: prongs embedded into that thing.
Speaker 4: Ah.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 6: It was shape shaped just like a like a regular harpoon.
Speaker 6: I guess like broad tip.
Speaker 2: But but it's staying there good.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I would stay in there good. Yeah. And it
Speaker 6: was tempered and age and and and hardened. So yeah,
Speaker 6: there's a lot that went into it.
Speaker 2: Do you do you well?
Speaker 4: Two things?
Speaker 1: What what was there one specific type of whale or
Speaker 1: did you get opportunities on multiple kinds of whales in
Speaker 1: your ear? I know now the focus is on gray whales.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we're going to.
Speaker 2: Talk a lot about gray whales. But but.
Speaker 1: Like your people might have had that that was the
Speaker 1: one they wanted, or was there other kinds of whales
Speaker 1: that might be targeted at different times?
Speaker 6: Yeah, there's definitely a lot of different whales we hunted.
Speaker 6: Eat your big old whale, right, whales we hunted really
Speaker 6: gray whales, hump backs, anything that slam pretty much. But
Speaker 6: gray whales.
Speaker 4: Were the tastiest, is that right?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was a preferred whale.
Speaker 6: It was a preferred whale. I just I think due
Speaker 6: to the abundance also, and the migration patterns were near shore.
Speaker 6: Humpo humpbacks are a little further offshore. We did target
Speaker 6: those also, do you.
Speaker 2: Know in the like in your traditions or were a
Speaker 2: lot of dudes killed hunting whales? I business?
Speaker 6: So that's what that's what it is, and that that leads,
Speaker 6: you know, into the preparation and stuff. So you know, essentially, yeah,
Speaker 6: you are preparing for death when you're training with the
Speaker 6: you know, the guys in the canoe and it's a
Speaker 6: and it's a understand. I'm uh, it's the biggest creature
Speaker 6: on earth. Then they have they have they want to
Speaker 6: live also, so they have a wild side and uh yeah,
Speaker 6: it's it's it's it's pretty scary.
Speaker 4: It could be dangerous, it could be very dangerous.
Speaker 2: You know, you mentioned like Vegas. It's it's the thing
Speaker 2: I always bring up to my kids. Is it like
Speaker 2: all you know, kids are always tripped out about dinosaurs
Speaker 2: and stuff.
Speaker 1: But the biggest animal to ever live on earth is now? Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, like a blue whale as big as it
Speaker 1: seems like, you know, these like dinosaur statues and stuff
Speaker 1: are is like the biggest critter is there now You're like,
Speaker 1: you go see damn thing like big whales?
Speaker 2: You know, yeah, what does what like what does a
Speaker 2: gray whale?
Speaker 4: What is that? What does that thing weigh? Twenty so
Speaker 4: about twenty seven hundred pounds on average or so that
Speaker 4: we kind of target that general area. It's about thirty
Speaker 4: thousand pounds about twenty seven.
Speaker 2: Yeah, twenty thirty thousand pounds.
Speaker 7: Yeah, it's about a ton of foot.
Speaker 5: Yeah, of the length one ton per foot.
Speaker 2: The main focus of our conversation is going to be
Speaker 2: like the resumption of whaling.
Speaker 1: Okay, and your guys fights with now you know, maybe
Speaker 1: don't use the word fight. You guys negotiations with the
Speaker 1: American government and others about what you're allowed to do
Speaker 1: by the treaty you signed with the American government, right like,
Speaker 1: and whether or not you can do it and what
Speaker 1: it takes to do it.
Speaker 2: But for background, walk me through, like did how did
Speaker 2: whaling wind down? And when did it wind down? Like
Speaker 2: when did it when did it go from being an
Speaker 2: annual occurrence to being a thing that faded out? What
Speaker 2: was the process of it of it going away?
Speaker 3: Well, in the early nineteen hundreds, you had commercial whaling
Speaker 3: was really ramping up around.
Speaker 4: The world, I see, right, so.
Speaker 3: Our whaling, our whalers at that time were noticing it
Speaker 3: was harder and harder to do our traditional hunts. So
Speaker 3: in the nineteen twenties we made the decision on our
Speaker 3: own to not whale anymore because they just weren't in
Speaker 3: our area the way they.
Speaker 2: Used to be because of the impact of the commercial whalers, right, yes,
Speaker 2: like the moby Dick type dudes, right like rendering you know,
Speaker 2: killing them like industrially.
Speaker 3: Industrially you know, the big old harpoons on the big ships.
Speaker 1: Rendering all that oil and selling all that oil in
Speaker 1: Massachusetts and stuff.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yes, so that was whittling away the whale population.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was whittling that away. And so we stopped
Speaker 3: in the late nineteen twenties. We had our last last
Speaker 3: harvest before we did the one in ninety nine. And then,
Speaker 3: you know, it took the world a while to catch up.
Speaker 3: You know, twenty years later you get the Whaling Convention
Speaker 3: Act and those agreements, those international agreements to start, you know,
Speaker 3: trying to be more responsible with you know, with the
Speaker 3: stocks that are around the world there.
Speaker 2: And when you say it took the world a while
Speaker 2: to catch up, you mean it took the world a
Speaker 2: while to respond to the industrial slaughter.
Speaker 3: Yes, to regulate it, to regulate like they let it
Speaker 3: get it got bad. Yeah, it got bad. Yeah, I
Speaker 3: mean populations were at near extinction.
Speaker 2: Do you do you guys have much idea when the
Speaker 2: when the disease epidemics came from Europeans, did it did
Speaker 2: those diseases hit did they like hit the macaw like
Speaker 2: suddenly and hard where there were where there was just
Speaker 2: huge losses of people or did it? Was it with
Speaker 2: you guys? Was it the slower thing that played out
Speaker 2: over centuries?
Speaker 3: No, it was it hit us hard. We had two
Speaker 3: major smallpox epidemics in our communities, you know, one in
Speaker 3: the I believe his eighteen twenties, and then another in
Speaker 3: the in the late eighteen forties. Okay, took out ninety
Speaker 3: percent of our population.
Speaker 4: Huh.
Speaker 3: And and then what was left from from that ninety
Speaker 3: percent negotiated the treaty in the Abay.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the thing, man, that's the thing. I talked
Speaker 2: to people a lot about that.
Speaker 1: I just don't think like a lot of Americans can't
Speaker 1: picture it, you know, it can't picture that kind of loss.
Speaker 1: But the only way to really get there is just
Speaker 1: to try to imagine in like I don't know, pick
Speaker 1: whatever town you live in, right, Like, picture that you
Speaker 1: live in Toledo, Ohio, right, and then imagine that all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, over the course of a couple of years,
Speaker 1: of that nine out of ten of the people in Toledo,
Speaker 1: Ohio die.
Speaker 2: Or wherever, right, nine out of ten of them die.
Speaker 2: And you look at your broader family structure, your siblings, cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents,
Speaker 2: nine like if you count them all up and you go,
Speaker 2: I have twenty family members.
Speaker 1: Okay, eighteen are now dead. Now, come tell me about
Speaker 1: your family, and come tell me about how your family functions. Right,
Speaker 1: Like people cannot pick trip man, Yeah, people can't picture it.
Speaker 3: No. I appreciate that because you know, when I thought
Speaker 3: about that, you know, growing up and reaching the age
Speaker 3: I'm at now, and what we have as a tribe,
Speaker 3: and how rich we are in our language and our
Speaker 3: culture and our traditions. You know that ten percent that
Speaker 3: that survived that you know, gave that to us, They
Speaker 3: carried that on. Yeah, I think how rich was our
Speaker 3: society before that?
Speaker 2: Oh that the ten ten percent remains of riches because
Speaker 2: think about what gets lost. Yeah, huge things get lost, man,
Speaker 2: all the history. And that's the thing is especially with
Speaker 2: without now everything gets so captured, captured, written word right, captured,
Speaker 2: you know, captured and banked in the internet. But like
Speaker 2: all of a sudden, like eighty percent of the narratives
Speaker 2: are gone, eighty percent of the well, yeah, but we
Speaker 2: came from here, and your grandfather was this and right,
Speaker 2: and that's all wiped. Yeah, you got and you got of.
Speaker 1: Those ten you got two people will left to be like,
Speaker 1: here's what I think happened, but I'm not really sure.
Speaker 1: People dose sight. I mean, it's it's too hard to comprehend.
Speaker 1: People flipped out during the COVID pandemic.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, you know what I mean, like people like
Speaker 2: like people in wherever, like really hard to hit places
Speaker 2: like people flipping out in Manhattan because I don't know
Speaker 2: what it was percentage, but like it was overwhelming the Morgues.
Speaker 2: It's like, dude, that is nothing, nothing compared, nothing compared
Speaker 2: to what was happened to native communities of smallpox, right,
Speaker 2: you know it to to get the equivalent, you'd have
Speaker 2: had to go into Manhattan and remove I don't know,
Speaker 2: ten million people in Manhattan and you'd be like, that
Speaker 2: would be that would give you an idea? What will
Speaker 2: That'll give you an idea? What went on? Sure, it's staggering.
Speaker 4: So I'm sorry. Even even with those diseases we we
Speaker 4: as MCAU, we did we did a really good job
Speaker 4: at avoiding them for quite a while because we would
Speaker 4: catch wind of it depending on where it was, and
Speaker 4: we would keep people out of certain areas and we'd
Speaker 4: steer clear of certain areas.
Speaker 2: And was that right?
Speaker 4: Yeah, and like tour just you know, eighteen the eighteen
Speaker 4: fifties is when Ted Stevens actually caught wind of you know,
Speaker 4: the the causer hit hard right now, smallpox hit him,
Speaker 4: and that's kind of when he's like, let's let's go
Speaker 4: get this treaty. That's kind of when he came out.
Speaker 4: And you can even see in the notes that even
Speaker 4: a year ago we weren't the big chiefs. We wouldn't
Speaker 4: have been the one signing that we're here now. And
Speaker 4: there was a lot of sadness in the notes because
Speaker 4: they've lost so many of their family and loved ones.
Speaker 2: Oh was that right?
Speaker 1: That's that's instant, because that dude ain't a lot of
Speaker 1: treaties in the Pacific Northwest Stevens did.
Speaker 2: He kind of made like a big run man, so.
Speaker 4: He knew he couldn't take us when we were full
Speaker 4: forcing him before disease hit us. But he's like, oh,
Speaker 4: he caught wind, and he's like, you know, it's probably
Speaker 4: a good time going to negotiate.
Speaker 2: Huh. These guys are in a weakened position. Yeah, militarily.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And even with the during the COVID like we
Speaker 4: avoided you know, we lucked down the reservation. He was
Speaker 4: the chairman, needed a really good job. He kept we
Speaker 4: avoided a case for sure. He didn't. How long was
Speaker 4: it until there was finally one?
Speaker 3: And in the reservations it was about three four months that.
Speaker 2: You guys held out for that long without any infections.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, we didn't. No loss of life.
Speaker 1: There's you know, as you know, well we have maybe
Speaker 1: seven reservations in Montana, five or seven, and during the pandemic,
Speaker 1: you know, there was you'd go down to the Chimerical
Speaker 1: was Northern Cheyenne or the Crow Reservation. There's basically signs
Speaker 1: like don't stop on the highway passing through. And I
Speaker 1: was like, you know, to my kids, I was like, man,
Speaker 1: you gotta understand the history here of like pandemics. That
Speaker 1: means something totally different, That means something totally different Native
Speaker 1: communities man, because they got a fresh memory of that stuff,
Speaker 1: you know, right.
Speaker 2: After.
Speaker 1: So well, let me ask about that. The quitting whaling
Speaker 1: was it would you describe it more like more like
Speaker 1: it just wasn't worth it and it faded or was
Speaker 1: it a formal decision to quit?
Speaker 3: It was a formal decision, you know, like I mentioned
Speaker 3: in the introduction, it defined our societal structure. Yeah, and
Speaker 3: we still have that reverence for it today. It's that important.
Speaker 3: That's why you know, we went seventy years between a
Speaker 3: harvest and kept that knowledge and you know that how too,
Speaker 3: and how we pass that on, made that available to
Speaker 3: people so we could carry that on through all those
Speaker 3: generations that span that seventy years.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like my lifetime, I would have loved to be
Speaker 3: a whaler. You know, I'm fifty four now, you know
Speaker 3: it's not likely in the cards for me.
Speaker 2: But oh is that right? Yeah, well we'll talk about that.
Speaker 2: So, so almost a century later. So if you imagine that
Speaker 2: the Macaw quit whaling in let's say nineteen twenty that
Speaker 2: that's close.
Speaker 3: At twenty I don't know, it's like twenty seven, okay, nineteen.
Speaker 1: Twenty seven, and then fast forward up to the lead
Speaker 1: up to the to the next whale that was harvested
Speaker 1: by your your tribe, and that whale was harvested.
Speaker 3: What you're nineteen ninety nine.
Speaker 2: Ninety nine, Walk me through the years prior to ninety nine,
Speaker 2: like what needed to happen?
Speaker 1: Because when you quit, when you guys quit, you quit
Speaker 1: because you decided to quit.
Speaker 2: But you weren't at liberty to decide to start, right,
Speaker 2: I mean a lot happened right right. You could just
Speaker 2: be like, hey, we're going out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well because this whole world had been built up
Speaker 1: around in mammals, right, this whole protection world. So what
Speaker 1: did that look like to to say like, hey man,
Speaker 1: we're going to go We're going to resume our treaty rights.
Speaker 1: There's enough whales now we're going to go whaling. Like
Speaker 1: who do you pick up the phone? You know, I
Speaker 1: mean like who do you call?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 2: When do you want to go get a whale?
Speaker 3: Well, I mean for for tribal nations are our first call.
Speaker 3: You know. Our main contact in the federal government is
Speaker 3: Department of Interior I BUA Indian Affairs. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 3: so it's their responsibility to advocate for those rights for us.
Speaker 3: In the federal government there are trustee is what we say.
Speaker 3: And and then from Interior, you know, the whaling falls
Speaker 3: under Department of Commerce, so you know through Noah Nation
Speaker 3: Marine Fisheries and and those regulations. You know, we're set up,
Speaker 3: you know by different federal acts like the Marine Mammal
Speaker 3: Protection Act. So in seventy two that Marine Mammal Protection
Speaker 3: Act was passed and the gray whales were listed, you know,
Speaker 3: as an endangered species as well. You know, the ESA
Speaker 3: comes into play. And so when in the nineties, when
Speaker 3: the population was recovering so well, you know you're getting
Speaker 3: some pretty high you know, at least record numbers in
Speaker 3: in our lifetime, you know, near thirty thousand whales in
Speaker 3: the nineties, and and so it was proposed to be delisted.
Speaker 3: You know that that was the trigger for us. That's
Speaker 3: what did it. Yes, I got chah. The dlisting of
Speaker 3: the eastern North Pacific grey whale population was our trigger
Speaker 3: to resume I see our treaty.
Speaker 4: Right, got it?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: But why this is probably ultra complicated question.
Speaker 1: If you have an agreement, as if you have an
Speaker 1: agreement as a sovereign nation, you have agreement with the government, right,
Speaker 1: and you have certain levels of autonomy.
Speaker 2: Would it have like.
Speaker 1: Were you be were you guys being nice by bringing
Speaker 1: it up? Like why couldn't it be the just one
Speaker 1: day you just went and did it.
Speaker 3: No, you're you're right on that. That was a discussion
Speaker 3: of leadership at that time.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Actually, Daniel's father and my older brother, you know, he
Speaker 3: was He was part of those discussions as as well
Speaker 3: as his grandfatherly Ben Johnson, the former chairman. Internal discussions,
Speaker 3: internal discussions about that, you know, should what prevents us
Speaker 3: from just going It's in our treaty, it's not listed,
Speaker 3: you know, but yeah, we I would say, we were
Speaker 3: being nice and we you know, we met with the
Speaker 3: federal government and you know, the federal government has these
Speaker 3: international agreements in place, right they they work with the
Speaker 3: International Whaling Commission, they're a member of it, and so
Speaker 3: they wanted us to be a part of that process,
Speaker 3: like the Alaskan Eskimos on the North Slope.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So so we we agreed to do that. You know,
Speaker 3: we went and advocated for a quota, worked with the
Speaker 3: Alaskan Eskimos and the Chacokins in Russia to get an
Speaker 3: aboriginal subsistence whaling quota through the International Whaling Commission. And
Speaker 3: what kind of quote are you looking for? One, Well,
Speaker 3: they do it over over multiple years.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So it was like at that time, it was it
Speaker 3: was up to five whales in any given year over
Speaker 3: a like a five six year period.
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, and you guys hit enormous resistance.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, yes, where.
Speaker 1: In that first go around back in the nineties, was
Speaker 1: was the was government resistance or social resistance?
Speaker 2: There was strongest.
Speaker 3: I think the social resistance was strongest. But that translates
Speaker 3: into government resistance, right you know, I see, Yeah, you know,
Speaker 3: things get you know, where's the political temperature of my
Speaker 3: constituents if you're politician in d C. And how much
Speaker 3: do I want to support this issue? Right, so those
Speaker 3: things come into play. But it was pretty bad for
Speaker 3: you know, these guys when they were when they were
Speaker 3: younger in school, you know, there were our community was
Speaker 3: getting threatened, you know, physically threatened, bomb threats in our
Speaker 3: in our school by who though you know that there
Speaker 3: were it's mainly your animal welfare groups.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So the but as I'm saying, so the organizations
Speaker 2: were doing this, was it like like Greenpeace or what
Speaker 2: were the organizations that were coming after or was it
Speaker 2: just like crack pot individuals.
Speaker 3: There was a lot of crackpot individuals. But there was
Speaker 3: one organization, Sea Shepherd Society. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that
Speaker 3: that was the main one that that you know, they're
Speaker 3: they're very aggressive and and you know they'd send their
Speaker 3: ships into our harbor that we have and get on
Speaker 3: the loud speaker and you know, just start putting insults
Speaker 3: out there to our community, which really yeah, yeah, we
Speaker 3: had to get a federal restraining order on them and
Speaker 3: did you really and the coast Guard enforced that and
Speaker 3: eventually kept them away. But yeah, it wasn't good for
Speaker 3: a while.
Speaker 1: They were coming into your bay, into your harbor. Yes,
Speaker 1: in a in a ship, I mean obviously, yes, huh.
Speaker 2: And you guys, you guys. Never you guys. It didn't
Speaker 2: ever blow into like fistfights and brawls and stuff.
Speaker 3: Now that there was some very very close I guess
Speaker 3: encounters there was. There might have been some rock throwing
Speaker 3: and things of that nature. The community got fed up
Speaker 3: with them, right, Yeah.
Speaker 6: So.
Speaker 1: Within your community in the nineties, was there division around
Speaker 1: the idea of resuming whaling or was it pretty much
Speaker 1: unanimous within within the Macaw?
Speaker 2: Was it like, this is.
Speaker 1: Our right, this is what we're going to go do
Speaker 1: the population is strong enough to support limited harvest or
Speaker 1: was it a fight amongst you guys.
Speaker 3: No, it was. It was heavily supported. Okay, I mean,
Speaker 3: we have a need statement, you know, eighty I think
Speaker 3: in the nineties it was like eighty four eighty five
Speaker 3: percent of the community wants to go back and do that.
Speaker 4: So overwhelming overwhelming.
Speaker 3: Yeah, in our need statements we've done, we have to
Speaker 3: do those for international whaling quota that we get and
Speaker 3: that's just gone up since then. But you know that
Speaker 3: there were people that didn't want to go back to it,
Speaker 3: and we just worked through that.
Speaker 2: Did you. I mean that turned in I followed that
Speaker 2: whole thing.
Speaker 1: I forgot a lot of the details now, but I
Speaker 1: remember being very interested in it, and it turned into
Speaker 1: I mean, it turned into a media spectacle. It like
Speaker 1: everybody had an opinion about it, right, It kind of
Speaker 1: like maybe not for you guys, but for the in
Speaker 1: the normal. In the normal, like if you're just a
Speaker 1: dude that followed the news, the main thing that was
Speaker 1: reported was like was the social fight, Right, It became
Speaker 1: a news story about this this dispute that seemed to
Speaker 1: over probably maybe not from your community, but that seemed
Speaker 1: to the coverage of of the argument overshadowed any conversation.
Speaker 2: About you know, how many whales are there? What is
Speaker 2: your treaty? Right? It just it became like the story
Speaker 2: became the dispute.
Speaker 3: No, it certainly did. Yeah, it certainly did. I think
Speaker 3: you know, our local media which is out of Seattle,
Speaker 3: you know, those those stations, you know, they they covered it.
Speaker 3: Were they supported then I wouldn't say they were generally supportive,
Speaker 3: you know, I mean they were looking to get the story.
Speaker 3: They you know, they would go get on the ship
Speaker 3: with with Paul Watson and on his whatever the heck
Speaker 3: is cea Shepherd boat.
Speaker 2: Well they would cover it from that angle.
Speaker 3: They covered it from that angle as well, and and that,
Speaker 3: you know, that didn't sit well with us. You know,
Speaker 3: it's it's like, how how can we build trust and
Speaker 3: know and think we're going to get a fair shake
Speaker 3: in the media if you know, if we have those
Speaker 3: things going on?
Speaker 1: That was Yeah, but you guys, then you got it.
Speaker 2: You got a whale.
Speaker 1: When you went out to get a whale after this
Speaker 1: hundred year break and whaling, you went out to get
Speaker 1: a whale. Did you launch out and go get a
Speaker 1: whale because you got all your paperwork in order? Or
Speaker 1: did that become a point when you just went for
Speaker 1: it or did you have like your little permits and
Speaker 1: ship all printed out? You know, I mean, like what
Speaker 1: what what ultimately happened?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Well we we did uh, you know, agree on
Speaker 3: on doing a permit system with with the federal government
Speaker 3: at that time, and we'd have a permit issued, you know,
Speaker 3: for a hunt period and you know we wouldn't give
Speaker 3: specifics on a date and time, right, but it's like, hey,
Speaker 3: we're gonna there's a permit covers covers this amount of
Speaker 3: time and and then you know that permit would be
Speaker 3: issued by the government and then we'd issue our own
Speaker 3: permit to our whaling crew to go go do the hunt.
Speaker 2: So you could keep a little bit secret like when
Speaker 2: this was going.
Speaker 4: To go down.
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, for their safety. Yeah, for their safe sure man,
Speaker 3: because it was Yeah, I mean you may have seen
Speaker 3: the video of our whalers being charged by yeah activists
Speaker 3: out there on the water on jet skis, you know,
Speaker 3: gonna looking like they're going to ram them, and you
Speaker 3: know the coast guard took them out before they took
Speaker 3: our canoe out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because they were just waiting.
Speaker 1: Yes, So walk me through that day, Walk me through
Speaker 1: that day, Like how did that hunt day go down?
Speaker 1: I mean, like let's forget, let's forget for a minute
Speaker 1: the jet skiers and the protesters and whatnot, but like, like,
Speaker 1: how did the day play out just from a hunter's perspective,
Speaker 1: from a hunting a whaling perspective, what happened that day?
Speaker 3: But you know, Daniel, you want to go through.
Speaker 6: That or yeah, So I guess that the day before,
Speaker 6: I think they had a lot of success on approaches
Speaker 6: and so.
Speaker 4: It was.
Speaker 6: Pretty well known that they were going to get it.
Speaker 6: That next day. I think all the stars were aligning.
Speaker 6: All the prayer, training, everything, you know, came came together
Speaker 6: that day and it was kind of a a feeling
Speaker 6: that that everyone had. And so they're getting they're getting
Speaker 6: it down right. The approaches, the studying of the whales,
Speaker 6: the watching the feeding currents.
Speaker 4: And got it.
Speaker 2: And we say approaches mean just getting the boat up
Speaker 2: to it, like how to approach, how to approach?
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, yeah, all the teachings are coming coming together.
Speaker 6: I'm on the water was paying off and so yeah,
Speaker 6: it was. It was a magical moment when they harpooned
Speaker 6: the whale. It's ingrained in every Macau's mind. I think
Speaker 6: that day.
Speaker 1: At what at what distance to day, like, like how
Speaker 1: close do you have to approach that whale?
Speaker 3: You get to be pretty close pretty much right on
Speaker 3: top of it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, because you know, you don't normally, you know,
Speaker 2: we spend a lot of time in southeast lastas are
Speaker 2: as whales around.
Speaker 6: Yeah, you don't.
Speaker 2: You don't wind up right on top of them. No,
Speaker 2: like you know, they they gotta they know what's going on,
Speaker 2: you know, I mean they don't.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 6: Yep, you're watching studying them, just like like you watch
Speaker 6: Elk and study Elk eating habits. You're watching the currents
Speaker 6: and and you're knowing where to position yourself, you know,
Speaker 6: to have a successful strike.
Speaker 1: So so you're trying to you're trying to when it
Speaker 1: goes down, I imagine you're trying to anticipate where it's
Speaker 1: gonna come.
Speaker 6: Up, where it's gonna come up. And then you're watching
Speaker 6: it's breathing. I mean, there's a there's a lot of
Speaker 6: different techniques that go into it. They're up at the
Speaker 6: surface for X amount of time and I got before
Speaker 6: they go under and then yeah, you never do when
Speaker 6: they're feeding. You never know where they're gonna come up again.
Speaker 2: And the approach, I'm guessing the approach has got to
Speaker 2: be like on its sixth position, like you're coming from
Speaker 2: behind it.
Speaker 6: There's a couple of different ways too. Yes, that is
Speaker 6: one of them. Yeah, you don't want them to you know,
Speaker 6: tail swap you something.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I got it. Yeah. So when they got
Speaker 2: they hand harpooned it.
Speaker 6: Hand harpooned it.
Speaker 2: Yes, And how did you guys make the how did
Speaker 2: you guys build your harpoon?
Speaker 4: Like what what? What did you do?
Speaker 2: What kind of thought did you put into that?
Speaker 6: It was the traditional harpoon. So all those techniques are
Speaker 6: passed down generations. So we quit whaling in the nineteen twenties,
Speaker 6: but we never quit teaching about it. So the importance
Speaker 6: of it, like you said, is the pinnacle of our society.
Speaker 6: So you know, we held onto those teachings.
Speaker 2: Did did people hold on to some of the equipment.
Speaker 6: The equipment also?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 6: So yeah we do really yeah, so we have equipment
Speaker 6: from a long time ago.
Speaker 4: Do you really?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 6: And his family had their own so oh is that right?
Speaker 4: Okay?
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, along with you know, ceiling and you know other.
Speaker 3: Mammals.
Speaker 2: So they they got a harpoon into it and it's
Speaker 2: got a detachable head on it or somehow it's connected
Speaker 2: to the line.
Speaker 6: The first piece yeah, yeah, or the valve whatever you
Speaker 6: call it.
Speaker 2: That gets into it, and then there's a float system.
Speaker 6: Yep, so it starts paying out. And then there's a
Speaker 6: bully tender that's sitting to the right of the harpooner
Speaker 6: and he's clipping on bullies while they're slowing down. You
Speaker 6: have to be one. The care has being unison so
Speaker 6: to turn the canoe into the right direction and get
Speaker 6: heading forwards. The line don't pay out, you know, too fast.
Speaker 6: You have a line tender buoy tender.
Speaker 2: How much line.
Speaker 6: It depends about, you know, two hundred and seventy feet
Speaker 6: or so.
Speaker 3: Or more, and you're clipping booies on as it goes,
Speaker 3: clipping bullies as it goes. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Is that thing at risk of sinking? Definitely? Yeah, So
Speaker 2: the more bullies are better. So it's not just to
Speaker 2: slow it down, but to keep it from sink. Keep
Speaker 2: it from sinking. Yes, got it should.
Speaker 5: Chat about the seal skin float system.
Speaker 6: Oh yeah, the old floats were made out of seal skins.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 6: They were skinned in such a way where you could
Speaker 6: turn them inside out and inflate them.
Speaker 3: Huh.
Speaker 6: Yeah, they're big, you know, big floats. Some of them
Speaker 6: were you know, six feet or more.
Speaker 2: And when this was happening, there's how many people are
Speaker 2: observing this the actual hunt?
Speaker 6: Yeah, the ninety nine hunt or the ninety nine hunt. Oh,
Speaker 6: there is hundreds of people, you know, outside the zone.
Speaker 6: The close guard set a zone for.
Speaker 1: They said a perimeter, so your people could be in
Speaker 1: the perimeter, but other people had to stay out of
Speaker 1: the perimeter.
Speaker 6: Our canoe and our our chase boat.
Speaker 2: So how far was it? How far? How far out
Speaker 2: to see are you?
Speaker 4: And this has happened?
Speaker 2: Like how far from your how far from your reservation
Speaker 2: are you our?
Speaker 6: You know, they migrate past our front door? So so
Speaker 6: you just want close to home. We hind close to home. Yeah,
Speaker 6: we can also hunt, you know, out further. I see
Speaker 6: if we're going after different if we went after a
Speaker 6: different species, So.
Speaker 1: Okay, and you're and you're not, do they draw like
Speaker 1: does the government draw a line and say these waters
Speaker 1: are okay?
Speaker 6: They did do a restricted zone right.
Speaker 3: To harvest a whale in Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like let's say you wanted to take off, like
Speaker 1: you you would never go take off and be like,
Speaker 1: oh hey.
Speaker 2: We're gonna go whale up. We're gonna go whale up
Speaker 2: in Alaska and try that out right? They had they
Speaker 2: had to specify in some way where you can go.
Speaker 3: Well that that's a really really great question, and I
Speaker 3: got a couple answers for that. Actually there's so for
Speaker 3: that ninety nine hunt, Yes, there was a defined hunt area.
Speaker 3: We agreed to stay out of the straight a Wana
Speaker 3: Fuca and just on the Pacific Ocean, the tribe has
Speaker 3: a usual and accustom fishing area that's adjudicated that went
Speaker 3: to the Supreme.
Speaker 2: Court from that Stephens treaty.
Speaker 3: From that Stephens treaty, So we have a defined area,
Speaker 3: but that's only for fishing. We do not have a
Speaker 3: defined area for whaling. And the court was very specific
Speaker 3: about that because we in that court case, we brought
Speaker 3: forward our whaling and sealing activities as part of that
Speaker 3: and the government said, we're here to just talk about fishing.
Speaker 3: You're usual in a customed fishing area. We acknowledge that
Speaker 3: you you've gone eighty to one hundred miles off shore
Speaker 3: for whaling, but we're not going to allow that evidence
Speaker 3: as part of that case.
Speaker 2: Why did they want to punt on that question, Well.
Speaker 3: I think it's a limit to limit us.
Speaker 1: Really, it's because they're like, let's talk about the local stuff.
Speaker 1: Let's not talk about the far out stuff. Yeah, because
Speaker 1: they wanted they wanted to shrink that zone.
Speaker 3: They wanted to put us in a box. Because before
Speaker 3: that case, Macaw people we fished from California all the
Speaker 3: way up to the Burying Sea under okay, under our treaty,
Speaker 3: you know, like.
Speaker 2: People just take off and go on see sea journeys,
Speaker 2: I'm imagined.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and now we're put in a box.
Speaker 4: I got you.
Speaker 2: But they never fixed the whaling box.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's no whaling box right now.
Speaker 1: So when ninety nine and they made a whaling box,
Speaker 1: they didn't. It wasn't as big as the fishing box, no, huh.
Speaker 3: And in our current permit, yeah, you know, we we
Speaker 3: have an agreed upon area as well, which is essentially
Speaker 3: on the Pacific Ocean, you know, out outside of the
Speaker 3: Straight of Wanda Fuca. And and then you know, there's
Speaker 3: a National Marine Sanctuary that's out there now, so there's
Speaker 3: areas of other marine mammals, you know, haul out areas
Speaker 3: for seals and sea lions and things like that that
Speaker 3: we you know, we agree to transit in a responsible
Speaker 3: manner while we're hunting, you.
Speaker 2: Know, so you've agreed to stay out of the sanctuaries.
Speaker 3: Not not out of the sanctuary, out out of it.
Speaker 3: Got no, No, the sanctuaries is within our waters, gotcha. Yeah,
Speaker 3: so we we fish and exercise our treaty in the sanctuary.
Speaker 4: Got it.
Speaker 3: And they're there. They've been a good partner and they
Speaker 3: support that.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, Yeah, the ninety nine hunt happens. It's now
Speaker 2: twenty twenty six. What why was there not a two
Speaker 2: thousand hunt, a two thousand and one hunt, two thousand
Speaker 2: and two hunt, like what happened?
Speaker 3: There was? And you Daniel can there wasn't we talk
Speaker 3: about those those hunts. But in in two thousand and two,
Speaker 3: you know, I believe there was an injunction put on
Speaker 3: our whaling. Yeah, the federal government was sued over there.
Speaker 3: You know how they put together the NIPA for our
Speaker 3: whale hunt and that they didn't didn't do a thorough job.
Speaker 1: And that was so that was in two thousand and
Speaker 1: two that they came in and said they blocked it
Speaker 1: or something correct. Yeah, but did you got did you
Speaker 1: guys have the desire to continue? Like would you have
Speaker 1: continued if that injunction hadn't happened? Was the desire there
Speaker 1: that you do an annual whale hunt. Absolutely, why did
Speaker 1: you pay attention to that? I'm not criticized, but like
Speaker 1: when the injunction came, what was the decision to abide
Speaker 1: by it?
Speaker 3: Rule law?
Speaker 6: You know?
Speaker 3: Okay, it's it's a you know, I think we our
Speaker 3: our leadership and our MACCAP people, you know, believe in that.
Speaker 3: You know, we have our own laws that we pass
Speaker 3: as well around those and things I got, yeah, things
Speaker 3: that we agree to. And so it's I don't know
Speaker 3: that whole That's why I can get into that more
Speaker 3: if you want. But I mean there there's really a
Speaker 3: lot to say around around that.
Speaker 1: You mean, around internal debates about how do we negotiate
Speaker 1: and engage with the government. Yeah, I mean, we don't
Speaker 1: need to spend tons of time on it.
Speaker 2: But you've you've exercised where you've generally been. I mean,
Speaker 2: I know this, but you've generally been trying to.
Speaker 1: Work within the constraints of the regulatory bodies in the
Speaker 1: federal government, right and haven't stepped outside of that, Like,
Speaker 1: haven't gone the vigilanti wouldn't be the right word, but
Speaker 1: haven't gone your own way on it?
Speaker 3: Well, you know, we we did have we had a
Speaker 3: group of Macaws that got frustrated with the process at
Speaker 3: one point. Yeah, but you know, so in two thousand
Speaker 3: and two, you know, I think there was an injunction
Speaker 3: and court case Anderson Verse Even's court case that took place,
Speaker 3: and you know that basically that case basically decided that
Speaker 3: the Marine Mammal Protection Act applies to the Macaw tribe,
Speaker 3: which we to this day we disagree with that. You know,
Speaker 3: we think we don't think that's a correct ruling, but
Speaker 3: we're stuck with it. And so under the Marine Mammal
Speaker 3: Protection Act, it requires you to get a waiver to
Speaker 3: take a marine mammal in our case, whaling, and then
Speaker 3: after a waiver, the government has to issue a permit.
Speaker 3: So in two thousand and four we submitted documents to
Speaker 3: start that application process for a waiver under the remount
Speaker 3: of Protection Act, and we've been in that process ever since.
Speaker 4: Got it, Yeah, got it.
Speaker 2: In the meantime, have gray whales stayed off thet We're
Speaker 2: grey whales delisted and stayed off the list. Yes, yes,
Speaker 2: so no one's put them back on the endangered species list.
Speaker 2: Can you guys explain to me I wasn't even ware
Speaker 2: of this till Nate told me, you guys get gray
Speaker 2: whales from ship strikes, you'll you'll take Is this true
Speaker 2: that you'll take possession of gray whales that are that
Speaker 2: are killed and from from getting hit by boats or
Speaker 2: tangled in nets.
Speaker 3: Or something like that. Yes, yes, we have.
Speaker 2: How does that play out?
Speaker 3: We have a process with National Marine Fisheries too, you know,
Speaker 3: to obtain those for our use. You know, we basically
Speaker 3: submit a request for this incidental take, you know, because
Speaker 3: of whatever that morey event was, whether it's a ship
Speaker 3: strike or some entanglement or and and then we have
Speaker 3: our own marine mammal biologists that that works with the
Speaker 3: tribe as well. So when that happens, you know, we
Speaker 3: decide if we want to utilize that whale, and you know,
Speaker 3: and then we tow it to our shores, and you know,
Speaker 3: we check the health of it, see how fresh it is,
Speaker 3: is it is it Is it something that's that's fresh enough?
Speaker 3: Is the whale healthy?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 3: Is it something that we can you know, harvest the
Speaker 3: blubber and the meat for for consumption or you know,
Speaker 3: or do we you know, just butcher it up and
Speaker 3: utilize some of the other parts, Whether it's the bones,
Speaker 3: the vertebrae. You know, Balen, you.
Speaker 2: Know that that And is it your job to go
Speaker 2: fetch it?
Speaker 3: Yes, not mine specifically, but but yeah, but the macaw people.
Speaker 2: Right, So how does it? How does it? Because this
Speaker 2: has to happen fast, right, So how does it come
Speaker 2: to you? You know, let's say a cruise sh it's
Speaker 2: a whale, right, bam, they hit a whale. It's crippled, dying,
Speaker 2: Like the phone rings, like like, how does this play out?
Speaker 3: Just like that? It does?
Speaker 2: Get the phone, someone calls, someone calls.
Speaker 3: You know, people know that might cause or whalers in
Speaker 3: that area. And you know, there's a whole reporting system
Speaker 3: for those sort of things. So when those reports happen,
Speaker 3: you know, sometimes that call comes from a federal government
Speaker 3: official say hey, we got this report. Yeah there's this
Speaker 3: whale located off a Tattoosh Island or wherever, and so
Speaker 3: we go check it out.
Speaker 4: Got it?
Speaker 2: You send your own boats out and your own agency
Speaker 2: guys or whatever out and check it out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know what I saw a long time ago.
Speaker 1: Have you ever heard of you know, cook in let
Speaker 1: and turning an arm in Alaska? So we're way up
Speaker 1: turning an arm going salmon fishing, and that thing gets
Speaker 1: flooded on these huge tide swings and blue gas coming
Speaker 1: there when the salmon are running, bluegas come up into
Speaker 1: this long I know, it's like a like an arm,
Speaker 1: like a fjord kind of thing, and it's at low tide,
Speaker 1: it's a mudflat for the most part.
Speaker 2: Now high tide it's enough water for a blue whale.
Speaker 1: We're way up in that arm, twenty miles up in
Speaker 1: that arm because it's a twenty mile river, and there's
Speaker 1: these bluegas in there, and we're talking about, me and
Speaker 1: my brother talking about how.
Speaker 2: Do they get out of there.
Speaker 1: We're like, they must have a channel or something that
Speaker 1: we can't see, and we just go.
Speaker 2: About our business fishing.
Speaker 4: Well.
Speaker 1: The next day in the newspaper is that those whales
Speaker 1: that we are commenting on, like wondering how they're going
Speaker 1: to get out of that little pool they're in, are dead.
Speaker 2: And it was and I don't know what tribe did it,
Speaker 2: but they, I mean they rushed out there and got
Speaker 2: all butchered and hauled out of there like quick, you know.
Speaker 2: And I always remember being kind of impressed by that,
Speaker 2: like what a haul that was, you know, but just
Speaker 2: utilize them all when you think they normally lay there
Speaker 2: and rot.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we we try to utilize everything on that whale.
Speaker 3: And when those unfortunate things happen, Yeah, don't want those
Speaker 3: things to go to waste if we we can get
Speaker 3: them in time.
Speaker 2: How is it divided up like something like that happens.
Speaker 2: I mean it's a huge hall food. Let's say you
Speaker 2: get one, it's like uber like megafresh, or you kill
Speaker 2: one and it's real fresh. Do you and you're view,
Speaker 2: does every.
Speaker 1: Macaw have a right to some of it? Anyone that
Speaker 1: wants it has a right to it? Or does it
Speaker 1: play out differently?
Speaker 6: I think eventually Yeah, we'd like to be that. I
Speaker 6: mean there's harpooner usually has you know, can can get
Speaker 6: what he wants. But yeah, it gets divided amongst uh
Speaker 6: the crew, and then that goes to their family.
Speaker 4: So I see, Yeah.
Speaker 2: What's the most coveted part.
Speaker 6: There's parts that we do ceremonies with. Oh it's the
Speaker 6: most coveted.
Speaker 2: Yeah, guy, But what about just for regular everyday consumption?
Speaker 2: What part is the best.
Speaker 6: My favorites of skin and blubber. I absolutely love that.
Speaker 6: Ye taste like the ocean.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've had some. I've had some of that.
Speaker 6: It's amazing. It's that's you can't beat that in my book. No,
Speaker 6: these guys might have.
Speaker 2: That's one thing you can imagine, like.
Speaker 1: Picture like sushi restaurants, like high end sushi restaurants and stuff,
Speaker 1: or people want to try interesting things. That item when
Speaker 1: they you know, like cut it with it's like almost
Speaker 1: like that French fry shape with a little bit of
Speaker 1: skin on it. That item would be the most popular
Speaker 1: thing in the world if people got turned onto that.
Speaker 2: It was amazing. We ate some right here?
Speaker 6: Oh nice? Okay, yeah, no, it's good stuff.
Speaker 2: What about the meat, the actual meat?
Speaker 6: Yeah, like the meat too.
Speaker 4: I mean it.
Speaker 6: Tastes now seal. I mean it's it's got its own taste.
Speaker 1: But I mean, like put it like with stuff that
Speaker 1: I'd be familiar with or can't you even.
Speaker 6: Draw can't draw comparison.
Speaker 2: I got it's just it's just different.
Speaker 5: It's like ocean elk. Yeah, super, it's super lean. The
Speaker 5: meat itself is super lean. It's super there's a lot
Speaker 5: of blood in it. Okay, but dark, Yeah, it's real dark.
Speaker 5: You can throw it on a smoker, you can fry
Speaker 5: it up like a steak you can do you could
Speaker 5: braise it.
Speaker 2: I mean, there's what what parts.
Speaker 1: Like I'm just imagine it's not like flaying a fish,
Speaker 1: like like you're what would be like how do you
Speaker 1: describe the parts of it?
Speaker 2: You know, Like let's say you're doing the elk, you'd
Speaker 2: be the cave.
Speaker 1: We got the backstraps, do you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: You got your grind pile, you got your ribs, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean? Like when you're doing a whale.
Speaker 2: Is it that there's parts that are good for this,
Speaker 2: parts that are good for that?
Speaker 5: I mean, I think you separate naturally, separate in the blubber.
Speaker 5: You have your blubbering skin, and then you have your meat.
Speaker 5: And so you kind of think of it as like
Speaker 5: a if you've seen some of the pictures from ninety
Speaker 5: nine or some of the other things where they're butchering
Speaker 5: in sections, yep, and you get it.
Speaker 4: You know, you take the.
Speaker 5: Section and and you kind of have this big blob
Speaker 5: of meat that has a ton of blobber. It's a
Speaker 5: ton of meat, and you know it's enough for plenty
Speaker 5: of your family if you were to cook it up
Speaker 5: for six, eight, ten people.
Speaker 2: And yeah, are guys freezing it, like freezing it up.
Speaker 5: Yeah, especially with the last kind of ship strike whales
Speaker 5: that were healthy. They were divided up and passed around
Speaker 5: the community, and people froze the blobber. People froze some
Speaker 5: of the meat, and then obviously everybody took advantage of
Speaker 5: tasting it, eating it right away, rendering the oil, smoking
Speaker 5: some of the meat.
Speaker 7: And it's cool because you see it.
Speaker 5: You know, shared around the community. Yeah, and it's just
Speaker 5: a it's it's really cool.
Speaker 1: Tell me a way, Tell me a couple of ways
Speaker 1: one might fix the meat, like cook the meat jerky.
Speaker 2: Oh, like whale jerk?
Speaker 4: Is it jerk? That was the best jerky you've ever had?
Speaker 2: Really?
Speaker 4: Yeah. Guy that used to be on the Whaling Commission,
Speaker 4: God rest his soul, Gary Ray. He he made whale
Speaker 4: jerky and it it was really good. It was the
Speaker 4: best drink I ever had.
Speaker 2: Huh. Just slice it thin, dried it, yeah, or smoked it.
Speaker 4: I mean yeah. He had a you know, traditional smokehouse
Speaker 4: and he smoked it up in there strips and he
Speaker 4: gave me some.
Speaker 3: Like yeah.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 7: But he also makes the best salmon, candied salmon.
Speaker 2: So he knows what's up.
Speaker 7: With making the dry he was he was like he
Speaker 7: was really good at all that stuff.
Speaker 2: Is there any such thing like do you guys.
Speaker 1: Do you guys grind? Do you guys make grind meat
Speaker 1: from deer and elk and stuff? Would anybody ever grind
Speaker 1: up whale meat?
Speaker 5: I don't think anybody's thought of it, like.
Speaker 2: A whale burger. It would be like that kind of meat.
Speaker 5: It's interesting too because of the you know, how you know,
Speaker 5: you have your your elk tally, you have your elk
Speaker 5: fan binds really well. Yeah, keep your grinder cold, you
Speaker 5: grind your meat, add your fat, it stays really well.
Speaker 5: Imagine whale blubber, Oh would melt o such a lower temperature,
Speaker 5: and so I mean, I imagine your patty would kind
Speaker 5: of fall apart.
Speaker 2: Now I can imagine that because.
Speaker 4: If everybody was to get like distributed from a whale,
Speaker 4: you'd get about seven pounds of meat and then about
Speaker 4: one point just about two pounds of blubber.
Speaker 1: So, oh, you mean if your if your whole tribe,
Speaker 1: all the tribal membership shared a whale.
Speaker 2: It would be seven pounds apiece. That divides it out
Speaker 2: pretty good. Yeah, how is that oil? Is it stored
Speaker 2: as a liquid or a solid or how's it stored.
Speaker 5: Usually stored as a liquid. So usually it's rendered real
Speaker 5: slow render down. Sometimes some people, especially with seal, they'll
Speaker 5: smoke like a cold smoke, or they'll smoke at first,
Speaker 5: but they'll render it down into oil oil smoke the
Speaker 5: yeah blubber and then you get a smoky oil. Oh really,
Speaker 5: but you generally now people render that oil down into
Speaker 5: a like a mason jar, like the salmon that's out there.
Speaker 3: And you can keep it like that for it's a
Speaker 3: bit like ever honey and cinnamon. It don't really go bad.
Speaker 3: I got you, Yeah, I got You can freeze it,
Speaker 3: you can freeze the whale oil.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I spent some time with some cupic Eskimo guys and
Speaker 1: they would have seal oil, and I remember we would
Speaker 1: dip fish in it, just like where you're eating frozen
Speaker 1: raw frozen fish, like little chunks of like actually frozen
Speaker 1: fish dipped in the seal oil.
Speaker 2: And when you taste it, man, it would be like
Speaker 2: the real peppery, Like I can't you describe it like
Speaker 2: peppery like olive oil, Juman like a like a not
Speaker 2: a burn.
Speaker 1: But you know what I'm saying, there's like a pepper
Speaker 1: tooled Yeah, bold what what?
Speaker 2: What? How do you describe that whale oil? Is it mild?
Speaker 2: Is it like kind of grabs you when you taste it?
Speaker 5: Depends on who it is. I mean it's pretty normal,
Speaker 5: Like it's pretty mild for us. Yeah, kind of, everyone's
Speaker 5: kind of used to it.
Speaker 2: But if you handed it to some kid, like I
Speaker 2: don't like, some kid never had any kind of that stuff,
Speaker 2: would that kid be like, oh that's good. Would the
Speaker 2: kid be like, man, that is wild taste.
Speaker 5: This probably tastes like like omegas. Okay, your fish oil.
Speaker 1: Okay, so it's got like it's got that a little
Speaker 1: bit of it's got that fish oil taste to it.
Speaker 1: And how do you how are you using it? You're
Speaker 1: dipping meat in it?
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean you could use it a ton of
Speaker 5: different ways. I'm sure there's still ways to expand to
Speaker 5: that that palette now that you know, once we get
Speaker 5: back into the mix. But I mean, really, like you said,
Speaker 5: dipping fish or even bread or different things with with
Speaker 5: your dinner.
Speaker 2: Do you ever oil a pan with it?
Speaker 4: I haven't, but I mean the reason you couldn't.
Speaker 7: You could cook with it I don't know what.
Speaker 5: The smoke temp is, to be honest, because it's rendered
Speaker 5: really low temperature. I see it's super low temperature. Ore
Speaker 5: you'll burn it got so you'll get a real like
Speaker 5: dark amber. Like you'll see first timers making like rendering
Speaker 5: whale oil and it's like real dark.
Speaker 3: And then you kind of get the older folks who are.
Speaker 2: Like, oh, they know how to keep it clean and clear,
Speaker 2: so it's like whiskey colored or something.
Speaker 5: Well, So like generally it's like like light olive oil
Speaker 5: even lighter than that.
Speaker 4: That's clear. Oh okay, it's not.
Speaker 2: I mean it's not there of being like honey.
Speaker 5: No, it's not like water, but the like the smoked
Speaker 5: seal oil kind of a little closer to like an
Speaker 5: olive oil color. Yeah, but generally it's like the clearer,
Speaker 5: the better. It's like you did a good job rendering
Speaker 5: it if it's nice and clear.
Speaker 2: Is there a does your community does your community have
Speaker 2: Is there a communal area where stuff gets done or
Speaker 2: do people would it be that hundreds of people would
Speaker 2: go home and all render oil on their own, or
Speaker 2: do you have a big spot where you just render
Speaker 2: all the oil collectively and then hand it out.
Speaker 5: Well, generally when the whale gets you know, gets pulled
Speaker 5: up right, you know, drop an elk, it's there, it's
Speaker 5: in that spot, but we pull up the whale and
Speaker 5: it kind of gets distributed there and that's where the
Speaker 5: time is. You know, everybody's hustling to make sure it's
Speaker 5: taking care of business. And then you know, wherever you
Speaker 5: take that your portion, you know, probably similar to an elk,
Speaker 5: you go home and okay, clean it up, make sure
Speaker 5: it's nice and good, and then you take your section
Speaker 5: it apart, and then you plan to do your oil.
Speaker 1: Got it, And that's that's your own business in your
Speaker 1: own area. Like it's cut up in a in a
Speaker 1: way where people that want them get some. But then
Speaker 1: if you got your chunk of meat, you go home
Speaker 1: and deal.
Speaker 4: With your chunk of meat.
Speaker 5: But say there can't be you know, I'm sure like
Speaker 5: those are some of the things that are really kind
Speaker 5: of frustrating to notice. Is you see other tribes and
Speaker 5: other places have these communal ceremonies of like they're celebrating
Speaker 5: the teaching their kids how to process these different animals.
Speaker 5: And for us to not even let alone not only
Speaker 5: be not able to whale, but not able to even
Speaker 5: engage in those ceremonies to physically show our younger kids
Speaker 5: how to do this kind of stuff, you know, And
Speaker 5: so the tribe's doing really well at you know, hey,
Speaker 5: the process of making paddles never died. Never will processes
Speaker 5: of you know, making harpoons, Like we have our Cultural
Speaker 5: and Research center that has an incredible display of all
Speaker 5: of the model, all the technology for whaling and all
Speaker 5: of those. You know, there's folks who are well detailed
Speaker 5: in you know, making your harpoons and teaching your kids
Speaker 5: too and family how to do those things. But for
Speaker 5: us to not be able to kind of you know,
Speaker 5: it's kind of like that box that year and you
Speaker 5: think about being able to have those kind of ceremonies,
Speaker 5: were like, hey, my cos's coming together like macads. But
Speaker 5: for just us to teach generations how to do this
Speaker 5: process and to get better at it, how to handle.
Speaker 2: Stuff you mentioned you guys is you guys hunt seal
Speaker 2: and porpoise. Yeah, and that's that's less like that's just
Speaker 2: kind of that's that's less like regulatory stuff involved in that.
Speaker 3: There's regulations around that. There's it's incidental take permits that
Speaker 3: we get issued. You know, we work with National Marine
Speaker 3: Fishery Service again and our Marine mammal biologists. You know,
Speaker 3: if we do any any type of incidental take what
Speaker 3: gets caught up in fishing gear.
Speaker 2: So that would be how you'd wind up with one, right,
Speaker 2: got you?
Speaker 3: And then we there's a reporting system that we have.
Speaker 2: To report that if you have listen, if you have
Speaker 2: a porpoise, what is that porpoise good for it? Would
Speaker 2: you use it exactly how you use the whale? Pretty
Speaker 2: similar blubber skin, meat oil.
Speaker 4: They actually do have backstraps.
Speaker 7: I've heard it's very good.
Speaker 4: Yeah, say, very good tasting.
Speaker 2: You've heard that.
Speaker 4: I've heard that, but you haven't tried it.
Speaker 3: But it's good, Steve.
Speaker 2: It's word is word is. It's gonna be good where
Speaker 2: it is, it's great.
Speaker 4: All right.
Speaker 2: So I want to get into the time.
Speaker 1: I want to get back to this timeline more and
Speaker 1: try to get like where the where the situation stands
Speaker 1: right now? So the injunction goes in two thousand and
Speaker 1: two thousand.
Speaker 3: And one, what was it two thousand and two.
Speaker 2: Two thousand and two, two thousand and two.
Speaker 1: The federal government know its forms Noah yous fit whatever
Speaker 1: all the agencies.
Speaker 2: It comes down.
Speaker 1: We don't need to get into the details, but basically
Speaker 1: it comes down, Hey, there's an injunction the Macaw. You're
Speaker 1: done whaling two thousand and two, but now you're talking
Speaker 1: about whaling.
Speaker 2: Again, like you're getting ready to go. You want to
Speaker 2: get everything squared away to go.
Speaker 1: What what happened this time around?
Speaker 3: So in two thousand and four, we made an application
Speaker 3: for a waiver to to go whaling under the Remammal
Speaker 3: Protection Act and there is no process for it. So
Speaker 3: we had to work with a government to develop that
Speaker 3: process as we went.
Speaker 2: Oh and then you had to ask them, Let's say
Speaker 2: a fellow wanted a waiver, what would the waiver need
Speaker 2: to look like?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 1: And you got a legal team, I mean you got lawyers.
Speaker 1: We do, Like you just got lawyers getting paid to do.
Speaker 4: This kind of stuff.
Speaker 3: Yes, huh, yes we do. Yeah. And and so we've
Speaker 3: been in that process, you know since two thousand and four,
Speaker 3: since we first put in that notice. We've had to
Speaker 3: reboot it a few times.
Speaker 2: So are they just do they just kind of slow
Speaker 2: walking like they stall it? Yes, but I mean for.
Speaker 3: Years or years. Yeah, there's you know, you're you're looking
Speaker 3: at you know a lot of the both scientific and
Speaker 3: the biological information, you know, with with the whale population,
Speaker 3: and and so in the you know, in that process,
Speaker 3: the government, you know, like anybody can sue the federal government, right,
Speaker 3: So that's their real concern. It's like they don't want
Speaker 3: to get sued and lose, so they're so the slow
Speaker 3: walking is so that they're thorough on their end. No,
Speaker 3: I understand, and and yeah, that's the area and it
Speaker 3: can withstand a challenging court. Yeah, so that's that's that's
Speaker 3: part of the part of why it's been delayed so long.
Speaker 3: We think it's unreasonable, you know. And now we went
Speaker 3: we were finally issued a waiver in twenty eighteen, I believe,
Speaker 3: is that the right year, twenty twenty four the waiver
Speaker 3: for the June the waiver or we applied for the
Speaker 3: waiver in eighteen, maybe it was.
Speaker 5: We have the twenty four hundred page environmental impact statement,
Speaker 5: that's whatever.
Speaker 3: So yeah, anyway that.
Speaker 1: You guys generated a twenty four hundred page environmental impact statement.
Speaker 3: No no, uh, noah did no?
Speaker 1: It did an environmental impact statement about what would happen
Speaker 1: if you got a whale, right.
Speaker 5: Yes, so once that was done, then we would be
Speaker 5: able to apply for the waiver, granted the waiver and
Speaker 5: then goes to the permit system.
Speaker 4: Oh here's what.
Speaker 1: Here's where I'm a little bit confused. Go ahead, but
Speaker 1: I'll tell what's excusing me.
Speaker 3: Okay. So there was a alj Administrative Law judge hearing
Speaker 3: on on this, and you know, we had to basically
Speaker 3: go through this court process, bring in tell the government
Speaker 3: how we're going to do the hunt, how we're going
Speaker 3: to manage it, and bring in our cultural experts and
Speaker 3: all those you know, Daniel testified in that, and the
Speaker 3: judge recommended that we be granted the waiver because that's
Speaker 3: what I was I was trying to get at earlier
Speaker 3: and in that timeline. And then you know, we're finally
Speaker 3: granted that waiver in twenty twenty four, and then in
Speaker 3: March of twenty twenty five we applied for a permit.
Speaker 3: You know, we're granted the waiver. Now you got to
Speaker 3: get a permit for how many whales? So it's for
Speaker 3: twenty up to twenty five whales over a ten year period.
Speaker 2: Okay, Yeah, So okay, because that's what I was confused about, Okay,
Speaker 2: is I was like, if you look at just the
Speaker 2: pop population demographics of Wales, which I don't understand well,
Speaker 2: but I gathered these are long lived, low fecundity creatures,
Speaker 2: but there are thousands of them.
Speaker 1: So in my mind, I'm like, how could any serious
Speaker 1: person argue that harvesting a whale a year is going
Speaker 1: to have a population level impact when you factor in
Speaker 1: that you have this mortality happening from cruise ships, you
Speaker 1: have mortality happening from entanglements, you have mortality happening from strandings.
Speaker 1: And then someone would say, but if you get one,
Speaker 1: that's gonna.
Speaker 2: That's going to tank the grey whale population.
Speaker 3: Now we agree with you.
Speaker 1: On that just seems like a heart That seems like
Speaker 1: such a weird It's like they're dying all over the place.
Speaker 1: We're talking about, oh whale. But I guess if you're
Speaker 1: looking at two point five whales a year, if you
Speaker 1: had said one whale a year, would it have been
Speaker 1: a different conversation or would it have been all the same?
Speaker 3: Bs It probably would have been all the same, being
Speaker 3: it wouldn't have changed. I don't think it would have
Speaker 3: changed anything, you know. I think I think our our opponents,
Speaker 3: our adversaries on this, you know, they're absolutists, and and
Speaker 3: so we're the way we proposed to do the hunt is,
Speaker 3: you know, the most we could most whales we could
Speaker 3: take in any any year under this waiver is two, okay,
Speaker 3: because you can't take a half a whale, right ye. So,
Speaker 3: and it's only one per hunt season. So there there's
Speaker 3: the hunt season that we're applying for is a summer fall.
Speaker 3: Hunt starts July first, goes through October thirty first.
Speaker 1: So you got like an opening day and everything. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you has like white people, You got like opening.
Speaker 3: Days and and if you know, if we harvest a
Speaker 3: whale then that's done, that permit for that period is
Speaker 3: done and we have to wait for we can't go
Speaker 3: the very next year in that hunt period. We got
Speaker 3: to wait un till the following year, oh to go.
Speaker 3: We we can also apply for a permit for a
Speaker 3: separate hunt season, which is a winter spring goes from
Speaker 3: December to through May, and we could harvest a whale
Speaker 3: during that as well. But once we harvest that whale,
Speaker 3: then that that hunt period's done. So there's we wouldn't
Speaker 3: get more than two a year under under how it's
Speaker 3: structured right now, and right now, we're not proposing to
Speaker 3: go in that in that winter spring hunt. You know,
Speaker 3: it's it's more dangerous. These are farther offshore, so it's
Speaker 3: it's more ideal to go in the summer fall hunt period.
Speaker 2: What kind of ground are these gray whales covering? Like
Speaker 2: what's their northern range and southern range? Because when they
Speaker 2: come by you, they're coming through.
Speaker 3: Right right, yeah, they're they're coming through the eastern North
Speaker 3: pacifics that we're targeting. You know, they go from Baja
Speaker 3: California to the Soclen Islands way up.
Speaker 4: I don't no Soccolene.
Speaker 3: It's way up in the sharing straight Russia. Oh really yeah, yes,
Speaker 3: got yeah, yeah, that's there. That's their feeding range.
Speaker 2: So these seasons is you're it's.
Speaker 1: It's it's different swings of a migration, right, Like one,
Speaker 1: I'm just like one is that they're sort of generally
Speaker 1: moving south, and one they're generally moving north. Correct, And
Speaker 1: that summer season they're generally moving north.
Speaker 4: Right now, they're moving south to go down to the
Speaker 4: well how to have their calves and no breeding. Yeah,
Speaker 4: so right now they're going past us. They're feeding and
Speaker 4: you know, slowly making their way down there, and they
Speaker 4: have their calves, and then the male whales start making
Speaker 4: it up and the females make it up after them
Speaker 4: with their calves slowly. Okay.
Speaker 2: Oh, when you if you imagine the ideal whale, is
Speaker 2: it a male or female?
Speaker 4: Male?
Speaker 2: Can you tell?
Speaker 4: There's a way you want to you want to explain
Speaker 4: how you you tell how female is the male? Ahead?
Speaker 4: So you have to stick your arm in them, and
Speaker 4: if it goes a certain direction, that's a male or
Speaker 4: a female.
Speaker 2: But yeah, but that's dead checking them. Yeah, you can't
Speaker 2: live check them.
Speaker 4: It's a little harder.
Speaker 2: Okay. So there's not like it wouldn't be that.
Speaker 4: We have an observer that like a specialist, a marine
Speaker 4: specialist that identify as if it's a male or a
Speaker 4: female for us before we strike it, because we can't
Speaker 4: strike a female after males.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, that's okay. So it would be out of
Speaker 2: the question to kill a female with a calf. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's that's not gonna happen.
Speaker 4: It's not gonna happen, got it.
Speaker 2: And you're targeting males?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I see. And whether we get get it or not,
Speaker 4: those same whales we have the shared quota basically, so
Speaker 4: if we don't get them, it goes into their quota.
Speaker 4: Those two wheels that we're not getting all that tribe.
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, where are they located?
Speaker 3: Russians?
Speaker 2: Man, your quota goes to the Russians.
Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, there's seriously. Yeah, during the and when I explaining,
Speaker 3: we we first agreed to be part of this international process. Yeah,
Speaker 3: federal government, wont us do that? We said, okay, and
Speaker 3: so we went and did it. There's a there's a
Speaker 3: whaling quota you know, given globally to whaling whaling nations,
Speaker 3: and that right through this process. Well, there's already established
Speaker 3: quota for for these gray whales the eastern North Pacifics
Speaker 3: that was mainly being taken by the chi Cookins up
Speaker 3: in Russia. And so when we first started working to
Speaker 3: get our international quota, what we were asking for the Chacokins,
Speaker 3: you know, we were able to build relationships with them
Speaker 3: and they supported us and they were willing to give
Speaker 3: up part of their quota, so that we said, right,
Speaker 3: so that we can continue our whaling. So it's an
Speaker 3: agreement that.
Speaker 2: So did you have to send some ambassadors up to
Speaker 2: meet with these guys.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, and and talk this out and and talk
Speaker 3: it out and spend time with them during their whaling
Speaker 3: activities and huh yeah, and.
Speaker 2: You guys were generally well received by them.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, mm hmm.
Speaker 2: Do they have the same arguments with the Russian government?
Speaker 4: Not all? Right?
Speaker 2: Do they have the same level of negotiating with the
Speaker 2: Russian Like what are their treaties?
Speaker 3: Like, I'm unsure, Yeah.
Speaker 1: I want I wonder if they have all the layers
Speaker 1: of government or if they just do their own thing
Speaker 1: or what that's like dealing with the Russian government.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I haven't been there myself. It's pretty remote, more
Speaker 3: remote than we are, so imagine they don't have to
Speaker 3: deal with them quite as much, not as much.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we keep getting into the timeline leaving the timeline,
Speaker 2: but where like, what are you waiting on right now?
Speaker 2: You're not going to whale this summer or you.
Speaker 3: Might, Well, it's it's still possible this summer. It's still possible. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it's still possible. You know, we're we're at the end
Speaker 3: of coming up on the end of July. You know what,
Speaker 3: there's the whales are still present. That's that's kind of
Speaker 3: the factor, you know, the whales got to be there.
Speaker 3: But yeah, sure, when they decide to leave, you know,
Speaker 3: then then they're gone. But we're waiting on the Secretary
Speaker 3: of Commerce too to sign the permit. You're waiting on
Speaker 3: Howard Lutnik correct to sign the permit. Yes, really, he's
Speaker 3: got to sign it. He does, or he's got to
Speaker 3: delegate someone to sign it.
Speaker 2: And what what what's his what's his thinking?
Speaker 3: We don't know. We haven't been able to talk to
Speaker 3: him directly on this issue. We've requested it. We've requested
Speaker 3: government to government consultation on this, which you know normally
Speaker 3: those are honored by the federal government.
Speaker 2: But these guys don't want to hear you out.
Speaker 3: Not too early to say, not Howard himself yet. But
Speaker 3: he's uhes deputies is his deputies. We've talked with them.
Speaker 3: They're super supportive. They've been great.
Speaker 2: Oh I got you all right, So there's no resistance there.
Speaker 3: No, we don't. And so it's it's a little puzzling
Speaker 3: for us. Frustrating for sure.
Speaker 2: Like you mean, like the recept the receptive they're not dismissive,
Speaker 2: but then there's not the signature.
Speaker 3: Yet, right right, Yeah, I would say it's even more
Speaker 3: than receptive. I'd say they're supportive.
Speaker 2: Supportive. Yeah, okay, so let's say, I mean, is it
Speaker 2: is there a possibility that tomorrow someone emails you over
Speaker 2: like a how does it happen? Like one day someone
Speaker 2: signs it and then there it is.
Speaker 3: Yes, So we have a pain permit application. I've actually
Speaker 3: signed my part of it already for twenty twenty five
Speaker 3: and twenty twenty seven. Was it a docu sign No,
Speaker 3: it was it digital? No, it wasn't a paper document.
Speaker 3: Was a paper document? Yeah, And we've well, our understanding
Speaker 3: last year was that we were we're both going to
Speaker 3: sign this and it would be effective August first of
Speaker 3: two thousand and twenty five. And we're preparing for that moment.
Speaker 3: We're working with with our media teams and you know,
Speaker 3: going to be prepared for any whether it's pushback or
Speaker 3: you know, people will want to tell the story, right,
Speaker 3: you know that it's going to get some coverage. And yeah,
Speaker 3: so we were, I mean, we were just weeks away,
Speaker 3: two weeks away from what we thought, you know, being
Speaker 3: issued our first permit on last year last year, and
Speaker 3: and then nothing happened and we yeah, it just went radio.
Speaker 2: Silence and that's under the Trump administration.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's what's real puzzling about. I mean, you know,
Speaker 3: these these types of things is something you know, you know,
Speaker 3: hunting and outdoor type stuff, and you know those things
Speaker 3: seem right up this administration's alley, right, you know, they
Speaker 3: seem to be supportive.
Speaker 2: Of yeah, like stripping regulations, strip.
Speaker 3: Yeah, less regulation, those sort of things. So, yeah, we're
Speaker 3: not sure what what's going on.
Speaker 1: But this is you might want to not even answer this,
Speaker 1: and I would probably I wouldn't, but I'll ask anyway, just.
Speaker 2: Because of what you just said. Is it possible to
Speaker 2: say something like this, Is it possible to say that
Speaker 2: that that who's better friends to the macaw like generally
Speaker 2: Republicans are Democrats? Or is that not a possible You
Speaker 2: can't answer it.
Speaker 3: No, I've answered that question a number of times, and
Speaker 3: and I think both of them have their They have
Speaker 3: their points.
Speaker 2: That's what I think.
Speaker 3: They have their points of where the friendship ends it
Speaker 3: or starts right, you know, in general, and this is
Speaker 3: a pure generality, is that you know, Democrats will support
Speaker 3: our treaty right up unto the point it starts conflicting
Speaker 3: with labor and jobs. Oh, Republicans, they'll support our treaty
Speaker 3: right up into the point it starts affecting industry.
Speaker 2: Oh so like the AID, like the Age Old conflicts,
Speaker 2: you just like find your own Indian way into the
Speaker 2: Age Old conflicts. But here's the thing, Democrats and Republicans.
Speaker 3: Yeah, here's the thing, is that that our treaty rights
Speaker 3: should be nonpartisan.
Speaker 1: Yeah, if it was a well written treaty, you think
Speaker 1: that it would be Yeah, that it would be debatable.
Speaker 1: But I mean, as you know, I mean, documents don't
Speaker 1: always anticipate every development. But what's funny about not what's funny,
Speaker 1: but what's interesting about treat Like we look at the US Constitution, Right,
Speaker 1: so the founding fathers didn't come in and be like,
Speaker 1: they didn't make.
Speaker 2: A big passage about AI.
Speaker 1: Right, So then you got to get down the road
Speaker 1: and you gotta say, well, how would they have looked
Speaker 1: at this issue? Based on what we know about how
Speaker 1: they looked at other issues, how might they look at
Speaker 1: like an AI issue?
Speaker 2: Okay, but but what's and you know it way better. Mean,
Speaker 2: but if you look at tribal treaties, it literally contemplates hunting, fishing, landmarks,
Speaker 2: things that they're really.
Speaker 1: Clear about I agree, yes, I mean it's like you
Speaker 1: can't get any more clear, Like you guys are cool
Speaker 1: to go on and fishing and here right, So it's
Speaker 1: not like you're not contemplating AI. You're contemplating like a
Speaker 1: very concrete, specific activity. So that people find so many
Speaker 1: things to the debate about it is. You know, I
Speaker 1: understand the complexities, but it's just it's different because it's
Speaker 1: not abstract. It's like your father, your your your father's
Speaker 1: argued this out.
Speaker 2: They did, yeah, and brought up like, hey, we need
Speaker 2: we eat.
Speaker 1: This is what we eat. We need to be able
Speaker 1: to get our food. Here's the deal, you know. And
Speaker 1: now you're in this situation where you're like arguing about it,
Speaker 1: which I understand it's complicated, especially something like Wales.
Speaker 3: Well we're not even arguing right now. We're just waiting, waiting.
Speaker 3: We're just waiting.
Speaker 2: If if you all of a sudden get the permit,
Speaker 2: you all of a sudden get the signature. Do you
Speaker 2: got a team you know, you know you call it.
Speaker 2: Do you got a crew? Is there a crew ready
Speaker 2: to roll? They got the gear straight, they got the
Speaker 2: plan put together?
Speaker 3: Yeah we have I mean, we got some additional training
Speaker 3: that will have to be done, you know, because you
Speaker 3: know to be able to go tomorrow. You know that,
Speaker 3: you know, if we get the permit sign tomorrow, there
Speaker 3: isn't a team that's going to launch tomorrow.
Speaker 2: I see.
Speaker 4: Yeah, how do you.
Speaker 2: Get to be? Who selects the crew?
Speaker 3: Our whaling Commission?
Speaker 2: Okay, so you.
Speaker 1: Can't just freelance it. No, two dudes can't just be like, hell,
Speaker 1: I'm going like that wouldn't fly.
Speaker 3: No, it don't.
Speaker 1: No, it has that. It goes through the tribe, the
Speaker 1: Whaling Commission. Yes, got it?
Speaker 2: And and how do you apply to be Like, if
Speaker 2: you want to be on crew, what do you got
Speaker 2: to do? Who's on the crew?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 5: So the way that the Whaling Commission handles that kind
Speaker 5: of stuff is essentially the you know, you're you're interested
Speaker 5: in being a captain, You're responsible for the crew. So
Speaker 5: the captain is the one who will apply for the permit,
Speaker 5: and the council, the tribal council's ultimate authority that signs
Speaker 5: the permit for the crew.
Speaker 4: So if you're going to be a.
Speaker 5: Captain, you you know, you gather your crew, you do
Speaker 5: everything you need to do. Say, you know, like you're
Speaker 5: doing for a a hunt for whatever, You're gonna pick
Speaker 5: your guys and this is what we're gonna do, this plan,
Speaker 5: train up whatever.
Speaker 4: But the captains you.
Speaker 5: Know, selects his crew, make sure they got everything going,
Speaker 5: and he's going to be the one to take the
Speaker 5: crew out and to actually do the do the hunt.
Speaker 1: So that captain goes to the commission and gets the Okay,
Speaker 1: what if you had eight captains.
Speaker 5: Well, so the commission will select the captains, the captains
Speaker 5: will select their crew, and the Commission will make a
Speaker 5: recommendation of the Council of of you know, who should
Speaker 5: gather the permit based on who's you know, who's ready.
Speaker 4: There.
Speaker 5: There might be one captain that's ready, there might be eight.
Speaker 5: And we've even talked about doing things like, you know,
Speaker 5: having multiple crews and and you know, not your first
Speaker 5: hunt's not always successful.
Speaker 4: It can be, but it's not always.
Speaker 5: And so we've talked about having different crews hunting at
Speaker 5: different times. That requires a couple of different technical you know,
Speaker 5: tribal hunt, observers hunting, both communication.
Speaker 4: To make sure you're not doubling up.
Speaker 5: But there's a lot of different ways that we've discussed
Speaker 5: internally on how to handle and on how to handle
Speaker 5: you know, multiple crews, multiple captains and got it. And
Speaker 5: even having the positions of the whaler's just kind of
Speaker 5: trained up in multiple positions so that you know, people
Speaker 5: get sick or people get hurt, or you know, you
Speaker 5: can swap around and you can move.
Speaker 2: And so what would be the attributes of a captain
Speaker 2: he's coming out of what is he is?
Speaker 6: He?
Speaker 1: Is he probably a commercial fisherman? Is he probably a fisherman?
Speaker 5: I mean, I'll hand that one over to Daniel, But
Speaker 5: I imagine he's got to be well versed in the sea.
Speaker 6: And yeah, yeah, well versed in the sea, knowing the history,
Speaker 6: actually knowing the whales, okay, personally spending time you know,
Speaker 6: on the water, you know, observing whales, knowing positions in
Speaker 6: the canoe, how to make the harpoons battles that.
Speaker 4: So, got it.
Speaker 2: So they got to be invested, be invested in it, yes,
Speaker 2: and have a reasonable claim to why they should be
Speaker 2: doing it.
Speaker 4: Yes, for sure, got it.
Speaker 2: So someone comes up with like a crackpot idea, they're
Speaker 2: gonna get weed, They're gonna get weeded out.
Speaker 6: And get weeded out for sure.
Speaker 2: Yeah, how big is the Commission.
Speaker 7: About twenty four.
Speaker 2: No kids are they all tribal.
Speaker 5: They're all either heads or descendants of like traditional heads
Speaker 5: of families. And so that's that's what I wanted to
Speaker 5: get into a little bit. It's like, traditionally you're brought
Speaker 5: up as a whaler, captain or leader because it's central
Speaker 5: to the like I said, the society of the tribe.
Speaker 5: And so it's like it's not hey, we're going to
Speaker 5: go sure to elk, We're going to grab our permit,
Speaker 5: but like it's a lifestyle, okay, right, the training, the mindset,
Speaker 5: even just who you are as a person. If you're
Speaker 5: going to be a captain, you're you're already set apart,
Speaker 5: I understand. And you're you're brought up in a way
Speaker 5: like you're a leader, You're a you know, take care
Speaker 5: of your family.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 5: You's like you said, spend time in the ocean, spend
Speaker 5: time with the sea. You know, wales breathing patterns, fluke
Speaker 5: fluke prints, like you kind of know, I see you
Speaker 5: know you're gonna be.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but they've been prepared for this their whole life.
Speaker 2: Is there a clan.
Speaker 1: System with the Macaw? Do you guys, are you guys
Speaker 1: from different clans.
Speaker 5: So the tribe has five traditional villages, okay, and the
Speaker 5: five traditional village are kind of what make up the
Speaker 5: reservation now. So we have Ozette Sus, we have watch
Speaker 5: Dia and Bejeta. So those are the five villages that
Speaker 5: kind of make up the tribe now. But as far
Speaker 5: as clans go, everybody kind of you know where you
Speaker 5: come from, you know what family you come from, what
Speaker 5: village you come from.
Speaker 1: And people might have It's like a step down from
Speaker 1: Macaw would be that you'd associate by.
Speaker 5: Village in family village and family village and family. You
Speaker 5: kind of tie your family, you know where your village.
Speaker 5: Everybody knows who comes from what village for the most part,
Speaker 5: and that's just part of how the oral history has
Speaker 5: continued to transpire as everybody understands whose family, who comes
Speaker 5: from who, and that kind of gets into our potlat
Speaker 5: system of you know and all.
Speaker 2: And in the Whaling Commission, the different there would be
Speaker 2: representation from all the villages.
Speaker 7: Yeah, and multiple multiple families from multiple.
Speaker 4: People from all villages and they come together.
Speaker 3: It's a heads it's heads of family type structure.
Speaker 4: Heads a family.
Speaker 3: It's a family rather than clan. It's we, that's how
Speaker 3: we associate. Each village would have so many heads of
Speaker 3: family that would be part of that village's governance of
Speaker 3: of their village. And you know there are different number
Speaker 3: of seats per village, and that was up to the
Speaker 3: village to decide how many I got it, how many
Speaker 3: seats they wanted filled as heads of family on.
Speaker 2: These whaling decisions and captain selection and and when to
Speaker 2: when to push on it and try to do it
Speaker 2: and when anot is it? Is it contentious or do
Speaker 2: you guys usually hit a consensus.
Speaker 3: We don't disagree on anything, Steve No, never, No, it's
Speaker 3: it can get contentious.
Speaker 1: There can be Yeah, does it do you settle it?
Speaker 1: Do you settle by vote? Or do you hash it
Speaker 1: out until there's a consensus. Well, I think there's attempt
Speaker 1: to reach consensus. But you know at the end there
Speaker 1: is a voting mechanisic.
Speaker 2: So just any any sort of issue would be eventually
Speaker 2: might be resolved by a vote.
Speaker 4: Yes, yeah, I got you.
Speaker 2: What will happen Let's say in two years, So you've
Speaker 2: got this relationship with the.
Speaker 1: Commerce Department under Howard Lutnik. Right now, what's say in
Speaker 1: two years.
Speaker 4: It's a new administration.
Speaker 1: At that point, I'm like, oh my god, now we
Speaker 1: got to start all the way over again.
Speaker 2: Or is it is there a chance that it would
Speaker 2: be smooth?
Speaker 4: Well?
Speaker 3: It there definitely be the concern that we gotta reboot
Speaker 3: the waiver process. You know that that would you know,
Speaker 3: that would be concerning, but or the permitting process. Sorry,
Speaker 3: you know we we've already been granted the waiver. You
Speaker 3: know that can't be walked back, but you know we
Speaker 3: need a permit. So yeah, I don't know. I don't
Speaker 3: know what administration change would do. We've been through a
Speaker 3: lot of them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, who was president when Stevens was the negotiating
Speaker 2: all those treaties?
Speaker 6: Oh a Buchanan, was it not?
Speaker 2: You've been through a few administrations. Hey, here's here's what
Speaker 2: I wanted to ask. Sorry, Loop, We've been having a
Speaker 2: lot of conversations. You know, we had a lot of
Speaker 2: fish and game, and some of the guys work here
Speaker 2: fish a lot, and we've been having all these conversations
Speaker 2: about like pfast chemicals and fish health warnings and fish.
Speaker 2: If you had to rate, like you know, in our
Speaker 2: in our world, it.
Speaker 4: Would be that.
Speaker 1: You know, like tuna, that's a questionable fish for heavy
Speaker 1: metals contamination.
Speaker 2: Our own state has now.
Speaker 1: Advisories about pfast chemicals and fresh water fish.
Speaker 2: Here is a.
Speaker 1: How how much you see into stuff in whale in
Speaker 1: whale fat, because I mean they're like a mega accumulator,
Speaker 1: you know, just for listeners to understand, I mean this
Speaker 1: picture that picture that there's a fish that a small
Speaker 1: fish that eats plankton. He's not accumulating a bunch of
Speaker 1: heavy metals.
Speaker 2: But let's say there's a fish that eats fish, that
Speaker 2: eats fish. So every fish he eats, he's absorbing all
Speaker 2: the things that not just that they ate, but that
Speaker 2: what they ate ate. Right, And you get to be
Speaker 2: where you have these certain fish that are loaded because
Speaker 2: they're accumulated. They're just eating fish, they ate fish. So
Speaker 2: it is a whale. Is a whale like a bioaccumulator
Speaker 2: of environmental toxins.
Speaker 4: There's not much data on it. I mean what I
Speaker 4: what I have found was they have done some studies
Speaker 4: on some whales that whether they were you know, ship
Speaker 4: strikes or beach themselves, and I believe they detected you know,
Speaker 4: levels in the blubber. They didn't find it. I think
Speaker 4: there was like maybe twenty whales, but a lot of
Speaker 4: them were inconclusive and they didn't find any in the liver,
Speaker 4: it sounded like. And then like the red meat, there
Speaker 4: wasn't as much. But I mean, you know, you could
Speaker 4: see the tribes that have been eating whale for all
Speaker 4: these years, and you know, it is medicine. And I
Speaker 4: mean the even the government is getting back to like
Speaker 4: food is medicine, you know. Yeah, turn the triangle upside
Speaker 4: down now red meats at the top. Oh yeah, and
Speaker 4: you know it normalizes glucose metabolism. You know, whale meat
Speaker 4: it's been shown to do that. You can see that
Speaker 4: in the and the tribes that are still eating it,
Speaker 4: you know, on a daily basis, and it's it's their
Speaker 4: main fat source, you know. And you can see in
Speaker 4: those where the health related diseases are not as large
Speaker 4: as you know, say like a coastal triver like a
Speaker 4: lot of the the tribes you know that that got
Speaker 4: hit with like you know, the commodities you remember, you know,
Speaker 4: no no so commodities. You know, it was a oh yeah,
Speaker 4: the food Western like Western foods you know, introduced into
Speaker 4: our diet once we laid down our harpoons, you know,
Speaker 4: twelve years before anybody else started to, you know, knowing
Speaker 4: we were going to get back to it, but still
Speaker 4: you know, traditionally eating all of our our foods and
Speaker 4: which even there's we had elders that were you know,
Speaker 4: they were probably around when we had our last couple
Speaker 4: hunts in the twenties and they lived to be in
Speaker 4: their hundreds.
Speaker 1: Oh, they were enjoying good, long lives on that diet.
Speaker 4: He could speak more on that as well, but you know,
Speaker 4: the I think it's like with the grey whale on
Speaker 4: the few of the villages up there, because it they
Speaker 4: get about. I think they have sixteen thousand people that
Speaker 4: they get whale distributed to and they get about I
Speaker 4: think it's one hundred and seven pounds of gray whale
Speaker 4: meat and twenty six percent of them. I think it
Speaker 4: was that they said it was their main food, like
Speaker 4: their main fatty foods. Is that right?
Speaker 2: Yeah? And so even us reinteresting.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Wow, there's like people who's main like that's their main Yeah,
Speaker 2: a main meat would be whale meat.
Speaker 4: Yeah. And even for us, you know, introducing it back
Speaker 4: into our diet, which it's been missing since the twenties
Speaker 4: since we've stopped and you can you can see the
Speaker 4: you know, diabetes and whatever else. You know, the health
Speaker 4: related diseases, they're pretty rampant, you know. And then even
Speaker 4: with those you know, those microplastics and everything in the.
Speaker 6: Food that.
Speaker 4: I believe that it is something that will need to
Speaker 4: be studied more once you know, we're where if we're
Speaker 4: whaling on a regular basis, I'm sure it's something we're
Speaker 4: gonna be able to study if it is higher because
Speaker 4: they are eating fish, eating fish, eating fish.
Speaker 2: But then you got the question too of of like.
Speaker 1: Relative to like let's say they do have some chemical contamination,
Speaker 1: it's like relative to what? Then you got to ask yourself,
Speaker 1: I don't know, is the other stuff that everybody's eating
Speaker 1: so great?
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's you know.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of focus on wild fish. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm like, I don't know, are they checking everything? Like
Speaker 1: have you gone to the grocery store and checked all
Speaker 1: that stuff? Like it is wildfish really worse than all
Speaker 1: the junk that's in the grocery store.
Speaker 4: It's definitely better than farm fish.
Speaker 1: Yeah, It's like it winds up being like this totally
Speaker 1: relative thing. But there's all this focus on contaminations and fish.
Speaker 1: I'm like, i'd have to see the data on all
Speaker 1: the junk that normal people.
Speaker 5: Well, now it's getting into lab grown, lab grown meat,
Speaker 5: but I don't.
Speaker 2: Think no one's making lab grown whale meat.
Speaker 4: Don't quote me.
Speaker 5: I don't think are A tested it on the mercury
Speaker 5: for gray whales are.
Speaker 7: I don't think it was much.
Speaker 2: That'd be interesting, I could, Yeah, because one thing they're
Speaker 2: not doing is they're not eating They're not eating big
Speaker 2: fish like tuna. Big tuna eat small tuna.
Speaker 1: I mean, they're they're eating bio like tuna, eating bioaccumulators.
Speaker 1: And a lot of times a tunea is eating a
Speaker 1: fish that's eating a fish that eats fish.
Speaker 2: So it's just a different But you can picture.
Speaker 1: With a whale eating a lot of or lived plankton feeders,
Speaker 1: then maybe they don't get loaded up.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 5: And if you eat like so, you eat whale meat
Speaker 5: and blubber and then cut out all the processed stuff.
Speaker 5: Is the whale meat with chemicals and toxins better than
Speaker 5: a diet of processed food with chemicals, with chemicals and toxics.
Speaker 2: That's that's what I mean. Yeah, do you got let
Speaker 2: me ask you question. This is just on on the
Speaker 2: behalf of non non natives.
Speaker 1: You know what thing we always argue about, man, is
Speaker 1: whether it's okay to call you guys Indians or not.
Speaker 2: Give me your take on this, like like like just
Speaker 2: for listener's sake.
Speaker 6: Up like a dude.
Speaker 1: Like here's a dude like me, a dude like me,
Speaker 1: and I say, you guys are Indians. Just for people
Speaker 1: out there who want to do the right thing, but
Speaker 1: they get confused, what does that mean to you?
Speaker 3: Steve's say, quidicch chuck, qutic chuck.
Speaker 2: So is it offensive or not offensive?
Speaker 3: We're not too uptight about that most most of our people,
Speaker 3: you know, it's for us. We say, yeah, I can
Speaker 3: call us Indians. Our treaty. It's the Indians of Kate
Speaker 3: flattery in there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but you might not like that treaty. I'm not asking,
Speaker 2: I'm asked to be cute. I'm like, it's like an
Speaker 2: honest thing. There's not a month goes by, I'm not
Speaker 2: I'm not kidding you.
Speaker 1: There's not a month goes by that I don't have
Speaker 1: a conversation with someone about the appropriateness sure of native
Speaker 1: like Native American first Nations Native Alaskan, you know what.
Speaker 2: I mean, like like.
Speaker 1: The appropriateness of it, and maybe it's offensive that I'm
Speaker 1: even asking about. I'm going to ask anyway, because there's people.
Speaker 1: There's like people that want to do that. There's people
Speaker 1: that want to be respectful. But there's a lot of
Speaker 1: mixed signals and feelings. I remember asking the earlier, I said,
Speaker 1: Chupic eskimo. I asked the Chupic Eskimo. I said, man,
Speaker 1: you know a lot of people, like in our culture,
Speaker 1: a lot of.
Speaker 2: People say that they shouldn't say that.
Speaker 1: And he goes, if I'm not an Eskimo, I don't
Speaker 1: know what I am, because he goes, I'm a Cubic Eskimo.
Speaker 2: I don't know what they told you back home, but
Speaker 2: that's what I.
Speaker 3: Am, you know, and that you know, that's how we are.
Speaker 3: Any English word is the wrong word. So that's that's
Speaker 3: my take on it. It's like, you know, you he
Speaker 3: tried to say quid. That's what we call ourselves, you know,
Speaker 3: but any English word is the wrong word. But I
Speaker 3: don't stress about it.
Speaker 2: But there's some of you learned to live with and
Speaker 2: learn not to live with.
Speaker 3: It's more in them. You know. To me, it's it's
Speaker 3: more how are you saying it? Right, Yeah, you know,
Speaker 3: it's how are you saying it? How are you using it?
Speaker 3: How are you saying it?
Speaker 2: That's what I would imagine. That's what I That's how
Speaker 2: I kind of imagined it is is is in that way.
Speaker 1: But I but maybe am I? Am I right to
Speaker 1: say that? The best thing? I can't say your word?
Speaker 1: But if I just said he's macaw, that's fine. Yeah
Speaker 1: you're not like, wow, I'm not that's what someone else
Speaker 1: called me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's respect. That's respect. That that shows respect if
Speaker 2: I say that, or it doesn't show a lack of respect.
Speaker 3: Correct, it doesn't show a lack of respect.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And if I say Native American, that's cool, that's.
Speaker 4: Cool too, all right, all right, yeah, you know, like
Speaker 4: a good example the the Washington Redskins. Yeah, it wasn't
Speaker 4: the it wasn't the family of the chief of the
Speaker 4: head that they used on their helmet for that Redskins
Speaker 4: that got rid of it. It was those other groups.
Speaker 4: What do you mean, like, it wasn't so that that
Speaker 4: picture was actually from a chief in that area.
Speaker 2: Oh, they didn't have a problem with it.
Speaker 4: They didn't know.
Speaker 1: Huh, there's probably one hundred stories like that.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, our high school mascot is the Red Devils.
Speaker 2: Your high school mascot still now still now yeah, you
Speaker 2: do you find that that's a problem.
Speaker 4: No, No, that's interesting.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but there's got to be a lot of it.
Speaker 2: A lot of it is, like you said, where it's
Speaker 2: coming from?
Speaker 3: It right, you know who's saying it, where it's coming from.
Speaker 3: I would like to see a mascot that the whalers
Speaker 3: with their own name.
Speaker 2: Yeah, with your own name.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know in our.
Speaker 3: Language, there's a there's a tribe near us that that
Speaker 3: did that. And uh, but finding one that's easy to
Speaker 3: say and in Quadit language just is tough. You know.
Speaker 3: That's so there's a school mascot chitwins. You know it's
Speaker 3: a tribal tribal community and you know that just means
Speaker 3: a beard. It's like easy to say. Anybody can say it,
Speaker 3: and it's a great mascot.
Speaker 1: Can can can any of you guys give me a
Speaker 1: sense of what your language sounds like. Just just say
Speaker 1: something whatever. I don't know anything that just that guy.
Speaker 6: But to ask Clay with those.
Speaker 3: Duke checks h.
Speaker 6: Husha Bots, Okay to talk about whaling the whales.
Speaker 4: Talking about the whales. Yeah, I got it.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's kind of Marlan quiet. So plush is my name. Yeah,
Speaker 6: watch you have to watch.
Speaker 1: God it's a good sound of language, dude. So that's
Speaker 1: a good sign of language, man like that.
Speaker 6: It's a yeah, very good. And then we share our
Speaker 6: language families in Canada. So Johnny is where we come from.
Speaker 6: Whaling societies all along the Canadian West Coast island. So
Speaker 6: that's where we come from.
Speaker 4: Okay.
Speaker 2: So if I if like you go up, you got like.
Speaker 1: The hidea Simshian with those have been wu there been
Speaker 1: cultural similarities.
Speaker 4: Were just very different.
Speaker 6: They're pretty different. Yeah yeah, yeah, so we're just just
Speaker 6: south the Hida had Yeah, I guess northern northern end
Speaker 6: print troupert we had ties in with them, Okay, but
Speaker 6: I to guay kind of got different.
Speaker 2: That's a different way different people. Yeah. If you guys
Speaker 2: get this thing signed, this paper signed.
Speaker 1: Would you ever would you consider photocopying me a photocopy of.
Speaker 2: That sending me that.
Speaker 3: The permit the permit.
Speaker 1: Yeah, with like all like a permit, I just want
Speaker 1: to frame it, hang it in the studio A photocopy
Speaker 1: of your signed permit.
Speaker 2: I'm sure we're like your whale tag, the photocopy of
Speaker 2: your whale tag.
Speaker 3: We could do that.
Speaker 2: Just some kind of i'd like to have. I just
Speaker 2: like to see a dog make I'd like to see it.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 2: I want to just I want to photocopy from you guys.
Speaker 2: I don't want to.
Speaker 1: I don't want to have to go through the legal Yeah,
Speaker 1: just a document that's sort of like, is like, what
Speaker 1: what a whale permit looks like? A right, I'd like
Speaker 1: to see a whale permit do They probably don't have
Speaker 1: like the little date things you notch out and stuff.
Speaker 2: Find them. No, No, I'd like to see one.
Speaker 4: Man.
Speaker 2: I wish you guys, I don't know, man, not, I
Speaker 2: don't know. I hope you guys permit comes in.
Speaker 4: Thank you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I hope your permit comes in. It's just like
Speaker 2: to me, it feels to me, it feels like there's
Speaker 2: not a situation where there's not a situation one where
Speaker 2: sort of the general commercial fishing fleet is going to
Speaker 2: re engage in whaling and there's going to be like
Speaker 2: a resource battle about it, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: You guys got a claim to it.
Speaker 2: It's not a thing that's gonna get overblown. There's a
Speaker 2: limited number of there's a limited number of groups that
Speaker 2: have it, be that it's part of their tradition. It's
Speaker 2: such a small harvest. It just seems like it's it's
Speaker 2: doing it seems like it's doing enormous good. It's doing
Speaker 2: enormous good for your community, and it's not doing any
Speaker 2: harm to other It's not doing any harm to other communities.
Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, we we agree.
Speaker 2: It's just like it's like it's kind of like a
Speaker 2: it's it's not you know, you say, like a win win.
Speaker 2: It's a win. It's like a win.
Speaker 1: Nothing like it doesn't mean like it doesn't impact my life, right,
Speaker 1: it's not. I just feel like it's not my business.
Speaker 2: I feel it's like if it does you guys good
Speaker 2: and you want to do it, it's not going.
Speaker 1: To tank the great whale population. If you guys are
Speaker 1: getting the whale every year. Yeah, it's like it's it's
Speaker 1: it's just doesn't feel like my business.
Speaker 5: You know, I think it's I think it's important to
Speaker 5: mention also that it's it's ceremonial on subsistence it's not
Speaker 5: for the tribe's pleasure.
Speaker 7: It's not for.
Speaker 5: Anything other than it's who we are as a people
Speaker 5: and getting back to that. And it's not about going
Speaker 5: out to do it just because we can. It's it's
Speaker 5: central to the tribe. So that's the importance. So when
Speaker 5: it comes to respect, as far as you know names
Speaker 5: and what to call everybody, like as far as respect goes,
Speaker 5: like I would like to see people understand and get
Speaker 5: to know who the tribes are, Like you want to
Speaker 5: know Maca, go learn about Macaw. Yeah, you know, Joshua
Speaker 5: read Doctor josh Reid has a really great book called
Speaker 5: The Sea Is My Country. Really did extensive research not
Speaker 5: only at Macaw but across other tribes to to get
Speaker 5: their perspective of Macaw. Oh really, and it's it's incredible
Speaker 5: my country. Yeah and so what I haven't even heard
Speaker 5: of that one, but yeah, it's incredible and so we'll
Speaker 5: get your copy.
Speaker 4: But it's it's good.
Speaker 2: So if I mean, if you know that that book,
Speaker 2: that book resonates with your understanding of stuff. Yes, yes, yeah,
Speaker 2: you know what I'm saying, because sometimes you read books
Speaker 2: and come from observers, but then the people being observed
Speaker 2: are like that, like, that's not how we understand.
Speaker 4: It to be. No, Josh is a great partner.
Speaker 5: You really came in on behalf of the tribe and
Speaker 5: and really put together really accurate. You know, I was
Speaker 5: able to tell the story the way it happened.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 1: What's pretty funny is there's this there's this French dude
Speaker 1: named Jacques Cardier and he goes over to the He
Speaker 1: lands over on the Canadian coast north of Maine, goes
Speaker 1: up the Saint Lawrence River in the late fifteen hundreds,
Speaker 1: and he meets these He meets these.
Speaker 2: People called the static Conons.
Speaker 1: They're like a Saint Lawrence Iroquois Iroquois and he's like
Speaker 1: he's got this passage in his journal where he's like.
Speaker 2: Here's what's up with their religion?
Speaker 1: You really like, man, I just don't think they would
Speaker 1: describe the religion that way.
Speaker 3: That's funny.
Speaker 2: He's like they think this this and this and that's it.
Speaker 1: You know, it'd be like if someone it'd be like
Speaker 1: it's as bad as if someone said, hey, I went
Speaker 1: you know, I went to America.
Speaker 2: There's Christians. They think that when God gets mad, he
Speaker 2: floods their planet that's about you know, that's about the
Speaker 2: main baby, that's it. He's like, so there's that explain.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's a there's a story in that book that
Speaker 3: Josh did that really you know, puts it in perspective
Speaker 3: what the ocean meant to us and means to us today.
Speaker 3: But Captain Meares, when he was you know, doing his
Speaker 3: uh exploring and trading, came into our area and you know,
Speaker 3: met with you know, our head chief. I guess to
Speaker 3: get safe passage through that area because he was he
Speaker 3: was meeting with other tribes coming down Vancouver Island from
Speaker 3: the north to south and they're like, you're going to
Speaker 3: be entering McCaw waters, and you know, they're you want
Speaker 3: to make sure you get their permission. So he had
Speaker 3: a meeting and was trying to get get permission and
Speaker 3: you know trade trading some things too. You know, there's
Speaker 3: like an exchange of exchange of goods there to get
Speaker 3: that safe passage. Well, he tried to low ball us, right,
Speaker 3: he didn't want to pay what he paid other tribes
Speaker 3: for safe passage, and we knew it, and so we
Speaker 3: didn't let him pass. And he was looking for first
Speaker 3: you know, as that was part of us. He's trying
Speaker 3: to gather up first in the northwest, and and so
Speaker 3: you know, our our people stayed out on you know,
Speaker 3: in their canoes and basically kept his ship from transiting
Speaker 3: the Straight of Wanda Fuca entry in the Straight of
Speaker 3: Wana Fuca for several weeks. And then and why that
Speaker 3: was being done, we sent another contingency to go up
Speaker 3: the Straight of Wanda Fuca and Puget Sound and and
Speaker 3: buy up all the first and then we let him
Speaker 3: pass and the price went up when he had to
Speaker 3: come back and deal with us.
Speaker 1: Right, So there's another I don't want I don't know
Speaker 1: why Cardier is on my mind, but there's another thing
Speaker 1: like that with this Cardier dude. He gets the mouth
Speaker 1: of Saint Lawrence and he builds this giant cross and
Speaker 1: they right, like God Save the King or something on there,
Speaker 1: and they pray there and.
Speaker 2: The local.
Speaker 1: The local Indians come up and they're like, what's going
Speaker 1: out with the cross, you know, and he explains to him,
Speaker 1: like everything you see, everything you see is our land,
Speaker 1: and he punts on it and he tells them, no,
Speaker 1: this is just showing people where to cut in. It's
Speaker 1: a it's a navigational.
Speaker 2: Marker, and that's how he explains in his journals like no, no,
Speaker 2: you got me all wrong.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it just.
Speaker 2: Shows you where to turn left, because he don't want
Speaker 2: to get into it. Well, man, I appreciate you guys
Speaker 2: coming on. It means a lot. You'd come out and
Speaker 2: talk about all this.
Speaker 3: We uh, we're happy to you know, get that education
Speaker 3: out there. You know, we we we have a part
Speaker 3: of our culture and and and part of who we
Speaker 3: are is we're not able to realize that right now. Yeah,
Speaker 3: you know, there's we want to be whole, you know, understood.
Speaker 3: We want to carry on what we asked for in
Speaker 3: our treaty. Yeah, it's and it's important. It changes whaling,
Speaker 3: changes lives in our community for the better. It makes
Speaker 3: our community better.
Speaker 1: I can tell it's true. I can tell it's true. Well,
Speaker 1: the guys, thank you all for doing this. Appreciate it
Speaker 1: and thank you for the gift. Oh yeah, you bet.
Speaker 1: These guys brought me some Si Samon jarred up, beautiful Micagold, Macagold.
Speaker 3: You don't have to share, you know.
Speaker 1: That's I'm glad you brought that up because I might
Speaker 1: have felt conflicted later. I might have wanted to slip
Speaker 1: and fill and Nate jar here Man, but I don't
Speaker 1: doing thanks a lot, not doing it all right, Thanks guys,
Speaker 1: thank you, thank you,