Ep. 911: Makaw Whaling Practices, Treaty Rights, and Regulatory Challenges

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Speaker 1: If this is the me Eater podcast coming at you shirtless, severely, bug bitten, and in my case, underwear listening.

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00:00:35
Speaker 1: That’s f I R S T L I T E dot com. Okay, folks, saddle up or put your life jackets on, because we’re going to talk about whaling, modern day whaling, specifically the traditional and modern day whale hunting practices and challenges of the Macaw tribe from Washington State’s Olympic Peninsula. We’re joined by depends how you look at either three or four guests. We have Chairman TJ. Green, who is the chairman of the Maca Tribal Council and his areas of expertise include policy, legal hurdles, tribal politics, and historical organizational context.

00:01:19
Speaker 2: Okay, you’ve been with the Tribal Council for nine years.

00:01:23
Speaker 3: Yes, all right.

00:01:24
Speaker 1: We got Daniel Green, who’s the Vice President of the Whaling Commission and has been involved in whale hunts, butcher and wales, all that kind of stuff.

00:01:36
Speaker 4: All the above.

00:01:38
Speaker 1: We have loop a castanata am I saying that right, Yeah, who’s a ye.

00:01:43
Speaker 2: Who’s a council member and a first foods expert.

00:01:47
Speaker 1: He’s gonna help us understand a little bit about nutrition, health impacts, and environmental.

00:01:53
Speaker 2: Toxins that can be found in whale meat.

00:01:57
Speaker 1: And we have Chris Martinez who he’s he’s just hanging out, but just quick tell tell people what you do do.

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Speaker 5: I’m the chief of staff for the McCAT Tribal Council. I also sit as secretary of the McCaw Wheeling Commission.

00:02:10
Speaker 2: Got it?

00:02:11
Speaker 4: So I’m here just hanging out, all right.

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Speaker 2: So let’s let’s start with this man and uh TJ.

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Speaker 4: You can answer this question.

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Speaker 2: Explain who are the Macaw okay and and what does that word mean?

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Speaker 3: All right?

00:02:27
Speaker 1: And and what what do you regard as like like what do you guys regard as your your traditional homeland and what what do you regard as your homeland?

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Speaker 3: Now, well, the McCaw tribe is very northwestern tip of Washington State. We’ve been there since the first light. Is how we say it, okay. Yeah. And and we’re you know, we got about thirty one hundred members and sixteen hundred live on a reservation. It’s a Federal Indian reservation, now, okay. And you know we’re we’re ocean people. You know, we’re connected to that ocean. That’s been the lifeblood and our spiritual existence and our cultural practices all revolve around activities on that ocean. And so you know, that’s that’s who we are. You know, Macaw is not our word. Okay, it’s not it’s not our word. It’s a Salish word. You are our neighbor, neighboring tribe. It was a Salish nation called us Macaw and that means generous host.

00:03:29
Speaker 2: Oh, because a lot of times those names are like a lot of times there’s names that get picked up that are not great. Yeah, that translate to sort of like a like you know, like the enemy, the enemy or whatever. You know, generous hosts, generous host.

00:03:43
Speaker 3: Even though we had wars with that nation. Oh did that’s what they called us.

00:03:47
Speaker 2: That’s what mcca means.

00:03:48
Speaker 3: That’s what was.

00:03:50
Speaker 2: Your traditional like like not traditional, but what was what what what what did the Macaw call themselves at the time?

00:03:57
Speaker 1: That the sailors started calling them the Macaw quiditch chat. Oh what’s that mean? That’s that’s a hard word to say.

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Speaker 3: People who live amongst the rocks and seagulls.

00:04:07
Speaker 2: Oh really, yeah, that was the name.

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Speaker 3: That’s sens.

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Speaker 2: Do you guys still use that name now?

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Speaker 3: We do?

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Speaker 2: Okay? Yeah, see yeah, so so.

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Speaker 1: But in your relationships with the government, you’re like in the media, you’re the Maca tribe, the Macaw.

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Speaker 3: Correct. That’s during the treaty negotiations eighteen fifty five treaty in the Abbay, that’s what the governor Stevens govtnor Isaac Stevens, you know he was. He couldn’t say quidditch chat. I’m sure so like me. He was like me and man, he couldn’t say it.

00:04:36
Speaker 2: Huh. That’s interesting, man, here’s.

00:04:40
Speaker 1: One for For For the most part, you guys can just decide amongst yourselves who’s best to answer a question, or if you want to both take a stab at, you both take a stab at. But I wanted to ask because Daniels had experience with you know, sort of on the ground experience, and maybe all you guys have had on the ground experience with whaling but.

00:04:59
Speaker 2: We like his store.

00:05:00
Speaker 1: And is it annoying if I say historically, no, okay, because that’s the thing, like a white dude’s heads.

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Speaker 2: A lot of times there’s you know, you can you know this and white and white dude’s heads. There was like there was Native Americans and they kind of like stopped, do you know what I mean?

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Speaker 1: People view it like they like stopped. And it became that something different happened. So if I say to you historically and you’re like, what do you mean, I mean, I don’t know, like a while ago or you know, but in this question, I mean historically, how serious how serious were the macaw about whaling?

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Speaker 2: You know what I mean? Like, how did it? How did it fit into the seasonal?

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Speaker 4: Well?

00:05:40
Speaker 3: If I can just start out, yeah, it was it was. It was the focal point of our society. Okay, it was our main nutritional It’s how we fed our people.

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Speaker 2: Got it.

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Speaker 3: You know, we have no big rivers out there that are lush with salmon or anything.

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Speaker 4: Okay.

00:05:56
Speaker 3: So so we were out on that ocean and whales were women there and we yeah, so we understood we harvested them for an nutritional source. And then it became a source of wealth for us in the society that we built for over thousands of years.

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Speaker 2: Explain that when you say wealth as a trade item, absolutely yeah.

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Speaker 1: And what components of a whale would be used? What components of a whale would be? I mean I can imagine the parts that would be used internally, But what would be an item that you could that you could barter with or that you could monetize off a whale?

00:06:30
Speaker 3: What whale oil is is one that’s you get a lot of whale oil from.

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Speaker 2: An interior Like I imagine like interior people would want it, right because they didn’t have something, they didn’t have an equivalent. Correct, Yeah, I got it, I got it.

00:06:42
Speaker 1: And then how how we’re like how we’re whales hunted? I mean physically? Like how were they hunted? If you went back just pick like pick a tile. Let’s let’s say we go.

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Speaker 2: Back to.

00:06:56
Speaker 1: I don’t know, two hundred years ago, three hundred years ago, how was a way elk caught out.

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Speaker 3: Of a We’d go out in a cedar dugout canoe. Okay, you’d have you know, seven paddlers or so on in that canoe, and everyone had their own their own job. Someone harpooned it. Someone steered steered the canoe and and then you had your paddlers and we had a The harpoon was made of you would shaft, and it was in three pieces, so it would come apart. You know, we probably learned that the hard way, right, probably stabbed a whale with a one that wasn’t in three pieces, and that whale rolled around probably smacked the heck out of people.

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Speaker 2: Oh yeah, that’s a good point. Many imagine that, right, Yeah.

00:07:41
Speaker 3: So it comes apart. And the harpoon tip was made of muscleshell really, yeah, muscleshell and and elk, what part of the bone? I need a little help on that.

00:07:54
Speaker 6: Yeah, like the vow the toggle close to that mic bud, Oh it is the toggle.

00:07:58
Speaker 2: The Yeah, that muscleshell would be like like barbs or prongs embedded into that thing.

00:08:05
Speaker 4: Ah.

00:08:05
Speaker 5: Yeah.

00:08:06
Speaker 6: It was shape shaped just like a like a regular harpoon. I guess like broad tip.

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Speaker 2: But but it’s staying there good.

00:08:13
Speaker 6: Yeah, I would stay in there good. Yeah. And it was tempered and age and and and hardened. So yeah, there’s a lot that went into it.

00:08:22
Speaker 2: Do you do you well?

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Speaker 4: Two things?

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Speaker 1: What what was there one specific type of whale or did you get opportunities on multiple kinds of whales in your ear? I know now the focus is on gray whales.

00:08:34
Speaker 3: Yeah, we’re going to.

00:08:35
Speaker 2: Talk a lot about gray whales. But but.

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Speaker 1: Like your people might have had that that was the one they wanted, or was there other kinds of whales that might be targeted at different times?

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Speaker 6: Yeah, there’s definitely a lot of different whales we hunted. Eat your big old whale, right, whales we hunted really gray whales, hump backs, anything that slam pretty much. But gray whales.

00:08:57
Speaker 4: Were the tastiest, is that right?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it was a preferred whale.

00:09:01
Speaker 6: It was a preferred whale. I just I think due to the abundance also, and the migration patterns were near shore. Humpo humpbacks are a little further offshore. We did target those also, do you.

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Speaker 2: Know in the like in your traditions or were a lot of dudes killed hunting whales? I business?

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Speaker 6: So that’s what that’s what it is, and that that leads, you know, into the preparation and stuff. So you know, essentially, yeah, you are preparing for death when you’re training with the you know, the guys in the canoe and it’s a and it’s a understand. I’m uh, it’s the biggest creature on earth. Then they have they have they want to live also, so they have a wild side and uh yeah, it’s it’s it’s it’s pretty scary.

00:09:52
Speaker 4: It could be dangerous, it could be very dangerous.

00:09:54
Speaker 2: You know, you mentioned like Vegas. It’s it’s the thing I always bring up to my kids. Is it like all you know, kids are always tripped out about dinosaurs and stuff.

00:10:03
Speaker 1: But the biggest animal to ever live on earth is now? Yeah, you know, like a blue whale as big as it seems like, you know, these like dinosaur statues and stuff are is like the biggest critter is there now You’re like, you go see damn thing like big whales?

00:10:20
Speaker 2: You know, yeah, what does what like what does a gray whale?

00:10:26
Speaker 4: What is that? What does that thing weigh? Twenty so about twenty seven hundred pounds on average or so that we kind of target that general area. It’s about thirty thousand pounds about twenty seven.

00:10:38
Speaker 2: Yeah, twenty thirty thousand pounds.

00:10:40
Speaker 7: Yeah, it’s about a ton of foot.

00:10:42
Speaker 5: Yeah, of the length one ton per foot.

00:10:46
Speaker 2: The main focus of our conversation is going to be like the resumption of whaling.

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Speaker 1: Okay, and your guys fights with now you know, maybe don’t use the word fight. You guys negotiations with the American government and others about what you’re allowed to do by the treaty you signed with the American government, right like, and whether or not you can do it and what it takes to do it.

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Speaker 2: But for background, walk me through, like did how did whaling wind down? And when did it wind down? Like when did it when did it go from being an annual occurrence to being a thing that faded out? What was the process of it of it going away?

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Speaker 3: Well, in the early nineteen hundreds, you had commercial whaling was really ramping up around.

00:11:33
Speaker 4: The world, I see, right, so.

00:11:36
Speaker 3: Our whaling, our whalers at that time were noticing it was harder and harder to do our traditional hunts. So in the nineteen twenties we made the decision on our own to not whale anymore because they just weren’t in our area the way they.

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Speaker 2: Used to be because of the impact of the commercial whalers, right, yes, like the moby Dick type dudes, right like rendering you know, killing them like industrially.

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Speaker 3: Industrially you know, the big old harpoons on the big ships.

00:12:08
Speaker 1: Rendering all that oil and selling all that oil in Massachusetts and stuff.

00:12:11
Speaker 4: Yeah.

00:12:12
Speaker 2: Yes, so that was whittling away the whale population.

00:12:15
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was whittling that away. And so we stopped in the late nineteen twenties. We had our last last harvest before we did the one in ninety nine. And then, you know, it took the world a while to catch up. You know, twenty years later you get the Whaling Convention Act and those agreements, those international agreements to start, you know, trying to be more responsible with you know, with the stocks that are around the world there.

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Speaker 2: And when you say it took the world a while to catch up, you mean it took the world a while to respond to the industrial slaughter.

00:12:51
Speaker 3: Yes, to regulate it, to regulate like they let it get it got bad. Yeah, it got bad. Yeah, I mean populations were at near extinction.

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Speaker 2: Do you do you guys have much idea when the when the disease epidemics came from Europeans, did it did those diseases hit did they like hit the macaw like suddenly and hard where there were where there was just huge losses of people or did it? Was it with you guys? Was it the slower thing that played out over centuries?

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Speaker 3: No, it was it hit us hard. We had two major smallpox epidemics in our communities, you know, one in the I believe his eighteen twenties, and then another in the in the late eighteen forties. Okay, took out ninety percent of our population.

00:13:47
Speaker 4: Huh.

00:13:48
Speaker 3: And and then what was left from from that ninety percent negotiated the treaty in the Abay.

00:13:56
Speaker 2: Yeah, that’s the thing, man, that’s the thing. I talked to people a lot about that.

00:14:00
Speaker 1: I just don’t think like a lot of Americans can’t picture it, you know, it can’t picture that kind of loss. But the only way to really get there is just to try to imagine in like I don’t know, pick whatever town you live in, right, Like, picture that you live in Toledo, Ohio, right, and then imagine that all of a sudden, over the course of a couple of years, of that nine out of ten of the people in Toledo, Ohio die.

00:14:33
Speaker 2: Or wherever, right, nine out of ten of them die. And you look at your broader family structure, your siblings, cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, nine like if you count them all up and you go, I have twenty family members.

00:14:49
Speaker 1: Okay, eighteen are now dead. Now, come tell me about your family, and come tell me about how your family functions. Right, Like people cannot pick trip man, Yeah, people can’t picture it.

00:15:02
Speaker 3: No. I appreciate that because you know, when I thought about that, you know, growing up and reaching the age I’m at now, and what we have as a tribe, and how rich we are in our language and our culture and our traditions. You know that ten percent that that survived that you know, gave that to us, They carried that on. Yeah, I think how rich was our society before that?

00:15:25
Speaker 2: Oh that the ten ten percent remains of riches because think about what gets lost. Yeah, huge things get lost, man, all the history. And that’s the thing is especially with without now everything gets so captured, captured, written word right, captured, you know, captured and banked in the internet. But like all of a sudden, like eighty percent of the narratives are gone, eighty percent of the well, yeah, but we came from here, and your grandfather was this and right, and that’s all wiped. Yeah, you got and you got of.

00:15:58
Speaker 1: Those ten you got two people will left to be like, here’s what I think happened, but I’m not really sure. People dose sight. I mean, it’s it’s too hard to comprehend. People flipped out during the COVID pandemic.

00:16:08
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, you know what I mean, like people like like people in wherever, like really hard to hit places like people flipping out in Manhattan because I don’t know what it was percentage, but like it was overwhelming the Morgues. It’s like, dude, that is nothing, nothing compared, nothing compared to what was happened to native communities of smallpox, right, you know it to to get the equivalent, you’d have had to go into Manhattan and remove I don’t know, ten million people in Manhattan and you’d be like, that would be that would give you an idea? What will That’ll give you an idea? What went on? Sure, it’s staggering.

00:16:41
Speaker 4: So I’m sorry. Even even with those diseases we we as MCAU, we did we did a really good job at avoiding them for quite a while because we would catch wind of it depending on where it was, and we would keep people out of certain areas and we’d steer clear of certain areas.

00:16:57
Speaker 2: And was that right?

00:16:57
Speaker 4: Yeah, and like tour just you know, eighteen the eighteen fifties is when Ted Stevens actually caught wind of you know, the the causer hit hard right now, smallpox hit him, and that’s kind of when he’s like, let’s let’s go get this treaty. That’s kind of when he came out. And you can even see in the notes that even a year ago we weren’t the big chiefs. We wouldn’t have been the one signing that we’re here now. And there was a lot of sadness in the notes because they’ve lost so many of their family and loved ones.

00:17:29
Speaker 2: Oh was that right?

00:17:30
Speaker 1: That’s that’s instant, because that dude ain’t a lot of treaties in the Pacific Northwest Stevens did.

00:17:35
Speaker 2: He kind of made like a big run man, so.

00:17:38
Speaker 4: He knew he couldn’t take us when we were full forcing him before disease hit us. But he’s like, oh, he caught wind, and he’s like, you know, it’s probably a good time going to negotiate.

00:17:49
Speaker 2: Huh. These guys are in a weakened position. Yeah, militarily.

00:17:54
Speaker 4: Yeah, And even with the during the COVID like we avoided you know, we lucked down the reservation. He was the chairman, needed a really good job. He kept we avoided a case for sure. He didn’t. How long was it until there was finally one?

00:18:10
Speaker 3: And in the reservations it was about three four months that.

00:18:14
Speaker 2: You guys held out for that long without any infections.

00:18:17
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, we didn’t. No loss of life.

00:18:20
Speaker 1: There’s you know, as you know, well we have maybe seven reservations in Montana, five or seven, and during the pandemic, you know, there was you’d go down to the Chimerical was Northern Cheyenne or the Crow Reservation. There’s basically signs like don’t stop on the highway passing through. And I was like, you know, to my kids, I was like, man, you gotta understand the history here of like pandemics. That means something totally different, That means something totally different Native communities man, because they got a fresh memory of that stuff, you know, right.

00:18:56
Speaker 2: After.

00:18:58
Speaker 1: So well, let me ask about that. The quitting whaling was it would you describe it more like more like it just wasn’t worth it and it faded or was it a formal decision to quit?

00:19:12
Speaker 3: It was a formal decision, you know, like I mentioned in the introduction, it defined our societal structure. Yeah, and we still have that reverence for it today. It’s that important. That’s why you know, we went seventy years between a harvest and kept that knowledge and you know that how too, and how we pass that on, made that available to people so we could carry that on through all those generations that span that seventy years.

00:19:48
Speaker 4: Yeah.

00:19:49
Speaker 3: Yeah, like my lifetime, I would have loved to be a whaler. You know, I’m fifty four now, you know it’s not likely in the cards for me.

00:19:56
Speaker 2: But oh is that right? Yeah, well we’ll talk about that. So, so almost a century later. So if you imagine that the Macaw quit whaling in let’s say nineteen twenty that that’s close.

00:20:13
Speaker 3: At twenty I don’t know, it’s like twenty seven, okay, nineteen.

00:20:16
Speaker 1: Twenty seven, and then fast forward up to the lead up to the to the next whale that was harvested by your your tribe, and that whale was harvested.

00:20:28
Speaker 3: What you’re nineteen ninety nine.

00:20:31
Speaker 2: Ninety nine, Walk me through the years prior to ninety nine, like what needed to happen?

00:20:41
Speaker 1: Because when you quit, when you guys quit, you quit because you decided to quit.

00:20:47
Speaker 2: But you weren’t at liberty to decide to start, right, I mean a lot happened right right. You could just be like, hey, we’re going out.

00:20:56
Speaker 1: Yeah, well because this whole world had been built up around in mammals, right, this whole protection world. So what did that look like to to say like, hey man, we’re going to go We’re going to resume our treaty rights. There’s enough whales now we’re going to go whaling. Like who do you pick up the phone? You know, I mean like who do you call?

00:21:15
Speaker 3: Right?

00:21:15
Speaker 2: When do you want to go get a whale?

00:21:17
Speaker 3: Well, I mean for for tribal nations are our first call. You know. Our main contact in the federal government is Department of Interior I BUA Indian Affairs. Yeah, you know, so it’s their responsibility to advocate for those rights for us. In the federal government there are trustee is what we say. And and then from Interior, you know, the whaling falls under Department of Commerce, so you know through Noah Nation Marine Fisheries and and those regulations. You know, we’re set up, you know by different federal acts like the Marine Mammal Protection Act. So in seventy two that Marine Mammal Protection Act was passed and the gray whales were listed, you know, as an endangered species as well. You know, the ESA comes into play. And so when in the nineties, when the population was recovering so well, you know you’re getting some pretty high you know, at least record numbers in in our lifetime, you know, near thirty thousand whales in the nineties, and and so it was proposed to be delisted. You know that that was the trigger for us. That’s what did it. Yes, I got chah. The dlisting of the eastern North Pacific grey whale population was our trigger to resume I see our treaty.

00:22:38
Speaker 4: Right, got it?

00:22:39
Speaker 3: Yeah?

00:22:39
Speaker 2: But why this is probably ultra complicated question.

00:22:47
Speaker 1: If you have an agreement, as if you have an agreement as a sovereign nation, you have agreement with the government, right, and you have certain levels of autonomy.

00:22:58
Speaker 2: Would it have like.

00:23:01
Speaker 1: Were you be were you guys being nice by bringing it up? Like why couldn’t it be the just one day you just went and did it.

00:23:09
Speaker 3: No, you’re you’re right on that. That was a discussion of leadership at that time.

00:23:12
Speaker 2: Yeah.

00:23:13
Speaker 3: Actually, Daniel’s father and my older brother, you know, he was He was part of those discussions as as well as his grandfatherly Ben Johnson, the former chairman. Internal discussions, internal discussions about that, you know, should what prevents us from just going It’s in our treaty, it’s not listed, you know, but yeah, we I would say, we were being nice and we you know, we met with the federal government and you know, the federal government has these international agreements in place, right they they work with the International Whaling Commission, they’re a member of it, and so they wanted us to be a part of that process, like the Alaskan Eskimos on the North Slope.

00:23:57
Speaker 2: Yeah.

00:23:58
Speaker 3: So so we we agreed to do that. You know, we went and advocated for a quota, worked with the Alaskan Eskimos and the Chacokins in Russia to get an aboriginal subsistence whaling quota through the International Whaling Commission. And what kind of quote are you looking for? One, Well, they do it over over multiple years.

00:24:19
Speaker 4: Yeah.

00:24:20
Speaker 3: So it was like at that time, it was it was up to five whales in any given year over a like a five six year period.

00:24:28
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, and you guys hit enormous resistance.

00:24:33
Speaker 3: Absolutely, yes, where.

00:24:35
Speaker 1: In that first go around back in the nineties, was was the was government resistance or social resistance?

00:24:46
Speaker 2: There was strongest.

00:24:48
Speaker 3: I think the social resistance was strongest. But that translates into government resistance, right you know, I see, Yeah, you know, things get you know, where’s the political temperature of my constituents if you’re politician in d C. And how much do I want to support this issue? Right, so those things come into play. But it was pretty bad for you know, these guys when they were when they were younger in school, you know, there were our community was getting threatened, you know, physically threatened, bomb threats in our in our school by who though you know that there were it’s mainly your animal welfare groups.

00:25:30
Speaker 2: Yeah. So the but as I’m saying, so the organizations were doing this, was it like like Greenpeace or what were the organizations that were coming after or was it just like crack pot individuals.

00:25:40
Speaker 3: There was a lot of crackpot individuals. But there was one organization, Sea Shepherd Society. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that that was the main one that that you know, they’re they’re very aggressive and and you know they’d send their ships into our harbor that we have and get on the loud speaker and you know, just start putting insults out there to our community, which really yeah, yeah, we had to get a federal restraining order on them and did you really and the coast Guard enforced that and eventually kept them away. But yeah, it wasn’t good for a while.

00:26:15
Speaker 1: They were coming into your bay, into your harbor. Yes, in a in a ship, I mean obviously, yes, huh.

00:26:24
Speaker 2: And you guys, you guys. Never you guys. It didn’t ever blow into like fistfights and brawls and stuff.

00:26:31
Speaker 3: Now that there was some very very close I guess encounters there was. There might have been some rock throwing and things of that nature. The community got fed up with them, right, Yeah.

00:26:43
Speaker 6: So.

00:26:46
Speaker 1: Within your community in the nineties, was there division around the idea of resuming whaling or was it pretty much unanimous within within the Macaw?

00:27:01
Speaker 2: Was it like, this is.

00:27:02
Speaker 1: Our right, this is what we’re going to go do the population is strong enough to support limited harvest or was it a fight amongst you guys.

00:27:09
Speaker 3: No, it was. It was heavily supported. Okay, I mean, we have a need statement, you know, eighty I think in the nineties it was like eighty four eighty five percent of the community wants to go back and do that.

00:27:22
Speaker 4: So overwhelming overwhelming.

00:27:24
Speaker 3: Yeah, in our need statements we’ve done, we have to do those for international whaling quota that we get and that’s just gone up since then. But you know that there were people that didn’t want to go back to it, and we just worked through that.

00:27:42
Speaker 2: Did you. I mean that turned in I followed that whole thing.

00:27:47
Speaker 1: I forgot a lot of the details now, but I remember being very interested in it, and it turned into I mean, it turned into a media spectacle. It like everybody had an opinion about it, right, It kind of like maybe not for you guys, but for the in the normal. In the normal, like if you’re just a dude that followed the news, the main thing that was reported was like was the social fight, Right, It became a news story about this this dispute that seemed to over probably maybe not from your community, but that seemed to the coverage of of the argument overshadowed any conversation.

00:28:28
Speaker 2: About you know, how many whales are there? What is your treaty? Right? It just it became like the story became the dispute.

00:28:39
Speaker 3: No, it certainly did. Yeah, it certainly did. I think you know, our local media which is out of Seattle, you know, those those stations, you know, they they covered it. Were they supported then I wouldn’t say they were generally supportive, you know, I mean they were looking to get the story. They you know, they would go get on the ship with with Paul Watson and on his whatever the heck is cea Shepherd boat.

00:29:11
Speaker 2: Well they would cover it from that angle.

00:29:12
Speaker 3: They covered it from that angle as well, and and that, you know, that didn’t sit well with us. You know, it’s it’s like, how how can we build trust and know and think we’re going to get a fair shake in the media if you know, if we have those things going on?

00:29:26
Speaker 1: That was Yeah, but you guys, then you got it.

00:29:30
Speaker 2: You got a whale.

00:29:32
Speaker 1: When you went out to get a whale after this hundred year break and whaling, you went out to get a whale. Did you launch out and go get a whale because you got all your paperwork in order? Or did that become a point when you just went for it or did you have like your little permits and ship all printed out? You know, I mean, like what what what ultimately happened?

00:29:55
Speaker 3: Yeah? Well we we did uh, you know, agree on on doing a permit system with with the federal government at that time, and we’d have a permit issued, you know, for a hunt period and you know we wouldn’t give specifics on a date and time, right, but it’s like, hey, we’re gonna there’s a permit covers covers this amount of time and and then you know that permit would be issued by the government and then we’d issue our own permit to our whaling crew to go go do the hunt.

00:30:32
Speaker 2: So you could keep a little bit secret like when this was going.

00:30:35
Speaker 4: To go down.

00:30:36
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, for their safety. Yeah, for their safe sure man, because it was Yeah, I mean you may have seen the video of our whalers being charged by yeah activists out there on the water on jet skis, you know, gonna looking like they’re going to ram them, and you know the coast guard took them out before they took our canoe out.

00:30:59
Speaker 2: Yeah, because they were just waiting.

00:31:02
Speaker 1: Yes, So walk me through that day, Walk me through that day, Like how did that hunt day go down? I mean, like let’s forget, let’s forget for a minute the jet skiers and the protesters and whatnot, but like, like, how did the day play out just from a hunter’s perspective, from a hunting a whaling perspective, what happened that day?

00:31:25
Speaker 3: But you know, Daniel, you want to go through.

00:31:26
Speaker 6: That or yeah, So I guess that the day before, I think they had a lot of success on approaches and so.

00:31:37
Speaker 4: It was.

00:31:40
Speaker 6: Pretty well known that they were going to get it. That next day. I think all the stars were aligning. All the prayer, training, everything, you know, came came together that day and it was kind of a a feeling that that everyone had. And so they’re getting they’re getting it down right. The approaches, the studying of the whales, the watching the feeding currents.

00:32:02
Speaker 4: And got it.

00:32:02
Speaker 2: And we say approaches mean just getting the boat up to it, like how to approach, how to approach?

00:32:07
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, yeah, all the teachings are coming coming together. I’m on the water was paying off and so yeah, it was. It was a magical moment when they harpooned the whale. It’s ingrained in every Macau’s mind. I think that day.

00:32:24
Speaker 1: At what at what distance to day, like, like how close do you have to approach that whale?

00:32:29
Speaker 3: You get to be pretty close pretty much right on top of it.

00:32:33
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, because you know, you don’t normally, you know, we spend a lot of time in southeast lastas are as whales around.

00:32:39
Speaker 6: Yeah, you don’t.

00:32:41
Speaker 2: You don’t wind up right on top of them. No, like you know, they they gotta they know what’s going on, you know, I mean they don’t.

00:32:48
Speaker 4: You know.

00:32:48
Speaker 6: Yep, you’re watching studying them, just like like you watch Elk and study Elk eating habits. You’re watching the currents and and you’re knowing where to position yourself, you know, to have a successful strike.

00:32:59
Speaker 1: So so you’re trying to you’re trying to when it goes down, I imagine you’re trying to anticipate where it’s gonna come.

00:33:05
Speaker 6: Up, where it’s gonna come up. And then you’re watching it’s breathing. I mean, there’s a there’s a lot of different techniques that go into it. They’re up at the surface for X amount of time and I got before they go under and then yeah, you never do when they’re feeding. You never know where they’re gonna come up again.

00:33:20
Speaker 2: And the approach, I’m guessing the approach has got to be like on its sixth position, like you’re coming from behind it.

00:33:29
Speaker 6: There’s a couple of different ways too. Yes, that is one of them. Yeah, you don’t want them to you know, tail swap you something.

00:33:39
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I got it. Yeah. So when they got they hand harpooned it.

00:33:46
Speaker 6: Hand harpooned it.

00:33:47
Speaker 2: Yes, And how did you guys make the how did you guys build your harpoon?

00:33:52
Speaker 4: Like what what? What did you do?

00:33:53
Speaker 2: What kind of thought did you put into that?

00:33:55
Speaker 6: It was the traditional harpoon. So all those techniques are passed down generations. So we quit whaling in the nineteen twenties, but we never quit teaching about it. So the importance of it, like you said, is the pinnacle of our society. So you know, we held onto those teachings.

00:34:11
Speaker 2: Did did people hold on to some of the equipment.

00:34:14
Speaker 6: The equipment also?

00:34:15
Speaker 3: Yeah?

00:34:15
Speaker 6: So yeah we do really yeah, so we have equipment from a long time ago.

00:34:19
Speaker 4: Do you really?

00:34:19
Speaker 3: Yeah?

00:34:20
Speaker 6: And his family had their own so oh is that right?

00:34:23
Speaker 4: Okay?

00:34:23
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, along with you know, ceiling and you know other.

00:34:30
Speaker 3: Mammals.

00:34:31
Speaker 2: So they they got a harpoon into it and it’s got a detachable head on it or somehow it’s connected to the line.

00:34:38
Speaker 6: The first piece yeah, yeah, or the valve whatever you call it.

00:34:42
Speaker 2: That gets into it, and then there’s a float system.

00:34:46
Speaker 6: Yep, so it starts paying out. And then there’s a bully tender that’s sitting to the right of the harpooner and he’s clipping on bullies while they’re slowing down. You have to be one. The care has being unison so to turn the canoe into the right direction and get heading forwards. The line don’t pay out, you know, too fast. You have a line tender buoy tender.

00:35:04
Speaker 2: How much line.

00:35:07
Speaker 6: It depends about, you know, two hundred and seventy feet or so.

00:35:09
Speaker 3: Or more, and you’re clipping booies on as it goes, clipping bullies as it goes. Yeah.

00:35:13
Speaker 2: Is that thing at risk of sinking? Definitely? Yeah, So the more bullies are better. So it’s not just to slow it down, but to keep it from sink. Keep it from sinking. Yes, got it should.

00:35:24
Speaker 5: Chat about the seal skin float system.

00:35:28
Speaker 6: Oh yeah, the old floats were made out of seal skins.

00:35:31
Speaker 4: Yeah.

00:35:32
Speaker 6: They were skinned in such a way where you could turn them inside out and inflate them.

00:35:37
Speaker 3: Huh.

00:35:38
Speaker 6: Yeah, they’re big, you know, big floats. Some of them were you know, six feet or more.

00:35:44
Speaker 2: And when this was happening, there’s how many people are observing this the actual hunt?

00:35:51
Speaker 6: Yeah, the ninety nine hunt or the ninety nine hunt. Oh, there is hundreds of people, you know, outside the zone. The close guard set a zone for.

00:35:59
Speaker 1: They said a perimeter, so your people could be in the perimeter, but other people had to stay out of the perimeter.

00:36:05
Speaker 6: Our canoe and our our chase boat.

00:36:08
Speaker 2: So how far was it? How far? How far out to see are you?

00:36:13
Speaker 4: And this has happened?

00:36:13
Speaker 2: Like how far from your how far from your reservation are you our?

00:36:17
Speaker 6: You know, they migrate past our front door? So so you just want close to home. We hind close to home. Yeah, we can also hunt, you know, out further. I see if we’re going after different if we went after a different species, So.

00:36:27
Speaker 1: Okay, and you’re and you’re not, do they draw like does the government draw a line and say these waters are okay?

00:36:39
Speaker 6: They did do a restricted zone right.

00:36:43
Speaker 3: To harvest a whale in Yeah?

00:36:44
Speaker 2: Yeah.

00:36:45
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like let’s say you wanted to take off, like you you would never go take off and be like, oh hey.

00:36:49
Speaker 2: We’re gonna go whale up. We’re gonna go whale up in Alaska and try that out right? They had they had to specify in some way where you can go.

00:36:57
Speaker 3: Well that that’s a really really great question, and I got a couple answers for that. Actually there’s so for that ninety nine hunt, Yes, there was a defined hunt area. We agreed to stay out of the straight a Wana Fuca and just on the Pacific Ocean, the tribe has a usual and accustom fishing area that’s adjudicated that went to the Supreme.

00:37:18
Speaker 2: Court from that Stephens treaty.

00:37:20
Speaker 3: From that Stephens treaty, So we have a defined area, but that’s only for fishing. We do not have a defined area for whaling. And the court was very specific about that because we in that court case, we brought forward our whaling and sealing activities as part of that and the government said, we’re here to just talk about fishing. You’re usual in a customed fishing area. We acknowledge that you you’ve gone eighty to one hundred miles off shore for whaling, but we’re not going to allow that evidence as part of that case.

00:37:56
Speaker 2: Why did they want to punt on that question, Well.

00:38:01
Speaker 3: I think it’s a limit to limit us.

00:38:05
Speaker 1: Really, it’s because they’re like, let’s talk about the local stuff. Let’s not talk about the far out stuff. Yeah, because they wanted they wanted to shrink that zone.

00:38:14
Speaker 3: They wanted to put us in a box. Because before that case, Macaw people we fished from California all the way up to the Burying Sea under okay, under our treaty, you know, like.

00:38:29
Speaker 2: People just take off and go on see sea journeys, I’m imagined.

00:38:34
Speaker 3: Yeah, and now we’re put in a box.

00:38:37
Speaker 4: I got you.

00:38:38
Speaker 2: But they never fixed the whaling box.

00:38:40
Speaker 3: Yeah, there’s no whaling box right now.

00:38:42
Speaker 1: So when ninety nine and they made a whaling box, they didn’t. It wasn’t as big as the fishing box, no, huh.

00:38:50
Speaker 3: And in our current permit, yeah, you know, we we have an agreed upon area as well, which is essentially on the Pacific Ocean, you know, out outside of the Straight of Wanda Fuca. And and then you know, there’s a National Marine Sanctuary that’s out there now, so there’s areas of other marine mammals, you know, haul out areas for seals and sea lions and things like that that we you know, we agree to transit in a responsible manner while we’re hunting, you.

00:39:21
Speaker 2: Know, so you’ve agreed to stay out of the sanctuaries.

00:39:24
Speaker 3: Not not out of the sanctuary, out out of it. Got no, No, the sanctuaries is within our waters, gotcha. Yeah, so we we fish and exercise our treaty in the sanctuary.

00:39:34
Speaker 4: Got it.

00:39:34
Speaker 3: And they’re there. They’ve been a good partner and they support that.

00:39:38
Speaker 2: Oh okay, Yeah, the ninety nine hunt happens. It’s now twenty twenty six. What why was there not a two thousand hunt, a two thousand and one hunt, two thousand and two hunt, like what happened?

00:39:57
Speaker 3: There was? And you Daniel can there wasn’t we talk about those those hunts. But in in two thousand and two, you know, I believe there was an injunction put on our whaling. Yeah, the federal government was sued over there. You know how they put together the NIPA for our whale hunt and that they didn’t didn’t do a thorough job.

00:40:23
Speaker 1: And that was so that was in two thousand and two that they came in and said they blocked it or something correct. Yeah, but did you got did you guys have the desire to continue? Like would you have continued if that injunction hadn’t happened? Was the desire there that you do an annual whale hunt. Absolutely, why did you pay attention to that? I’m not criticized, but like when the injunction came, what was the decision to abide by it?

00:40:54
Speaker 3: Rule law?

00:40:55
Speaker 6: You know?

00:40:55
Speaker 3: Okay, it’s it’s a you know, I think we our our leadership and our MACCAP people, you know, believe in that. You know, we have our own laws that we pass as well around those and things I got, yeah, things that we agree to. And so it’s I don’t know that whole That’s why I can get into that more if you want. But I mean there there’s really a lot to say around around that.

00:41:25
Speaker 1: You mean, around internal debates about how do we negotiate and engage with the government. Yeah, I mean, we don’t need to spend tons of time on it.

00:41:32
Speaker 2: But you’ve you’ve exercised where you’ve generally been. I mean, I know this, but you’ve generally been trying to.

00:41:43
Speaker 1: Work within the constraints of the regulatory bodies in the federal government, right and haven’t stepped outside of that, Like, haven’t gone the vigilanti wouldn’t be the right word, but haven’t gone your own way on it?

00:41:57
Speaker 3: Well, you know, we we did have we had a group of Macaws that got frustrated with the process at one point. Yeah, but you know, so in two thousand and two, you know, I think there was an injunction and court case Anderson Verse Even’s court case that took place, and you know that basically that case basically decided that the Marine Mammal Protection Act applies to the Macaw tribe, which we to this day we disagree with that. You know, we think we don’t think that’s a correct ruling, but we’re stuck with it. And so under the Marine Mammal Protection Act, it requires you to get a waiver to take a marine mammal in our case, whaling, and then after a waiver, the government has to issue a permit. So in two thousand and four we submitted documents to start that application process for a waiver under the remount of Protection Act, and we’ve been in that process ever since.

00:43:05
Speaker 4: Got it, Yeah, got it.

00:43:07
Speaker 2: In the meantime, have gray whales stayed off thet We’re grey whales delisted and stayed off the list. Yes, yes, so no one’s put them back on the endangered species list. Can you guys explain to me I wasn’t even ware of this till Nate told me, you guys get gray whales from ship strikes, you’ll you’ll take Is this true that you’ll take possession of gray whales that are that are killed and from from getting hit by boats or tangled in nets.

00:43:42
Speaker 3: Or something like that. Yes, yes, we have.

00:43:45
Speaker 2: How does that play out?

00:43:47
Speaker 3: We have a process with National Marine Fisheries too, you know, to obtain those for our use. You know, we basically submit a request for this incidental take, you know, because of whatever that morey event was, whether it’s a ship strike or some entanglement or and and then we have our own marine mammal biologists that that works with the tribe as well. So when that happens, you know, we decide if we want to utilize that whale, and you know, and then we tow it to our shores, and you know, we check the health of it, see how fresh it is, is it is it Is it something that’s that’s fresh enough? Is the whale healthy?

00:44:27
Speaker 2: You know?

00:44:27
Speaker 3: Is it something that we can you know, harvest the blubber and the meat for for consumption or you know, or do we you know, just butcher it up and utilize some of the other parts, Whether it’s the bones, the vertebrae. You know, Balen, you.

00:44:44
Speaker 2: Know that that And is it your job to go fetch it?

00:44:48
Speaker 3: Yes, not mine specifically, but but yeah, but the macaw people.

00:44:52
Speaker 2: Right, So how does it? How does it? Because this has to happen fast, right, So how does it come to you? You know, let’s say a cruise sh it’s a whale, right, bam, they hit a whale. It’s crippled, dying, Like the phone rings, like like, how does this play out?

00:45:10
Speaker 3: Just like that? It does?

00:45:11
Speaker 2: Get the phone, someone calls, someone calls.

00:45:13
Speaker 3: You know, people know that might cause or whalers in that area. And you know, there’s a whole reporting system for those sort of things. So when those reports happen, you know, sometimes that call comes from a federal government official say hey, we got this report. Yeah there’s this whale located off a Tattoosh Island or wherever, and so we go check it out.

00:45:37
Speaker 4: Got it?

00:45:38
Speaker 2: You send your own boats out and your own agency guys or whatever out and check it out.

00:45:42
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know what I saw a long time ago. Have you ever heard of you know, cook in let and turning an arm in Alaska? So we’re way up turning an arm going salmon fishing, and that thing gets flooded on these huge tide swings and blue gas coming there when the salmon are running, bluegas come up into this long I know, it’s like a like an arm, like a fjord kind of thing, and it’s at low tide, it’s a mudflat for the most part.

00:46:16
Speaker 2: Now high tide it’s enough water for a blue whale.

00:46:20
Speaker 1: We’re way up in that arm, twenty miles up in that arm because it’s a twenty mile river, and there’s these bluegas in there, and we’re talking about, me and my brother talking about how.

00:46:32
Speaker 2: Do they get out of there.

00:46:34
Speaker 1: We’re like, they must have a channel or something that we can’t see, and we just go.

00:46:39
Speaker 2: About our business fishing.

00:46:42
Speaker 4: Well.

00:46:43
Speaker 1: The next day in the newspaper is that those whales that we are commenting on, like wondering how they’re going to get out of that little pool they’re in, are dead.

00:46:53
Speaker 2: And it was and I don’t know what tribe did it, but they, I mean they rushed out there and got all butchered and hauled out of there like quick, you know. And I always remember being kind of impressed by that, like what a haul that was, you know, but just utilize them all when you think they normally lay there and rot.

00:47:11
Speaker 3: Yeah, we we try to utilize everything on that whale. And when those unfortunate things happen, Yeah, don’t want those things to go to waste if we we can get them in time.

00:47:25
Speaker 2: How is it divided up like something like that happens. I mean it’s a huge hall food. Let’s say you get one, it’s like uber like megafresh, or you kill one and it’s real fresh. Do you and you’re view, does every.

00:47:36
Speaker 1: Macaw have a right to some of it? Anyone that wants it has a right to it? Or does it play out differently?

00:47:43
Speaker 6: I think eventually Yeah, we’d like to be that. I mean there’s harpooner usually has you know, can can get what he wants. But yeah, it gets divided amongst uh the crew, and then that goes to their family.

00:48:00
Speaker 4: So I see, Yeah.

00:48:01
Speaker 2: What’s the most coveted part.

00:48:04
Speaker 6: There’s parts that we do ceremonies with. Oh it’s the most coveted.

00:48:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, guy, But what about just for regular everyday consumption? What part is the best.

00:48:12
Speaker 6: My favorites of skin and blubber. I absolutely love that. Ye taste like the ocean.

00:48:18
Speaker 2: Yeah, I’ve had some. I’ve had some of that.

00:48:21
Speaker 6: It’s amazing. It’s that’s you can’t beat that in my book. No, these guys might have.

00:48:26
Speaker 2: That’s one thing you can imagine, like.

00:48:30
Speaker 1: Picture like sushi restaurants, like high end sushi restaurants and stuff, or people want to try interesting things. That item when they you know, like cut it with it’s like almost like that French fry shape with a little bit of skin on it. That item would be the most popular thing in the world if people got turned onto that.

00:48:46
Speaker 2: It was amazing. We ate some right here?

00:48:49
Speaker 6: Oh nice? Okay, yeah, no, it’s good stuff.

00:48:52
Speaker 2: What about the meat, the actual meat?

00:48:54
Speaker 6: Yeah, like the meat too.

00:48:56
Speaker 4: I mean it.

00:49:02
Speaker 6: Tastes now seal. I mean it’s it’s got its own taste.

00:49:07
Speaker 1: But I mean, like put it like with stuff that I’d be familiar with or can’t you even.

00:49:11
Speaker 6: Draw can’t draw comparison.

00:49:13
Speaker 2: I got it’s just it’s just different.

00:49:14
Speaker 5: It’s like ocean elk. Yeah, super, it’s super lean. The meat itself is super lean. It’s super there’s a lot of blood in it. Okay, but dark, Yeah, it’s real dark. You can throw it on a smoker, you can fry it up like a steak you can do you could braise it.

00:49:30
Speaker 2: I mean, there’s what what parts.

00:49:34
Speaker 1: Like I’m just imagine it’s not like flaying a fish, like like you’re what would be like how do you describe the parts of it?

00:49:42
Speaker 2: You know, Like let’s say you’re doing the elk, you’d be the cave.

00:49:44
Speaker 1: We got the backstraps, do you know what I mean? You got your grind pile, you got your ribs, you know what I mean? Like when you’re doing a whale.

00:49:50
Speaker 2: Is it that there’s parts that are good for this, parts that are good for that?

00:49:54
Speaker 5: I mean, I think you separate naturally, separate in the blubber. You have your blubbering skin, and then you have your meat. And so you kind of think of it as like a if you’ve seen some of the pictures from ninety nine or some of the other things where they’re butchering in sections, yep, and you get it.

00:50:09
Speaker 4: You know, you take the.

00:50:09
Speaker 5: Section and and you kind of have this big blob of meat that has a ton of blobber. It’s a ton of meat, and you know it’s enough for plenty of your family if you were to cook it up for six, eight, ten people.

00:50:21
Speaker 2: And yeah, are guys freezing it, like freezing it up.

00:50:26
Speaker 5: Yeah, especially with the last kind of ship strike whales that were healthy. They were divided up and passed around the community, and people froze the blobber. People froze some of the meat, and then obviously everybody took advantage of tasting it, eating it right away, rendering the oil, smoking some of the meat.

00:50:45
Speaker 7: And it’s cool because you see it.

00:50:47
Speaker 5: You know, shared around the community. Yeah, and it’s just a it’s it’s really cool.

00:50:51
Speaker 1: Tell me a way, Tell me a couple of ways one might fix the meat, like cook the meat jerky.

00:50:57
Speaker 2: Oh, like whale jerk?

00:50:58
Speaker 4: Is it jerk? That was the best jerky you’ve ever had?

00:51:02
Speaker 2: Really?

00:51:02
Speaker 4: Yeah. Guy that used to be on the Whaling Commission, God rest his soul, Gary Ray. He he made whale jerky and it it was really good. It was the best drink I ever had.

00:51:15
Speaker 2: Huh. Just slice it thin, dried it, yeah, or smoked it.

00:51:22
Speaker 4: I mean yeah. He had a you know, traditional smokehouse and he smoked it up in there strips and he gave me some.

00:51:33
Speaker 3: Like yeah.

00:51:34
Speaker 6: Yeah.

00:51:35
Speaker 7: But he also makes the best salmon, candied salmon.

00:51:38
Speaker 2: So he knows what’s up.

00:51:39
Speaker 7: With making the dry he was he was like he was really good at all that stuff.

00:51:43
Speaker 2: Is there any such thing like do you guys.

00:51:49
Speaker 1: Do you guys grind? Do you guys make grind meat from deer and elk and stuff? Would anybody ever grind up whale meat?

00:51:57
Speaker 5: I don’t think anybody’s thought of it, like.

00:51:59
Speaker 2: A whale burger. It would be like that kind of meat.

00:52:02
Speaker 5: It’s interesting too because of the you know, how you know, you have your your elk tally, you have your elk fan binds really well. Yeah, keep your grinder cold, you grind your meat, add your fat, it stays really well. Imagine whale blubber, Oh would melt o such a lower temperature, and so I mean, I imagine your patty would kind of fall apart.

00:52:25
Speaker 2: Now I can imagine that because.

00:52:27
Speaker 4: If everybody was to get like distributed from a whale, you’d get about seven pounds of meat and then about one point just about two pounds of blubber.

00:52:38
Speaker 1: So, oh, you mean if your if your whole tribe, all the tribal membership shared a whale.

00:52:43
Speaker 2: It would be seven pounds apiece. That divides it out pretty good. Yeah, how is that oil? Is it stored as a liquid or a solid or how’s it stored.

00:52:57
Speaker 5: Usually stored as a liquid. So usually it’s rendered real slow render down. Sometimes some people, especially with seal, they’ll smoke like a cold smoke, or they’ll smoke at first, but they’ll render it down into oil oil smoke the yeah blubber and then you get a smoky oil. Oh really, but you generally now people render that oil down into a like a mason jar, like the salmon that’s out there.

00:53:23
Speaker 3: And you can keep it like that for it’s a bit like ever honey and cinnamon. It don’t really go bad. I got you, Yeah, I got You can freeze it, you can freeze the whale oil.

00:53:34
Speaker 4: Yeah.

00:53:36
Speaker 1: I spent some time with some cupic Eskimo guys and they would have seal oil, and I remember we would dip fish in it, just like where you’re eating frozen raw frozen fish, like little chunks of like actually frozen fish dipped in the seal oil.

00:53:58
Speaker 2: And when you taste it, man, it would be like the real peppery, Like I can’t you describe it like peppery like olive oil, Juman like a like a not a burn.

00:54:08
Speaker 1: But you know what I’m saying, there’s like a pepper tooled Yeah, bold what what?

00:54:12
Speaker 2: What? How do you describe that whale oil? Is it mild? Is it like kind of grabs you when you taste it?

00:54:19
Speaker 5: Depends on who it is. I mean it’s pretty normal, Like it’s pretty mild for us. Yeah, kind of, everyone’s kind of used to it.

00:54:27
Speaker 2: But if you handed it to some kid, like I don’t like, some kid never had any kind of that stuff, would that kid be like, oh that’s good. Would the kid be like, man, that is wild taste.

00:54:37
Speaker 5: This probably tastes like like omegas. Okay, your fish oil.

00:54:42
Speaker 1: Okay, so it’s got like it’s got that a little bit of it’s got that fish oil taste to it. And how do you how are you using it? You’re dipping meat in it?

00:54:51
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean you could use it a ton of different ways. I’m sure there’s still ways to expand to that that palette now that you know, once we get back into the mix. But I mean, really, like you said, dipping fish or even bread or different things with with your dinner.

00:55:05
Speaker 2: Do you ever oil a pan with it?

00:55:07
Speaker 4: I haven’t, but I mean the reason you couldn’t.

00:55:11
Speaker 7: You could cook with it I don’t know what.

00:55:12
Speaker 5: The smoke temp is, to be honest, because it’s rendered really low temperature. I see it’s super low temperature. Ore you’ll burn it got so you’ll get a real like dark amber. Like you’ll see first timers making like rendering whale oil and it’s like real dark.

00:55:29
Speaker 3: And then you kind of get the older folks who are.

00:55:31
Speaker 2: Like, oh, they know how to keep it clean and clear, so it’s like whiskey colored or something.

00:55:36
Speaker 5: Well, So like generally it’s like like light olive oil even lighter than that.

00:55:40
Speaker 4: That’s clear. Oh okay, it’s not.

00:55:42
Speaker 2: I mean it’s not there of being like honey.

00:55:44
Speaker 5: No, it’s not like water, but the like the smoked seal oil kind of a little closer to like an olive oil color. Yeah, but generally it’s like the clearer, the better. It’s like you did a good job rendering it if it’s nice and clear.

00:55:58
Speaker 2: Is there a does your community does your community have Is there a communal area where stuff gets done or do people would it be that hundreds of people would go home and all render oil on their own, or do you have a big spot where you just render all the oil collectively and then hand it out.

00:56:21
Speaker 5: Well, generally when the whale gets you know, gets pulled up right, you know, drop an elk, it’s there, it’s in that spot, but we pull up the whale and it kind of gets distributed there and that’s where the time is. You know, everybody’s hustling to make sure it’s taking care of business. And then you know, wherever you take that your portion, you know, probably similar to an elk, you go home and okay, clean it up, make sure it’s nice and good, and then you take your section it apart, and then you plan to do your oil.

00:56:49
Speaker 1: Got it, And that’s that’s your own business in your own area. Like it’s cut up in a in a way where people that want them get some. But then if you got your chunk of meat, you go home and deal.

00:56:58
Speaker 4: With your chunk of meat.

00:56:59
Speaker 5: But say there can’t be you know, I’m sure like those are some of the things that are really kind of frustrating to notice. Is you see other tribes and other places have these communal ceremonies of like they’re celebrating the teaching their kids how to process these different animals. And for us to not even let alone not only be not able to whale, but not able to even engage in those ceremonies to physically show our younger kids how to do this kind of stuff, you know, And so the tribe’s doing really well at you know, hey, the process of making paddles never died. Never will processes of you know, making harpoons, Like we have our Cultural and Research center that has an incredible display of all of the model, all the technology for whaling and all of those. You know, there’s folks who are well detailed in you know, making your harpoons and teaching your kids too and family how to do those things. But for us to not be able to kind of you know, it’s kind of like that box that year and you think about being able to have those kind of ceremonies, were like, hey, my cos’s coming together like macads. But for just us to teach generations how to do this process and to get better at it, how to handle.

00:58:17
Speaker 2: Stuff you mentioned you guys is you guys hunt seal and porpoise. Yeah, and that’s that’s less like that’s just kind of that’s that’s less like regulatory stuff involved in that.

00:58:32
Speaker 3: There’s regulations around that. There’s it’s incidental take permits that we get issued. You know, we work with National Marine Fishery Service again and our Marine mammal biologists. You know, if we do any any type of incidental take what gets caught up in fishing gear.

00:58:54
Speaker 2: So that would be how you’d wind up with one, right, got you?

00:58:57
Speaker 3: And then we there’s a reporting system that we have.

00:59:01
Speaker 2: To report that if you have listen, if you have a porpoise, what is that porpoise good for it? Would you use it exactly how you use the whale? Pretty similar blubber skin, meat oil.

00:59:14
Speaker 4: They actually do have backstraps.

00:59:17
Speaker 7: I’ve heard it’s very good.

00:59:18
Speaker 4: Yeah, say, very good tasting.

00:59:20
Speaker 2: You’ve heard that.

00:59:21
Speaker 4: I’ve heard that, but you haven’t tried it.

00:59:25
Speaker 3: But it’s good, Steve.

00:59:27
Speaker 2: It’s word is word is. It’s gonna be good where it is, it’s great.

00:59:30
Speaker 4: All right.

00:59:31
Speaker 2: So I want to get into the time.

00:59:33
Speaker 1: I want to get back to this timeline more and try to get like where the where the situation stands right now? So the injunction goes in two thousand and two thousand.

00:59:43
Speaker 3: And one, what was it two thousand and two.

00:59:44
Speaker 2: Two thousand and two, two thousand and two.

00:59:46
Speaker 1: The federal government know its forms Noah yous fit whatever all the agencies.

00:59:54
Speaker 2: It comes down.

00:59:55
Speaker 1: We don’t need to get into the details, but basically it comes down, Hey, there’s an injunction the Macaw. You’re done whaling two thousand and two, but now you’re talking about whaling.

01:00:06
Speaker 2: Again, like you’re getting ready to go. You want to get everything squared away to go.

01:00:11
Speaker 1: What what happened this time around?

01:00:15
Speaker 3: So in two thousand and four, we made an application for a waiver to to go whaling under the Remammal Protection Act and there is no process for it. So we had to work with a government to develop that process as we went.

01:00:36
Speaker 2: Oh and then you had to ask them, Let’s say a fellow wanted a waiver, what would the waiver need to look like?

01:00:41
Speaker 3: Right?

01:00:41
Speaker 1: And you got a legal team, I mean you got lawyers. We do, Like you just got lawyers getting paid to do.

01:00:46
Speaker 4: This kind of stuff.

01:00:46
Speaker 3: Yes, huh, yes we do. Yeah. And and so we’ve been in that process, you know since two thousand and four, since we first put in that notice. We’ve had to reboot it a few times.

01:01:00
Speaker 2: So are they just do they just kind of slow walking like they stall it? Yes, but I mean for.

01:01:07
Speaker 3: Years or years. Yeah, there’s you know, you’re you’re looking at you know a lot of the both scientific and the biological information, you know, with with the whale population, and and so in the you know, in that process, the government, you know, like anybody can sue the federal government, right, So that’s their real concern. It’s like they don’t want to get sued and lose, so they’re so the slow walking is so that they’re thorough on their end. No, I understand, and and yeah, that’s the area and it can withstand a challenging court. Yeah, so that’s that’s that’s part of the part of why it’s been delayed so long. We think it’s unreasonable, you know. And now we went we were finally issued a waiver in twenty eighteen, I believe, is that the right year, twenty twenty four the waiver for the June the waiver or we applied for the waiver in eighteen, maybe it was.

01:02:15
Speaker 5: We have the twenty four hundred page environmental impact statement, that’s whatever.

01:02:20
Speaker 3: So yeah, anyway that.

01:02:22
Speaker 1: You guys generated a twenty four hundred page environmental impact statement.

01:02:26
Speaker 3: No no, uh, noah did no?

01:02:27
Speaker 1: It did an environmental impact statement about what would happen if you got a whale, right.

01:02:34
Speaker 5: Yes, so once that was done, then we would be able to apply for the waiver, granted the waiver and then goes to the permit system.

01:02:44
Speaker 4: Oh here’s what.

01:02:45
Speaker 1: Here’s where I’m a little bit confused. Go ahead, but I’ll tell what’s excusing me.

01:02:48
Speaker 3: Okay. So there was a alj Administrative Law judge hearing on on this, and you know, we had to basically go through this court process, bring in tell the government how we’re going to do the hunt, how we’re going to manage it, and bring in our cultural experts and all those you know, Daniel testified in that, and the judge recommended that we be granted the waiver because that’s what I was I was trying to get at earlier and in that timeline. And then you know, we’re finally granted that waiver in twenty twenty four, and then in March of twenty twenty five we applied for a permit. You know, we’re granted the waiver. Now you got to get a permit for how many whales? So it’s for twenty up to twenty five whales over a ten year period.

01:03:44
Speaker 2: Okay, Yeah, So okay, because that’s what I was confused about, Okay, is I was like, if you look at just the pop population demographics of Wales, which I don’t understand well, but I gathered these are long lived, low fecundity creatures, but there are thousands of them.

01:04:01
Speaker 1: So in my mind, I’m like, how could any serious person argue that harvesting a whale a year is going to have a population level impact when you factor in that you have this mortality happening from cruise ships, you have mortality happening from entanglements, you have mortality happening from strandings. And then someone would say, but if you get one, that’s gonna.

01:04:31
Speaker 2: That’s going to tank the grey whale population.

01:04:34
Speaker 3: Now we agree with you.

01:04:36
Speaker 1: On that just seems like a heart That seems like such a weird It’s like they’re dying all over the place. We’re talking about, oh whale. But I guess if you’re looking at two point five whales a year, if you had said one whale a year, would it have been a different conversation or would it have been all the same?

01:04:52
Speaker 3: Bs It probably would have been all the same, being it wouldn’t have changed. I don’t think it would have changed anything, you know. I think I think our our opponents, our adversaries on this, you know, they’re absolutists, and and so we’re the way we proposed to do the hunt is, you know, the most we could most whales we could take in any any year under this waiver is two, okay, because you can’t take a half a whale, right ye. So, and it’s only one per hunt season. So there there’s the hunt season that we’re applying for is a summer fall. Hunt starts July first, goes through October thirty first.

01:05:35
Speaker 1: So you got like an opening day and everything. Yeah, yeah, you has like white people, You got like opening.

01:05:40
Speaker 3: Days and and if you know, if we harvest a whale then that’s done, that permit for that period is done and we have to wait for we can’t go the very next year in that hunt period. We got to wait un till the following year, oh to go. We we can also apply for a permit for a separate hunt season, which is a winter spring goes from December to through May, and we could harvest a whale during that as well. But once we harvest that whale, then that that hunt period’s done. So there’s we wouldn’t get more than two a year under under how it’s structured right now, and right now, we’re not proposing to go in that in that winter spring hunt. You know, it’s it’s more dangerous. These are farther offshore, so it’s it’s more ideal to go in the summer fall hunt period.

01:06:42
Speaker 2: What kind of ground are these gray whales covering? Like what’s their northern range and southern range? Because when they come by you, they’re coming through.

01:06:50
Speaker 3: Right right, yeah, they’re they’re coming through the eastern North pacifics that we’re targeting. You know, they go from Baja California to the Soclen Islands way up.

01:07:00
Speaker 4: I don’t no Soccolene.

01:07:01
Speaker 3: It’s way up in the sharing straight Russia. Oh really yeah, yes, got yeah, yeah, that’s there. That’s their feeding range.

01:07:10
Speaker 2: So these seasons is you’re it’s.

01:07:14
Speaker 1: It’s it’s different swings of a migration, right, Like one, I’m just like one is that they’re sort of generally moving south, and one they’re generally moving north. Correct, And that summer season they’re generally moving north.

01:07:30
Speaker 4: Right now, they’re moving south to go down to the well how to have their calves and no breeding. Yeah, so right now they’re going past us. They’re feeding and you know, slowly making their way down there, and they have their calves, and then the male whales start making it up and the females make it up after them with their calves slowly. Okay.

01:07:54
Speaker 2: Oh, when you if you imagine the ideal whale, is it a male or female?

01:07:58
Speaker 4: Male?

01:07:59
Speaker 2: Can you tell?

01:08:01
Speaker 4: There’s a way you want to you want to explain how you you tell how female is the male? Ahead? So you have to stick your arm in them, and if it goes a certain direction, that’s a male or a female.

01:08:19
Speaker 2: But yeah, but that’s dead checking them. Yeah, you can’t live check them.

01:08:23
Speaker 4: It’s a little harder.

01:08:24
Speaker 2: Okay. So there’s not like it wouldn’t be that.

01:08:28
Speaker 4: We have an observer that like a specialist, a marine specialist that identify as if it’s a male or a female for us before we strike it, because we can’t strike a female after males.

01:08:41
Speaker 2: Oh okay, that’s okay. So it would be out of the question to kill a female with a calf. Yeah, that’s that’s not gonna happen.

01:08:49
Speaker 4: It’s not gonna happen, got it.

01:08:51
Speaker 2: And you’re targeting males?

01:08:52
Speaker 4: Yeah, I see. And whether we get get it or not, those same whales we have the shared quota basically, so if we don’t get them, it goes into their quota. Those two wheels that we’re not getting all that tribe.

01:09:08
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, where are they located?

01:09:15
Speaker 3: Russians?

01:09:17
Speaker 2: Man, your quota goes to the Russians.

01:09:19
Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, there’s seriously. Yeah, during the and when I explaining, we we first agreed to be part of this international process. Yeah, federal government, wont us do that? We said, okay, and so we went and did it. There’s a there’s a whaling quota you know, given globally to whaling whaling nations, and that right through this process. Well, there’s already established quota for for these gray whales the eastern North Pacifics that was mainly being taken by the chi Cookins up in Russia. And so when we first started working to get our international quota, what we were asking for the Chacokins, you know, we were able to build relationships with them and they supported us and they were willing to give up part of their quota, so that we said, right, so that we can continue our whaling. So it’s an agreement that.

01:10:16
Speaker 2: So did you have to send some ambassadors up to meet with these guys.

01:10:19
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, and and talk this out and and talk it out and spend time with them during their whaling activities and huh yeah, and.

01:10:28
Speaker 2: You guys were generally well received by them.

01:10:31
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, mm hmm.

01:10:36
Speaker 2: Do they have the same arguments with the Russian government?

01:10:38
Speaker 4: Not all? Right?

01:10:39
Speaker 2: Do they have the same level of negotiating with the Russian Like what are their treaties?

01:10:43
Speaker 3: Like, I’m unsure, Yeah.

01:10:46
Speaker 1: I want I wonder if they have all the layers of government or if they just do their own thing or what that’s like dealing with the Russian government.

01:10:53
Speaker 3: Yeah. I haven’t been there myself. It’s pretty remote, more remote than we are, so imagine they don’t have to deal with them quite as much, not as much.

01:11:03
Speaker 2: Yeah, we keep getting into the timeline leaving the timeline, but where like, what are you waiting on right now? You’re not going to whale this summer or you.

01:11:15
Speaker 3: Might, Well, it’s it’s still possible this summer. It’s still possible. Yeah, it’s still possible. You know, we’re we’re at the end of coming up on the end of July. You know what, there’s the whales are still present. That’s that’s kind of the factor, you know, the whales got to be there. But yeah, sure, when they decide to leave, you know, then then they’re gone. But we’re waiting on the Secretary of Commerce too to sign the permit. You’re waiting on Howard Lutnik correct to sign the permit. Yes, really, he’s got to sign it. He does, or he’s got to delegate someone to sign it.

01:11:54
Speaker 2: And what what what’s his what’s his thinking?

01:11:57
Speaker 3: We don’t know. We haven’t been able to talk to him directly on this issue. We’ve requested it. We’ve requested government to government consultation on this, which you know normally those are honored by the federal government.

01:12:09
Speaker 2: But these guys don’t want to hear you out.

01:12:12
Speaker 3: Not too early to say, not Howard himself yet. But he’s uhes deputies is his deputies. We’ve talked with them. They’re super supportive. They’ve been great.

01:12:21
Speaker 2: Oh I got you all right, So there’s no resistance there.

01:12:24
Speaker 3: No, we don’t. And so it’s it’s a little puzzling for us. Frustrating for sure.

01:12:28
Speaker 2: Like you mean, like the recept the receptive they’re not dismissive, but then there’s not the signature.

01:12:33
Speaker 3: Yet, right right, Yeah, I would say it’s even more than receptive. I’d say they’re supportive.

01:12:39
Speaker 2: Supportive. Yeah, okay, so let’s say, I mean, is it is there a possibility that tomorrow someone emails you over like a how does it happen? Like one day someone signs it and then there it is.

01:12:57
Speaker 3: Yes, So we have a pain permit application. I’ve actually signed my part of it already for twenty twenty five and twenty twenty seven. Was it a docu sign No, it was it digital? No, it wasn’t a paper document. Was a paper document? Yeah, And we’ve well, our understanding last year was that we were we’re both going to sign this and it would be effective August first of two thousand and twenty five. And we’re preparing for that moment. We’re working with with our media teams and you know, going to be prepared for any whether it’s pushback or you know, people will want to tell the story, right, you know that it’s going to get some coverage. And yeah, so we were, I mean, we were just weeks away, two weeks away from what we thought, you know, being issued our first permit on last year last year, and and then nothing happened and we yeah, it just went radio.

01:14:08
Speaker 2: Silence and that’s under the Trump administration.

01:14:10
Speaker 3: Yeah, that’s what’s real puzzling about. I mean, you know, these these types of things is something you know, you know, hunting and outdoor type stuff, and you know those things seem right up this administration’s alley, right, you know, they seem to be supportive.

01:14:25
Speaker 2: Of yeah, like stripping regulations, strip.

01:14:27
Speaker 3: Yeah, less regulation, those sort of things. So, yeah, we’re not sure what what’s going on.

01:14:33
Speaker 1: But this is you might want to not even answer this, and I would probably I wouldn’t, but I’ll ask anyway, just.

01:14:41
Speaker 2: Because of what you just said. Is it possible to say something like this, Is it possible to say that that that who’s better friends to the macaw like generally Republicans are Democrats? Or is that not a possible You can’t answer it.

01:14:54
Speaker 3: No, I’ve answered that question a number of times, and and I think both of them have their They have their points.

01:15:03
Speaker 2: That’s what I think.

01:15:04
Speaker 3: They have their points of where the friendship ends it or starts right, you know, in general, and this is a pure generality, is that you know, Democrats will support our treaty right up unto the point it starts conflicting with labor and jobs. Oh, Republicans, they’ll support our treaty right up into the point it starts affecting industry.

01:15:30
Speaker 2: Oh so like the AID, like the Age Old conflicts, you just like find your own Indian way into the Age Old conflicts. But here’s the thing, Democrats and Republicans.

01:15:42
Speaker 3: Yeah, here’s the thing, is that that our treaty rights should be nonpartisan.

01:15:49
Speaker 1: Yeah, if it was a well written treaty, you think that it would be Yeah, that it would be debatable. But I mean, as you know, I mean, documents don’t always anticipate every development. But what’s funny about not what’s funny, but what’s interesting about treat Like we look at the US Constitution, Right, so the founding fathers didn’t come in and be like, they didn’t make.

01:16:10
Speaker 2: A big passage about AI.

01:16:12
Speaker 1: Right, So then you got to get down the road and you gotta say, well, how would they have looked at this issue? Based on what we know about how they looked at other issues, how might they look at like an AI issue?

01:16:22
Speaker 2: Okay, but but what’s and you know it way better. Mean, but if you look at tribal treaties, it literally contemplates hunting, fishing, landmarks, things that they’re really.

01:16:38
Speaker 1: Clear about I agree, yes, I mean it’s like you can’t get any more clear, Like you guys are cool to go on and fishing and here right, So it’s not like you’re not contemplating AI. You’re contemplating like a very concrete, specific activity. So that people find so many things to the debate about it is. You know, I understand the complexities, but it’s just it’s different because it’s not abstract. It’s like your father, your your your father’s argued this out.

01:17:09
Speaker 2: They did, yeah, and brought up like, hey, we need we eat.

01:17:13
Speaker 1: This is what we eat. We need to be able to get our food. Here’s the deal, you know. And now you’re in this situation where you’re like arguing about it, which I understand it’s complicated, especially something like Wales.

01:17:25
Speaker 3: Well we’re not even arguing right now. We’re just waiting, waiting. We’re just waiting.

01:17:33
Speaker 2: If if you all of a sudden get the permit, you all of a sudden get the signature. Do you got a team you know, you know you call it. Do you got a crew? Is there a crew ready to roll? They got the gear straight, they got the plan put together?

01:17:45
Speaker 3: Yeah we have I mean, we got some additional training that will have to be done, you know, because you know to be able to go tomorrow. You know that, you know, if we get the permit sign tomorrow, there isn’t a team that’s going to launch tomorrow.

01:18:00
Speaker 2: I see.

01:18:00
Speaker 4: Yeah, how do you.

01:18:02
Speaker 2: Get to be? Who selects the crew?

01:18:06
Speaker 3: Our whaling Commission?

01:18:07
Speaker 2: Okay, so you.

01:18:08
Speaker 1: Can’t just freelance it. No, two dudes can’t just be like, hell, I’m going like that wouldn’t fly.

01:18:14
Speaker 3: No, it don’t.

01:18:16
Speaker 1: No, it has that. It goes through the tribe, the Whaling Commission. Yes, got it?

01:18:22
Speaker 2: And and how do you apply to be Like, if you want to be on crew, what do you got to do? Who’s on the crew?

01:18:29
Speaker 3: Yeah?

01:18:30
Speaker 5: So the way that the Whaling Commission handles that kind of stuff is essentially the you know, you’re you’re interested in being a captain, You’re responsible for the crew. So the captain is the one who will apply for the permit, and the council, the tribal council’s ultimate authority that signs the permit for the crew.

01:18:53
Speaker 4: So if you’re going to be a.

01:18:54
Speaker 5: Captain, you you know, you gather your crew, you do everything you need to do. Say, you know, like you’re doing for a a hunt for whatever, You’re gonna pick your guys and this is what we’re gonna do, this plan, train up whatever.

01:19:06
Speaker 4: But the captains you.

01:19:07
Speaker 5: Know, selects his crew, make sure they got everything going, and he’s going to be the one to take the crew out and to actually do the do the hunt.

01:19:15
Speaker 1: So that captain goes to the commission and gets the Okay, what if you had eight captains.

01:19:23
Speaker 5: Well, so the commission will select the captains, the captains will select their crew, and the Commission will make a recommendation of the Council of of you know, who should gather the permit based on who’s you know, who’s ready.

01:19:36
Speaker 4: There.

01:19:36
Speaker 5: There might be one captain that’s ready, there might be eight. And we’ve even talked about doing things like, you know, having multiple crews and and you know, not your first hunt’s not always successful.

01:19:48
Speaker 4: It can be, but it’s not always.

01:19:50
Speaker 5: And so we’ve talked about having different crews hunting at different times. That requires a couple of different technical you know, tribal hunt, observers hunting, both communication.

01:20:04
Speaker 4: To make sure you’re not doubling up.

01:20:06
Speaker 5: But there’s a lot of different ways that we’ve discussed internally on how to handle and on how to handle you know, multiple crews, multiple captains and got it. And even having the positions of the whaler’s just kind of trained up in multiple positions so that you know, people get sick or people get hurt, or you know, you can swap around and you can move.

01:20:27
Speaker 2: And so what would be the attributes of a captain he’s coming out of what is he is?

01:20:32
Speaker 6: He?

01:20:33
Speaker 1: Is he probably a commercial fisherman? Is he probably a fisherman?

01:20:38
Speaker 5: I mean, I’ll hand that one over to Daniel, But I imagine he’s got to be well versed in the sea.

01:20:42
Speaker 6: And yeah, yeah, well versed in the sea, knowing the history, actually knowing the whales, okay, personally spending time you know, on the water, you know, observing whales, knowing positions in the canoe, how to make the harpoons battles that.

01:21:01
Speaker 4: So, got it.

01:21:02
Speaker 2: So they got to be invested, be invested in it, yes, and have a reasonable claim to why they should be doing it.

01:21:09
Speaker 4: Yes, for sure, got it.

01:21:11
Speaker 2: So someone comes up with like a crackpot idea, they’re gonna get weed, They’re gonna get weeded out.

01:21:15
Speaker 6: And get weeded out for sure.

01:21:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, how big is the Commission.

01:21:19
Speaker 7: About twenty four.

01:21:20
Speaker 2: No kids are they all tribal.

01:21:22
Speaker 5: They’re all either heads or descendants of like traditional heads of families. And so that’s that’s what I wanted to get into a little bit. It’s like, traditionally you’re brought up as a whaler, captain or leader because it’s central to the like I said, the society of the tribe. And so it’s like it’s not hey, we’re going to go sure to elk, We’re going to grab our permit, but like it’s a lifestyle, okay, right, the training, the mindset, even just who you are as a person. If you’re going to be a captain, you’re you’re already set apart, I understand. And you’re you’re brought up in a way like you’re a leader, You’re a you know, take care of your family.

01:21:56
Speaker 4: You know.

01:21:57
Speaker 5: You’s like you said, spend time in the ocean, spend time with the sea. You know, wales breathing patterns, fluke fluke prints, like you kind of know, I see you know you’re gonna be.

01:22:06
Speaker 2: Yeah, but they’ve been prepared for this their whole life. Is there a clan.

01:22:11
Speaker 1: System with the Macaw? Do you guys, are you guys from different clans.

01:22:16
Speaker 5: So the tribe has five traditional villages, okay, and the five traditional village are kind of what make up the reservation now. So we have Ozette Sus, we have watch Dia and Bejeta. So those are the five villages that kind of make up the tribe now. But as far as clans go, everybody kind of you know where you come from, you know what family you come from, what village you come from.

01:22:42
Speaker 1: And people might have It’s like a step down from Macaw would be that you’d associate by.

01:22:47
Speaker 5: Village in family village and family village and family. You kind of tie your family, you know where your village. Everybody knows who comes from what village for the most part, and that’s just part of how the oral history has continued to transpire as everybody understands whose family, who comes from who, and that kind of gets into our potlat system of you know and all.

01:23:10
Speaker 2: And in the Whaling Commission, the different there would be representation from all the villages.

01:23:15
Speaker 7: Yeah, and multiple multiple families from multiple.

01:23:17
Speaker 4: People from all villages and they come together.

01:23:20
Speaker 3: It’s a heads it’s heads of family type structure.

01:23:23
Speaker 4: Heads a family.

01:23:23
Speaker 3: It’s a family rather than clan. It’s we, that’s how we associate. Each village would have so many heads of family that would be part of that village’s governance of of their village. And you know there are different number of seats per village, and that was up to the village to decide how many I got it, how many seats they wanted filled as heads of family on.

01:23:48
Speaker 2: These whaling decisions and captain selection and and when to when to push on it and try to do it and when anot is it? Is it contentious or do you guys usually hit a consensus.

01:24:04
Speaker 3: We don’t disagree on anything, Steve No, never, No, it’s it can get contentious.

01:24:10
Speaker 1: There can be Yeah, does it do you settle it? Do you settle by vote? Or do you hash it out until there’s a consensus. Well, I think there’s attempt to reach consensus. But you know at the end there is a voting mechanisic.

01:24:27
Speaker 2: So just any any sort of issue would be eventually might be resolved by a vote.

01:24:31
Speaker 4: Yes, yeah, I got you.

01:24:36
Speaker 2: What will happen Let’s say in two years, So you’ve got this relationship with the.

01:24:39
Speaker 1: Commerce Department under Howard Lutnik. Right now, what’s say in two years.

01:24:46
Speaker 4: It’s a new administration.

01:24:48
Speaker 1: At that point, I’m like, oh my god, now we got to start all the way over again.

01:24:52
Speaker 2: Or is it is there a chance that it would be smooth?

01:24:56
Speaker 4: Well?

01:24:56
Speaker 3: It there definitely be the concern that we gotta reboot the waiver process. You know that that would you know, that would be concerning, but or the permitting process. Sorry, you know we we’ve already been granted the waiver. You know that can’t be walked back, but you know we need a permit. So yeah, I don’t know. I don’t know what administration change would do. We’ve been through a lot of them.

01:25:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, who was president when Stevens was the negotiating all those treaties?

01:25:30
Speaker 6: Oh a Buchanan, was it not?

01:25:32
Speaker 2: You’ve been through a few administrations. Hey, here’s here’s what I wanted to ask. Sorry, Loop, We’ve been having a lot of conversations. You know, we had a lot of fish and game, and some of the guys work here fish a lot, and we’ve been having all these conversations about like pfast chemicals and fish health warnings and fish. If you had to rate, like you know, in our in our world, it.

01:26:04
Speaker 4: Would be that.

01:26:06
Speaker 1: You know, like tuna, that’s a questionable fish for heavy metals contamination.

01:26:13
Speaker 2: Our own state has now.

01:26:18
Speaker 1: Advisories about pfast chemicals and fresh water fish.

01:26:22
Speaker 2: Here is a.

01:26:27
Speaker 1: How how much you see into stuff in whale in whale fat, because I mean they’re like a mega accumulator, you know, just for listeners to understand, I mean this picture that picture that there’s a fish that a small fish that eats plankton. He’s not accumulating a bunch of heavy metals.

01:26:46
Speaker 2: But let’s say there’s a fish that eats fish, that eats fish. So every fish he eats, he’s absorbing all the things that not just that they ate, but that what they ate ate. Right, And you get to be where you have these certain fish that are loaded because they’re accumulated. They’re just eating fish, they ate fish. So it is a whale. Is a whale like a bioaccumulator of environmental toxins.

01:27:18
Speaker 4: There’s not much data on it. I mean what I what I have found was they have done some studies on some whales that whether they were you know, ship strikes or beach themselves, and I believe they detected you know, levels in the blubber. They didn’t find it. I think there was like maybe twenty whales, but a lot of them were inconclusive and they didn’t find any in the liver, it sounded like. And then like the red meat, there wasn’t as much. But I mean, you know, you could see the tribes that have been eating whale for all these years, and you know, it is medicine. And I mean the even the government is getting back to like food is medicine, you know. Yeah, turn the triangle upside down now red meats at the top. Oh yeah, and you know it normalizes glucose metabolism. You know, whale meat it’s been shown to do that. You can see that in the and the tribes that are still eating it, you know, on a daily basis, and it’s it’s their main fat source, you know. And you can see in those where the health related diseases are not as large as you know, say like a coastal triver like a lot of the the tribes you know that that got hit with like you know, the commodities you remember, you know, no no so commodities. You know, it was a oh yeah, the food Western like Western foods you know, introduced into our diet once we laid down our harpoons, you know, twelve years before anybody else started to, you know, knowing we were going to get back to it, but still you know, traditionally eating all of our our foods and which even there’s we had elders that were you know, they were probably around when we had our last couple hunts in the twenties and they lived to be in their hundreds.

01:29:16
Speaker 1: Oh, they were enjoying good, long lives on that diet.

01:29:20
Speaker 4: He could speak more on that as well, but you know, the I think it’s like with the grey whale on the few of the villages up there, because it they get about. I think they have sixteen thousand people that they get whale distributed to and they get about I think it’s one hundred and seven pounds of gray whale meat and twenty six percent of them. I think it was that they said it was their main food, like their main fatty foods. Is that right?

01:29:53
Speaker 2: Yeah? And so even us reinteresting.

01:29:57
Speaker 6: Yeah.

01:29:57
Speaker 2: Wow, there’s like people who’s main like that’s their main Yeah, a main meat would be whale meat.

01:30:02
Speaker 4: Yeah. And even for us, you know, introducing it back into our diet, which it’s been missing since the twenties since we’ve stopped and you can you can see the you know, diabetes and whatever else. You know, the health related diseases, they’re pretty rampant, you know. And then even with those you know, those microplastics and everything in the.

01:30:25
Speaker 6: Food that.

01:30:28
Speaker 4: I believe that it is something that will need to be studied more once you know, we’re where if we’re whaling on a regular basis, I’m sure it’s something we’re gonna be able to study if it is higher because they are eating fish, eating fish, eating fish.

01:30:43
Speaker 2: But then you got the question too of of like.

01:30:47
Speaker 1: Relative to like let’s say they do have some chemical contamination, it’s like relative to what? Then you got to ask yourself, I don’t know, is the other stuff that everybody’s eating so great?

01:30:57
Speaker 2: Yeah, there’s you know.

01:30:58
Speaker 1: There’s a lot of focus on wild fish. You know, I’m like, I don’t know, are they checking everything? Like have you gone to the grocery store and checked all that stuff? Like it is wildfish really worse than all the junk that’s in the grocery store.

01:31:09
Speaker 4: It’s definitely better than farm fish.

01:31:11
Speaker 1: Yeah, It’s like it winds up being like this totally relative thing. But there’s all this focus on contaminations and fish. I’m like, i’d have to see the data on all the junk that normal people.

01:31:19
Speaker 5: Well, now it’s getting into lab grown, lab grown meat, but I don’t.

01:31:23
Speaker 2: Think no one’s making lab grown whale meat.

01:31:25
Speaker 4: Don’t quote me.

01:31:26
Speaker 5: I don’t think are A tested it on the mercury for gray whales are.

01:31:32
Speaker 7: I don’t think it was much.

01:31:34
Speaker 2: That’d be interesting, I could, Yeah, because one thing they’re not doing is they’re not eating They’re not eating big fish like tuna. Big tuna eat small tuna.

01:31:45
Speaker 1: I mean, they’re they’re eating bio like tuna, eating bioaccumulators. And a lot of times a tunea is eating a fish that’s eating a fish that eats fish.

01:31:57
Speaker 2: So it’s just a different But you can picture.

01:31:58
Speaker 1: With a whale eating a lot of or lived plankton feeders, then maybe they don’t get loaded up.

01:32:04
Speaker 3: Yeah.

01:32:05
Speaker 5: And if you eat like so, you eat whale meat and blubber and then cut out all the processed stuff. Is the whale meat with chemicals and toxins better than a diet of processed food with chemicals, with chemicals and toxics.

01:32:20
Speaker 2: That’s that’s what I mean. Yeah, do you got let me ask you question. This is just on on the behalf of non non natives.

01:32:29
Speaker 1: You know what thing we always argue about, man, is whether it’s okay to call you guys Indians or not.

01:32:34
Speaker 2: Give me your take on this, like like like just for listener’s sake.

01:32:39
Speaker 6: Up like a dude.

01:32:40
Speaker 1: Like here’s a dude like me, a dude like me, and I say, you guys are Indians. Just for people out there who want to do the right thing, but they get confused, what does that mean to you?

01:32:51
Speaker 3: Steve’s say, quidicch chuck, qutic chuck.

01:32:57
Speaker 2: So is it offensive or not offensive?

01:33:01
Speaker 3: We’re not too uptight about that most most of our people, you know, it’s for us. We say, yeah, I can call us Indians. Our treaty. It’s the Indians of Kate flattery in there.

01:33:11
Speaker 2: Yeah, but you might not like that treaty. I’m not asking, I’m asked to be cute. I’m like, it’s like an honest thing. There’s not a month goes by, I’m not I’m not kidding you.

01:33:19
Speaker 1: There’s not a month goes by that I don’t have a conversation with someone about the appropriateness sure of native like Native American first Nations Native Alaskan, you know what.

01:33:36
Speaker 2: I mean, like like.

01:33:39
Speaker 1: The appropriateness of it, and maybe it’s offensive that I’m even asking about. I’m going to ask anyway, because there’s people. There’s like people that want to do that. There’s people that want to be respectful. But there’s a lot of mixed signals and feelings. I remember asking the earlier, I said, Chupic eskimo. I asked the Chupic Eskimo. I said, man, you know a lot of people, like in our culture, a lot of.

01:33:59
Speaker 2: People say that they shouldn’t say that.

01:34:02
Speaker 1: And he goes, if I’m not an Eskimo, I don’t know what I am, because he goes, I’m a Cubic Eskimo.

01:34:07
Speaker 2: I don’t know what they told you back home, but that’s what I.

01:34:09
Speaker 3: Am, you know, and that you know, that’s how we are. Any English word is the wrong word. So that’s that’s my take on it. It’s like, you know, you he tried to say quid. That’s what we call ourselves, you know, but any English word is the wrong word. But I don’t stress about it.

01:34:30
Speaker 2: But there’s some of you learned to live with and learn not to live with.

01:34:35
Speaker 3: It’s more in them. You know. To me, it’s it’s more how are you saying it? Right, Yeah, you know, it’s how are you saying it? How are you using it? How are you saying it?

01:34:43
Speaker 2: That’s what I would imagine. That’s what I That’s how I kind of imagined it is is is in that way.

01:34:51
Speaker 1: But I but maybe am I? Am I right to say that? The best thing? I can’t say your word? But if I just said he’s macaw, that’s fine. Yeah you’re not like, wow, I’m not that’s what someone else called me.

01:35:06
Speaker 2: Yeah, that’s respect. That’s respect. That that shows respect if I say that, or it doesn’t show a lack of respect.

01:35:13
Speaker 3: Correct, it doesn’t show a lack of respect.

01:35:14
Speaker 4: Yeah.

01:35:15
Speaker 2: And if I say Native American, that’s cool, that’s.

01:35:18
Speaker 4: Cool too, all right, all right, yeah, you know, like a good example the the Washington Redskins. Yeah, it wasn’t the it wasn’t the family of the chief of the head that they used on their helmet for that Redskins that got rid of it. It was those other groups. What do you mean, like, it wasn’t so that that picture was actually from a chief in that area.

01:35:41
Speaker 2: Oh, they didn’t have a problem with it.

01:35:43
Speaker 4: They didn’t know.

01:35:44
Speaker 1: Huh, there’s probably one hundred stories like that.

01:35:50
Speaker 4: Yeah.

01:35:50
Speaker 3: Yeah, our high school mascot is the Red Devils.

01:35:55
Speaker 2: Your high school mascot still now still now yeah, you do you find that that’s a problem.

01:36:03
Speaker 4: No, No, that’s interesting.

01:36:06
Speaker 2: Yeah, but there’s got to be a lot of it. A lot of it is, like you said, where it’s coming from?

01:36:11
Speaker 3: It right, you know who’s saying it, where it’s coming from. I would like to see a mascot that the whalers with their own name.

01:36:22
Speaker 2: Yeah, with your own name.

01:36:23
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know in our.

01:36:24
Speaker 3: Language, there’s a there’s a tribe near us that that did that. And uh, but finding one that’s easy to say and in Quadit language just is tough. You know. That’s so there’s a school mascot chitwins. You know it’s a tribal tribal community and you know that just means a beard. It’s like easy to say. Anybody can say it, and it’s a great mascot.

01:36:51
Speaker 1: Can can can any of you guys give me a sense of what your language sounds like. Just just say something whatever. I don’t know anything that just that guy.

01:36:59
Speaker 6: But to ask Clay with those.

01:37:03
Speaker 3: Duke checks h.

01:37:05
Speaker 6: Husha Bots, Okay to talk about whaling the whales.

01:37:11
Speaker 4: Talking about the whales. Yeah, I got it.

01:37:15
Speaker 6: Yeah, it’s kind of Marlan quiet. So plush is my name. Yeah, watch you have to watch.

01:37:21
Speaker 1: God it’s a good sound of language, dude. So that’s a good sign of language, man like that.

01:37:25
Speaker 6: It’s a yeah, very good. And then we share our language families in Canada. So Johnny is where we come from. Whaling societies all along the Canadian West Coast island. So that’s where we come from.

01:37:37
Speaker 4: Okay.

01:37:38
Speaker 2: So if I if like you go up, you got like.

01:37:46
Speaker 1: The hidea Simshian with those have been wu there been cultural similarities.

01:37:54
Speaker 4: Were just very different.

01:37:55
Speaker 6: They’re pretty different. Yeah yeah, yeah, so we’re just just south the Hida had Yeah, I guess northern northern end print troupert we had ties in with them, Okay, but I to guay kind of got different.

01:38:08
Speaker 2: That’s a different way different people. Yeah. If you guys get this thing signed, this paper signed.

01:38:17
Speaker 1: Would you ever would you consider photocopying me a photocopy of.

01:38:20
Speaker 2: That sending me that.

01:38:23
Speaker 3: The permit the permit.

01:38:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, with like all like a permit, I just want to frame it, hang it in the studio A photocopy of your signed permit.

01:38:31
Speaker 2: I’m sure we’re like your whale tag, the photocopy of your whale tag.

01:38:37
Speaker 3: We could do that.

01:38:39
Speaker 2: Just some kind of i’d like to have. I just like to see a dog make I’d like to see it.

01:38:45
Speaker 4: Now.

01:38:45
Speaker 2: I want to just I want to photocopy from you guys. I don’t want to.

01:38:48
Speaker 1: I don’t want to have to go through the legal Yeah, just a document that’s sort of like, is like, what what a whale permit looks like? A right, I’d like to see a whale permit do They probably don’t have like the little date things you notch out and stuff.

01:39:00
Speaker 2: Find them. No, No, I’d like to see one.

01:39:03
Speaker 4: Man.

01:39:03
Speaker 2: I wish you guys, I don’t know, man, not, I don’t know. I hope you guys permit comes in.

01:39:08
Speaker 4: Thank you.

01:39:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, I hope your permit comes in. It’s just like to me, it feels to me, it feels like there’s not a situation where there’s not a situation one where sort of the general commercial fishing fleet is going to re engage in whaling and there’s going to be like a resource battle about it, you know what I mean?

01:39:30
Speaker 1: You guys got a claim to it.

01:39:33
Speaker 2: It’s not a thing that’s gonna get overblown. There’s a limited number of there’s a limited number of groups that have it, be that it’s part of their tradition. It’s such a small harvest. It just seems like it’s it’s doing it seems like it’s doing enormous good. It’s doing enormous good for your community, and it’s not doing any harm to other It’s not doing any harm to other communities. You know what I’m saying.

01:40:02
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, we we agree.

01:40:04
Speaker 2: It’s just like it’s like it’s kind of like a it’s it’s not you know, you say, like a win win. It’s a win. It’s like a win.

01:40:11
Speaker 1: Nothing like it doesn’t mean like it doesn’t impact my life, right, it’s not. I just feel like it’s not my business.

01:40:18
Speaker 2: I feel it’s like if it does you guys good and you want to do it, it’s not going.

01:40:24
Speaker 1: To tank the great whale population. If you guys are getting the whale every year. Yeah, it’s like it’s it’s it’s just doesn’t feel like my business.

01:40:33
Speaker 5: You know, I think it’s I think it’s important to mention also that it’s it’s ceremonial on subsistence it’s not for the tribe’s pleasure.

01:40:42
Speaker 7: It’s not for.

01:40:44
Speaker 5: Anything other than it’s who we are as a people and getting back to that. And it’s not about going out to do it just because we can. It’s it’s central to the tribe. So that’s the importance. So when it comes to respect, as far as you know names and what to call everybody, like as far as respect goes, like I would like to see people understand and get to know who the tribes are, Like you want to know Maca, go learn about Macaw. Yeah, you know, Joshua read Doctor josh Reid has a really great book called The Sea Is My Country. Really did extensive research not only at Macaw but across other tribes to to get their perspective of Macaw. Oh really, and it’s it’s incredible my country. Yeah and so what I haven’t even heard of that one, but yeah, it’s incredible and so we’ll get your copy.

01:41:33
Speaker 4: But it’s it’s good.

01:41:34
Speaker 2: So if I mean, if you know that that book, that book resonates with your understanding of stuff. Yes, yes, yeah, you know what I’m saying, because sometimes you read books and come from observers, but then the people being observed are like that, like, that’s not how we understand.

01:41:53
Speaker 4: It to be. No, Josh is a great partner.

01:41:57
Speaker 5: You really came in on behalf of the tribe and and really put together really accurate. You know, I was able to tell the story the way it happened.

01:42:08
Speaker 4: You know.

01:42:08
Speaker 1: What’s pretty funny is there’s this there’s this French dude named Jacques Cardier and he goes over to the He lands over on the Canadian coast north of Maine, goes up the Saint Lawrence River in the late fifteen hundreds, and he meets these He meets these.

01:42:25
Speaker 2: People called the static Conons.

01:42:27
Speaker 1: They’re like a Saint Lawrence Iroquois Iroquois and he’s like he’s got this passage in his journal where he’s like.

01:42:35
Speaker 2: Here’s what’s up with their religion?

01:42:39
Speaker 1: You really like, man, I just don’t think they would describe the religion that way.

01:42:47
Speaker 3: That’s funny.

01:42:47
Speaker 2: He’s like they think this this and this and that’s it.

01:42:51
Speaker 1: You know, it’d be like if someone it’d be like it’s as bad as if someone said, hey, I went you know, I went to America.

01:42:58
Speaker 2: There’s Christians. They think that when God gets mad, he floods their planet that’s about you know, that’s about the main baby, that’s it. He’s like, so there’s that explain.

01:43:14
Speaker 3: Yeah, there’s a there’s a story in that book that Josh did that really you know, puts it in perspective what the ocean meant to us and means to us today. But Captain Meares, when he was you know, doing his uh exploring and trading, came into our area and you know, met with you know, our head chief. I guess to get safe passage through that area because he was he was meeting with other tribes coming down Vancouver Island from the north to south and they’re like, you’re going to be entering McCaw waters, and you know, they’re you want to make sure you get their permission. So he had a meeting and was trying to get get permission and you know trade trading some things too. You know, there’s like an exchange of exchange of goods there to get that safe passage. Well, he tried to low ball us, right, he didn’t want to pay what he paid other tribes for safe passage, and we knew it, and so we didn’t let him pass. And he was looking for first you know, as that was part of us. He’s trying to gather up first in the northwest, and and so you know, our our people stayed out on you know, in their canoes and basically kept his ship from transiting the Straight of Wanda Fuca entry in the Straight of Wana Fuca for several weeks. And then and why that was being done, we sent another contingency to go up the Straight of Wanda Fuca and Puget Sound and and buy up all the first and then we let him pass and the price went up when he had to come back and deal with us.

01:45:04
Speaker 1: Right, So there’s another I don’t want I don’t know why Cardier is on my mind, but there’s another thing like that with this Cardier dude. He gets the mouth of Saint Lawrence and he builds this giant cross and they right, like God Save the King or something on there, and they pray there and.

01:45:22
Speaker 2: The local.

01:45:24
Speaker 1: The local Indians come up and they’re like, what’s going out with the cross, you know, and he explains to him, like everything you see, everything you see is our land, and he punts on it and he tells them, no, this is just showing people where to cut in. It’s a it’s a navigational.

01:45:42
Speaker 2: Marker, and that’s how he explains in his journals like no, no, you got me all wrong.

01:45:47
Speaker 3: Yeah, it just.

01:45:48
Speaker 2: Shows you where to turn left, because he don’t want to get into it. Well, man, I appreciate you guys coming on. It means a lot. You’d come out and talk about all this.

01:46:00
Speaker 3: We uh, we’re happy to you know, get that education out there. You know, we we we have a part of our culture and and and part of who we are is we’re not able to realize that right now. Yeah, you know, there’s we want to be whole, you know, understood. We want to carry on what we asked for in our treaty. Yeah, it’s and it’s important. It changes whaling, changes lives in our community for the better. It makes our community better.

01:46:34
Speaker 1: I can tell it’s true. I can tell it’s true. Well, the guys, thank you all for doing this. Appreciate it and thank you for the gift. Oh yeah, you bet. These guys brought me some Si Samon jarred up, beautiful Micagold, Macagold.

01:46:49
Speaker 3: You don’t have to share, you know.

01:46:53
Speaker 1: That’s I’m glad you brought that up because I might have felt conflicted later. I might have wanted to slip and fill and Nate jar here Man, but I don’t doing thanks a lot, not doing it all right, Thanks guys, thank you, thank you,