Latest / The MeatEater Podcast / Ep. 911: Makah Whaling Practices, Treaty Rights, and Regulatory Challenges

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Ep. 911: Makah Whaling Practices, Treaty Rights, and Regulatory Challenges · The MeatEater Podcast

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: If this is the me Eater podcast coming at you shirtless, severely,
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  Speaker 1: That's f I R S T L I T E
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: dot com. Okay, folks, saddle up or put your life
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: jackets on, because we're going to talk about whaling, modern
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: day whaling, specifically the traditional and modern day whale hunting
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: practices and challenges of the Macaw tribe from Washington State's
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: Olympic Peninsula. We're joined by depends how you look at
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: either three or four guests. We have Chairman TJ. Green,
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: who is the chairman of the Maca Tribal Council and
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: his areas of expertise include policy, legal hurdles, tribal politics,
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: and historical organizational context.
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: Okay, you've been with the Tribal Council for nine years.
• 1:23
  Speaker 3: Yes, all right.
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: We got Daniel Green, who's the Vice President of the
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: Whaling Commission and has been involved in whale hunts, butcher
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: and wales, all that kind of stuff.
• 1:36
  Speaker 4: All the above.
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: We have loop a castanata am I saying that right, Yeah,
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: who's a ye.
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: Who's a council member and a first foods expert.
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: He's gonna help us understand a little bit about nutrition,
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: health impacts, and environmental.
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: Toxins that can be found in whale meat.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: And we have Chris Martinez who he's he's just hanging out,
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: but just quick tell tell people what you do do.
• 2:02
  Speaker 5: I'm the chief of staff for the McCAT Tribal Council.
• 2:05
  Speaker 5: I also sit as secretary of the McCaw Wheeling Commission.
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: Got it?
• 2:11
  Speaker 4: So I'm here just hanging out, all right.
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: So let's let's start with this man and uh TJ.
• 2:17
  Speaker 4: You can answer this question.
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: Explain who are the Macaw okay and and what does
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: that word mean?
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  Speaker 3: All right?
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: And and what what do you regard as like like
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: what do you guys regard as your your traditional homeland
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: 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
• 2:42
  Speaker 3: Washington State. We've been there since the first light. Is
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: how we say it, okay. Yeah. And and we're you know,
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: we got about thirty one hundred members and sixteen hundred
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: live on a reservation. It's a Federal Indian reservation, now, okay.
• 2:57
  Speaker 3: And you know we're we're ocean people. You know, we're
• 3:01
  Speaker 3: connected to that ocean. That's been the lifeblood and our
• 3:06
  Speaker 3: spiritual existence and our cultural practices all revolve around activities
• 3:10
  Speaker 3: on that ocean. And so you know, that's that's who
• 3:14
  Speaker 3: we are. You know, Macaw is not our word. Okay,
• 3:18
  Speaker 3: it's not it's not our word. It's a Salish word.
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: You are our neighbor, neighboring tribe. It was a Salish
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  Speaker 3: nation called us Macaw and that means generous host.
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: Oh, because a lot of times those names are like
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: a lot of times there's names that get picked up
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: that are not great. Yeah, that translate to sort of
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: like a like you know, like the enemy, the enemy
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: or whatever. You know, generous hosts, generous host.
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: Even though we had wars with that nation. Oh did
• 3:46
  Speaker 3: that's what they called us.
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: That's what mcca means.
• 3:48
  Speaker 3: That's what was.
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: Your traditional like like not traditional, but what was what
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: what what what did the Macaw call themselves at the time?
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: That the sailors started calling them the Macaw quiditch chat.
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: Oh what's that mean? That's that's a hard word to say.
• 4:04
  Speaker 3: People who live amongst the rocks and seagulls.
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: Oh really, yeah, that was the name.
• 4:09
  Speaker 3: That's sens.
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  Speaker 2: Do you guys still use that name now?
• 4:11
  Speaker 3: We do?
• 4:12
  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
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: the media, you're the Maca tribe, the Macaw.
• 4:20
  Speaker 3: Correct. That's during the treaty negotiations eighteen fifty five treaty
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  Speaker 3: in the Abbay, that's what the governor Stevens govtnor Isaac Stevens,
• 4:30
  Speaker 3: you know he was. He couldn't say quidditch chat. I'm
• 4:32
  Speaker 3: sure so like me. He was like me and man,
• 4:35
  Speaker 3: he couldn't say it.
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  Speaker 2: Huh. That's interesting, man, here's.
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: One for For For the most part, you guys can
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: just decide amongst yourselves who's best to answer a question,
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: or if you want to both take a stab at,
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  Speaker 1: you both take a stab at. But I wanted to
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  Speaker 1: ask because Daniels had experience with you know, sort of
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: on the ground experience, and maybe all you guys have
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: had on the ground experience with whaling but.
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  Speaker 2: We like his store.
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: And is it annoying if I say historically, no, okay,
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: 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
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: know this and white and white dude's heads. There was
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: like there was Native Americans and they kind of like stopped,
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: do you know what I mean?
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: People view it like they like stopped. And it became
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: that something different happened. So if I say to you
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: historically and you're like, what do you mean, I mean,
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: I don't know, like a while ago or you know,
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: but in this question, I mean historically, how serious how
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: serious were the macaw about whaling?
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  Speaker 2: You know what I mean? Like, how did it? How
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  Speaker 2: did it fit into the seasonal?
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  Speaker 4: Well?
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  Speaker 3: If I can just start out, yeah, it was it was.
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  Speaker 3: It was the focal point of our society. Okay, it
• 5:47
  Speaker 3: 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
• 5:53
  Speaker 3: are lush with salmon or anything.
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  Speaker 4: Okay.
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  Speaker 3: So so we were out on that ocean and whales
• 5:59
  Speaker 3: were women there and we yeah, so we understood we
• 6:03
  Speaker 3: harvested them for an nutritional source. And then it became
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  Speaker 3: a source of wealth for us in the society that
• 6:10
  Speaker 3: we built for over thousands of years.
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  Speaker 2: Explain that when you say wealth as a trade item,
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: absolutely yeah.
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  Speaker 1: And what components of a whale would be used? What
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: components of a whale would be? I mean I can
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: imagine the parts that would be used internally, But what
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: would be an item that you could that you could
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: barter with or that you could monetize off a whale?
• 6:30
  Speaker 3: What whale oil is is one that's you get a
• 6:32
  Speaker 3: lot of whale oil from.
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  Speaker 2: An interior Like I imagine like interior people would want it,
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  Speaker 2: right because they didn't have something, they didn't have an equivalent. Correct, Yeah,
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: I got it, I got it.
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  Speaker 1: And then how how we're like how we're whales hunted?
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: I mean physically? Like how were they hunted? If you
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: went back just pick like pick a tile. Let's let's
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: say we go.
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  Speaker 2: Back to.
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: I don't know, two hundred years ago, three hundred years ago,
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: how was a way elk caught out.
• 7:01
  Speaker 3: Of a We'd go out in a cedar dugout canoe. Okay,
• 7:05
  Speaker 3: you'd have you know, seven paddlers or so on in
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  Speaker 3: that canoe, and everyone had their own their own job.
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  Speaker 3: Someone harpooned it. Someone steered steered the canoe and and
• 7:16
  Speaker 3: then you had your paddlers and we had a The
• 7:20
  Speaker 3: harpoon was made of you would shaft, and it was
• 7:24
  Speaker 3: in three pieces, so it would come apart. You know,
• 7:27
  Speaker 3: we probably learned that the hard way, right, probably stabbed
• 7:30
  Speaker 3: a whale with a one that wasn't in three pieces,
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  Speaker 3: and that whale rolled around probably smacked the heck out
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  Speaker 3: of people.
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  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, that's a good point. Many imagine that, right, Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: So it comes apart. And the harpoon tip was made
• 7:45
  Speaker 3: of muscleshell really, yeah, muscleshell and and elk, what part
• 7:52
  Speaker 3: of the bone? I need a little help on that.
• 7:54
  Speaker 6: Yeah, like the vow the toggle close to that mic bud,
• 7:57
  Speaker 6: Oh it is the toggle.
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  Speaker 2: The Yeah, that muscleshell would be like like barbs or
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  Speaker 2: prongs embedded into that thing.
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  Speaker 4: Ah.
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  Speaker 5: Yeah.
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  Speaker 6: It was shape shaped just like a like a regular harpoon.
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  Speaker 6: I guess like broad tip.
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  Speaker 2: But but it's staying there good.
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  Speaker 6: Yeah, I would stay in there good. Yeah. And it
• 8:16
  Speaker 6: was tempered and age and and and hardened. So yeah,
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  Speaker 6: there's a lot that went into it.
• 8:22
  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
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  Speaker 1: did you get opportunities on multiple kinds of whales in
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: your ear? I know now the focus is on gray whales.
• 8:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we're going to.
• 8:35
  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
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  Speaker 1: one they wanted, or was there other kinds of whales
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  Speaker 1: that might be targeted at different times?
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  Speaker 6: Yeah, there's definitely a lot of different whales we hunted.
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  Speaker 6: Eat your big old whale, right, whales we hunted really
• 8:51
  Speaker 6: gray whales, hump backs, anything that slam pretty much. But
• 8:55
  Speaker 6: gray whales.
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  Speaker 4: Were the tastiest, is that right?
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was a preferred whale.
• 9:01
  Speaker 6: It was a preferred whale. I just I think due
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  Speaker 6: to the abundance also, and the migration patterns were near shore.
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  Speaker 6: Humpo humpbacks are a little further offshore. We did target
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  Speaker 6: those also, do you.
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  Speaker 2: Know in the like in your traditions or were a
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  Speaker 2: 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,
• 9:25
  Speaker 6: you know, into the preparation and stuff. So you know, essentially, yeah,
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  Speaker 6: you are preparing for death when you're training with the
• 9:33
  Speaker 6: you know, the guys in the canoe and it's a
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  Speaker 6: and it's a understand. I'm uh, it's the biggest creature
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  Speaker 6: on earth. Then they have they have they want to
• 9:45
  Speaker 6: live also, so they have a wild side and uh yeah,
• 9:51
  Speaker 6: it's it's it's it's pretty scary.
• 9:52
  Speaker 4: It could be dangerous, it could be very dangerous.
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: You know, you mentioned like Vegas. It's it's the thing
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: I always bring up to my kids. Is it like
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: all you know, kids are always tripped out about dinosaurs
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: and stuff.
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: But the biggest animal to ever live on earth is now? Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: you know, like a blue whale as big as it
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: seems like, you know, these like dinosaur statues and stuff
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: are is like the biggest critter is there now You're like,
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: you go see damn thing like big whales?
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: You know, yeah, what does what like what does a
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: gray whale?
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  Speaker 4: What is that? What does that thing weigh? Twenty so
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  Speaker 4: about twenty seven hundred pounds on average or so that
• 10:32
  Speaker 4: we kind of target that general area. It's about thirty
• 10:35
  Speaker 4: thousand pounds about twenty seven.
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, twenty thirty thousand pounds.
• 10:40
  Speaker 7: Yeah, it's about a ton of foot.
• 10:42
  Speaker 5: Yeah, of the length one ton per foot.
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: The main focus of our conversation is going to be
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: like the resumption of whaling.
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: Okay, and your guys fights with now you know, maybe
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: don't use the word fight. You guys negotiations with the
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: American government and others about what you're allowed to do
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: by the treaty you signed with the American government, right like,
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: and whether or not you can do it and what
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: it takes to do it.
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: But for background, walk me through, like did how did
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: whaling wind down? And when did it wind down? Like
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: when did it when did it go from being an
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  Speaker 2: annual occurrence to being a thing that faded out? What
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: was the process of it of it going away?
• 11:28
  Speaker 3: Well, in the early nineteen hundreds, you had commercial whaling
• 11:32
  Speaker 3: was really ramping up around.
• 11:33
  Speaker 4: The world, I see, right, so.
• 11:36
  Speaker 3: Our whaling, our whalers at that time were noticing it
• 11:40
  Speaker 3: was harder and harder to do our traditional hunts. So
• 11:44
  Speaker 3: in the nineteen twenties we made the decision on our
• 11:47
  Speaker 3: own to not whale anymore because they just weren't in
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: our area the way they.
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: Used to be because of the impact of the commercial whalers, right, yes,
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: like the moby Dick type dudes, right like rendering you know,
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: killing them like industrially.
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  Speaker 3: Industrially you know, the big old harpoons on the big ships.
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: Rendering all that oil and selling all that oil in
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: Massachusetts and stuff.
• 12:11
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: Yes, so that was whittling away the whale population.
• 12:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I was whittling that away. And so we stopped
• 12:19
  Speaker 3: in the late nineteen twenties. We had our last last
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: harvest before we did the one in ninety nine. And then,
• 12:25
  Speaker 3: you know, it took the world a while to catch up.
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: You know, twenty years later you get the Whaling Convention
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: Act and those agreements, those international agreements to start, you know,
• 12:38
  Speaker 3: trying to be more responsible with you know, with the
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: stocks that are around the world there.
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: And when you say it took the world a while
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: to catch up, you mean it took the world a
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: while to respond to the industrial slaughter.
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: Yes, to regulate it, to regulate like they let it
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: get it got bad. Yeah, it got bad. Yeah, I
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: mean populations were at near extinction.
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: Do you do you guys have much idea when the
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: when the disease epidemics came from Europeans, did it did
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: those diseases hit did they like hit the macaw like
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: suddenly and hard where there were where there was just
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: huge losses of people or did it? Was it with
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: you guys? Was it the slower thing that played out
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: over centuries?
• 13:27
  Speaker 3: No, it was it hit us hard. We had two
• 13:30
  Speaker 3: major smallpox epidemics in our communities, you know, one in
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: the I believe his eighteen twenties, and then another in
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: the in the late eighteen forties. Okay, took out ninety
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: percent of our population.
• 13:47
  Speaker 4: Huh.
• 13:48
  Speaker 3: And and then what was left from from that ninety
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: percent negotiated the treaty in the Abay.
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the thing, man, that's the thing. I talked
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: to people a lot about that.
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: I just don't think like a lot of Americans can't
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: picture it, you know, it can't picture that kind of loss.
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: But the only way to really get there is just
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: to try to imagine in like I don't know, pick
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: whatever town you live in, right, Like, picture that you
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: live in Toledo, Ohio, right, and then imagine that all
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: of a sudden, over the course of a couple of years,
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: of that nine out of ten of the people in Toledo,
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: Ohio die.
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: Or wherever, right, nine out of ten of them die.
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: And you look at your broader family structure, your siblings, cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents,
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: nine like if you count them all up and you go,
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: I have twenty family members.
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: Okay, eighteen are now dead. Now, come tell me about
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: your family, and come tell me about how your family functions. Right,
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: Like people cannot pick trip man, Yeah, people can't picture it.
• 15:02
  Speaker 3: No. I appreciate that because you know, when I thought
• 15:05
  Speaker 3: about that, you know, growing up and reaching the age
• 15:07
  Speaker 3: I'm at now, and what we have as a tribe,
• 15:10
  Speaker 3: and how rich we are in our language and our
• 15:12
  Speaker 3: culture and our traditions. You know that ten percent that
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: that survived that you know, gave that to us, They
• 15:19
  Speaker 3: carried that on. Yeah, I think how rich was our
• 15:23
  Speaker 3: society before that?
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: Oh that the ten ten percent remains of riches because
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: think about what gets lost. Yeah, huge things get lost, man,
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: all the history. And that's the thing is especially with
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: without now everything gets so captured, captured, written word right, captured,
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: you know, captured and banked in the internet. But like
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: all of a sudden, like eighty percent of the narratives
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: are gone, eighty percent of the well, yeah, but we
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: came from here, and your grandfather was this and right,
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: and that's all wiped. Yeah, you got and you got of.
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: Those ten you got two people will left to be like,
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: here's what I think happened, but I'm not really sure.
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: People dose sight. I mean, it's it's too hard to comprehend.
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: People flipped out during the COVID pandemic.
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, you know what I mean, like people like
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: like people in wherever, like really hard to hit places
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: like people flipping out in Manhattan because I don't know
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: what it was percentage, but like it was overwhelming the Morgues.
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: It's like, dude, that is nothing, nothing compared, nothing compared
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: to what was happened to native communities of smallpox, right,
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: you know it to to get the equivalent, you'd have
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: had to go into Manhattan and remove I don't know,
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: ten million people in Manhattan and you'd be like, that
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: would be that would give you an idea? What will
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: That'll give you an idea? What went on? Sure, it's staggering.
• 16:41
  Speaker 4: So I'm sorry. Even even with those diseases we we
• 16:45
  Speaker 4: as MCAU, we did we did a really good job
• 16:47
  Speaker 4: at avoiding them for quite a while because we would
• 16:50
  Speaker 4: catch wind of it depending on where it was, and
• 16:53
  Speaker 4: we would keep people out of certain areas and we'd
• 16:55
  Speaker 4: steer clear of certain areas.
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: And was that right?
• 16:57
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and like tour just you know, eighteen the eighteen
• 17:04
  Speaker 4: fifties is when Ted Stevens actually caught wind of you know,
• 17:07
  Speaker 4: the the causer hit hard right now, smallpox hit him,
• 17:10
  Speaker 4: and that's kind of when he's like, let's let's go
• 17:12
  Speaker 4: get this treaty. That's kind of when he came out.
• 17:15
  Speaker 4: And you can even see in the notes that even
• 17:18
  Speaker 4: a year ago we weren't the big chiefs. We wouldn't
• 17:22
  Speaker 4: have been the one signing that we're here now. And
• 17:24
  Speaker 4: there was a lot of sadness in the notes because
• 17:26
  Speaker 4: they've lost so many of their family and loved ones.
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: Oh was that right?
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: That's that's instant, because that dude ain't a lot of
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: treaties in the Pacific Northwest Stevens did.
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: He kind of made like a big run man, so.
• 17:38
  Speaker 4: He knew he couldn't take us when we were full
• 17:40
  Speaker 4: forcing him before disease hit us. But he's like, oh,
• 17:44
  Speaker 4: he caught wind, and he's like, you know, it's probably
• 17:46
  Speaker 4: a good time going to negotiate.
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: Huh. These guys are in a weakened position. Yeah, militarily.
• 17:54
  Speaker 4: Yeah, And even with the during the COVID like we
• 17:58
  Speaker 4: avoided you know, we lucked down the reservation. He was
• 18:02
  Speaker 4: the chairman, needed a really good job. He kept we
• 18:05
  Speaker 4: avoided a case for sure. He didn't. How long was
• 18:09
  Speaker 4: it until there was finally one?
• 18:10
  Speaker 3: And in the reservations it was about three four months that.
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: You guys held out for that long without any infections.
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, we didn't. No loss of life.
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: There's you know, as you know, well we have maybe
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: seven reservations in Montana, five or seven, and during the pandemic,
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: you know, there was you'd go down to the Chimerical
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: was Northern Cheyenne or the Crow Reservation. There's basically signs
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: like don't stop on the highway passing through. And I
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: was like, you know, to my kids, I was like, man,
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: you gotta understand the history here of like pandemics. That
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: means something totally different, That means something totally different Native
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: communities man, because they got a fresh memory of that stuff,
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: you know, right.
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: After.
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: So well, let me ask about that. The quitting whaling
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: was it would you describe it more like more like
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: it just wasn't worth it and it faded or was
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: it a formal decision to quit?
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: It was a formal decision, you know, like I mentioned
• 19:16
  Speaker 3: in the introduction, it defined our societal structure. Yeah, and
• 19:22
  Speaker 3: we still have that reverence for it today. It's that important.
• 19:26
  Speaker 3: That's why you know, we went seventy years between a
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: harvest and kept that knowledge and you know that how too,
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: and how we pass that on, made that available to
• 19:41
  Speaker 3: people so we could carry that on through all those
• 19:44
  Speaker 3: generations that span that seventy years.
• 19:48
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 19:49
  Speaker 3: Yeah, like my lifetime, I would have loved to be
• 19:51
  Speaker 3: a whaler. You know, I'm fifty four now, you know
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: it's not likely in the cards for me.
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: But oh is that right? Yeah, well we'll talk about that.
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: So, so almost a century later. So if you imagine that
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: the Macaw quit whaling in let's say nineteen twenty that
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: that's close.
• 20:13
  Speaker 3: At twenty I don't know, it's like twenty seven, okay, nineteen.
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: Twenty seven, and then fast forward up to the lead
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: up to the to the next whale that was harvested
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: by your your tribe, and that whale was harvested.
• 20:28
  Speaker 3: What you're nineteen ninety nine.
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: Ninety nine, Walk me through the years prior to ninety nine,
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: like what needed to happen?
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: Because when you quit, when you guys quit, you quit
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: because you decided to quit.
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: But you weren't at liberty to decide to start, right,
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: I mean a lot happened right right. You could just
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: be like, hey, we're going out.
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well because this whole world had been built up
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: around in mammals, right, this whole protection world. So what
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: did that look like to to say like, hey man,
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: we're going to go We're going to resume our treaty rights.
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: There's enough whales now we're going to go whaling. Like
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: who do you pick up the phone? You know, I
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: mean like who do you call?
• 21:15
  Speaker 3: Right?
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: When do you want to go get a whale?
• 21:17
  Speaker 3: Well, I mean for for tribal nations are our first call.
• 21:21
  Speaker 3: You know. Our main contact in the federal government is
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: Department of Interior I BUA Indian Affairs. Yeah, you know,
• 21:27
  Speaker 3: so it's their responsibility to advocate for those rights for us.
• 21:32
  Speaker 3: In the federal government there are trustee is what we say.
• 21:37
  Speaker 3: And and then from Interior, you know, the whaling falls
• 21:41
  Speaker 3: under Department of Commerce, so you know through Noah Nation
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: Marine Fisheries and and those regulations. You know, we're set up,
• 21:48
  Speaker 3: you know by different federal acts like the Marine Mammal
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: Protection Act. So in seventy two that Marine Mammal Protection
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: Act was passed and the gray whales were listed, you know,
• 21:58
  Speaker 3: as an endangered species as well. You know, the ESA
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: comes into play. And so when in the nineties, when
• 22:08
  Speaker 3: the population was recovering so well, you know you're getting
• 22:12
  Speaker 3: some pretty high you know, at least record numbers in
• 22:17
  Speaker 3: in our lifetime, you know, near thirty thousand whales in
• 22:22
  Speaker 3: the nineties, and and so it was proposed to be delisted.
• 22:26
  Speaker 3: You know that that was the trigger for us. That's
• 22:28
  Speaker 3: what did it. Yes, I got chah. The dlisting of
• 22:30
  Speaker 3: the eastern North Pacific grey whale population was our trigger
• 22:35
  Speaker 3: to resume I see our treaty.
• 22:38
  Speaker 4: Right, got it?
• 22:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah?
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: But why this is probably ultra complicated question.
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: If you have an agreement, as if you have an
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: agreement as a sovereign nation, you have agreement with the government, right,
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: and you have certain levels of autonomy.
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: Would it have like.
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: Were you be were you guys being nice by bringing
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: it up? Like why couldn't it be the just one
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: day you just went and did it.
• 23:09
  Speaker 3: No, you're you're right on that. That was a discussion
• 23:11
  Speaker 3: of leadership at that time.
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: Actually, Daniel's father and my older brother, you know, he
• 23:18
  Speaker 3: was He was part of those discussions as as well
• 23:21
  Speaker 3: as his grandfatherly Ben Johnson, the former chairman. Internal discussions,
• 23:25
  Speaker 3: internal discussions about that, you know, should what prevents us
• 23:30
  Speaker 3: from just going It's in our treaty, it's not listed,
• 23:34
  Speaker 3: you know, but yeah, we I would say, we were
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: being nice and we you know, we met with the
• 23:39
  Speaker 3: federal government and you know, the federal government has these
• 23:43
  Speaker 3: international agreements in place, right they they work with the
• 23:46
  Speaker 3: International Whaling Commission, they're a member of it, and so
• 23:52
  Speaker 3: they wanted us to be a part of that process,
• 23:54
  Speaker 3: like the Alaskan Eskimos on the North Slope.
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 23:58
  Speaker 3: So so we we agreed to do that. You know,
• 24:01
  Speaker 3: we went and advocated for a quota, worked with the
• 24:06
  Speaker 3: Alaskan Eskimos and the Chacokins in Russia to get an
• 24:10
  Speaker 3: aboriginal subsistence whaling quota through the International Whaling Commission. And
• 24:14
  Speaker 3: what kind of quote are you looking for? One, Well,
• 24:16
  Speaker 3: they do it over over multiple years.
• 24:19
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 24:20
  Speaker 3: So it was like at that time, it was it
• 24:23
  Speaker 3: was up to five whales in any given year over
• 24:26
  Speaker 3: a like a five six year period.
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, and you guys hit enormous resistance.
• 24:33
  Speaker 3: Absolutely, yes, where.
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: In that first go around back in the nineties, was
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: was the was government resistance or social resistance?
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: There was strongest.
• 24:48
  Speaker 3: I think the social resistance was strongest. But that translates
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: into government resistance, right you know, I see, Yeah, you know,
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: things get you know, where's the political temperature of my
• 24:58
  Speaker 3: constituents if you're politician in d C. And how much
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: do I want to support this issue? Right, so those
• 25:06
  Speaker 3: things come into play. But it was pretty bad for
• 25:12
  Speaker 3: you know, these guys when they were when they were
• 25:14
  Speaker 3: younger in school, you know, there were our community was
• 25:18
  Speaker 3: getting threatened, you know, physically threatened, bomb threats in our
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: in our school by who though you know that there
• 25:26
  Speaker 3: were it's mainly your animal welfare groups.
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So the but as I'm saying, so the organizations
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: were doing this, was it like like Greenpeace or what
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: were the organizations that were coming after or was it
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: just like crack pot individuals.
• 25:40
  Speaker 3: There was a lot of crackpot individuals. But there was
• 25:43
  Speaker 3: one organization, Sea Shepherd Society. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that
• 25:47
  Speaker 3: that was the main one that that you know, they're
• 25:51
  Speaker 3: they're very aggressive and and you know they'd send their
• 25:54
  Speaker 3: ships into our harbor that we have and get on
• 25:57
  Speaker 3: the loud speaker and you know, just start putting insults
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: out there to our community, which really yeah, yeah, we
• 26:05
  Speaker 3: had to get a federal restraining order on them and
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: did you really and the coast Guard enforced that and
• 26:12
  Speaker 3: eventually kept them away. But yeah, it wasn't good for
• 26:15
  Speaker 3: a while.
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: They were coming into your bay, into your harbor. Yes,
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: in a in a ship, I mean obviously, yes, huh.
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: And you guys, you guys. Never you guys. It didn't
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: ever blow into like fistfights and brawls and stuff.
• 26:31
  Speaker 3: Now that there was some very very close I guess
• 26:36
  Speaker 3: encounters there was. There might have been some rock throwing
• 26:39
  Speaker 3: and things of that nature. The community got fed up
• 26:42
  Speaker 3: with them, right, Yeah.
• 26:43
  Speaker 6: So.
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: Within your community in the nineties, was there division around
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: the idea of resuming whaling or was it pretty much
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: unanimous within within the Macaw?
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: Was it like, this is.
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: Our right, this is what we're going to go do
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: the population is strong enough to support limited harvest or
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: was it a fight amongst you guys.
• 27:09
  Speaker 3: No, it was. It was heavily supported. Okay, I mean,
• 27:13
  Speaker 3: we have a need statement, you know, eighty I think
• 27:17
  Speaker 3: in the nineties it was like eighty four eighty five
• 27:20
  Speaker 3: percent of the community wants to go back and do that.
• 27:22
  Speaker 4: So overwhelming overwhelming.
• 27:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah, in our need statements we've done, we have to
• 27:28
  Speaker 3: do those for international whaling quota that we get and
• 27:32
  Speaker 3: that's just gone up since then. But you know that
• 27:35
  Speaker 3: there were people that didn't want to go back to it,
• 27:37
  Speaker 3: and we just worked through that.
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: Did you. I mean that turned in I followed that
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: whole thing.
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: I forgot a lot of the details now, but I
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: remember being very interested in it, and it turned into
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: I mean, it turned into a media spectacle. It like
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: everybody had an opinion about it, right, It kind of
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: like maybe not for you guys, but for the in
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: the normal. In the normal, like if you're just a
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: dude that followed the news, the main thing that was
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: reported was like was the social fight, Right, It became
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: a news story about this this dispute that seemed to
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: over probably maybe not from your community, but that seemed
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: to the coverage of of the argument overshadowed any conversation.
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: About you know, how many whales are there? What is
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: your treaty? Right? It just it became like the story
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: became the dispute.
• 28:39
  Speaker 3: No, it certainly did. Yeah, it certainly did. I think
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: you know, our local media which is out of Seattle,
• 28:47
  Speaker 3: you know, those those stations, you know, they they covered it.
• 28:53
  Speaker 3: Were they supported then I wouldn't say they were generally supportive,
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: you know, I mean they were looking to get the story.
• 29:02
  Speaker 3: They you know, they would go get on the ship
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: with with Paul Watson and on his whatever the heck
• 29:10
  Speaker 3: is cea Shepherd boat.
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: Well they would cover it from that angle.
• 29:12
  Speaker 3: They covered it from that angle as well, and and that,
• 29:15
  Speaker 3: you know, that didn't sit well with us. You know,
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: it's it's like, how how can we build trust and
• 29:20
  Speaker 3: know and think we're going to get a fair shake
• 29:23
  Speaker 3: in the media if you know, if we have those
• 29:25
  Speaker 3: things going on?
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: That was Yeah, but you guys, then you got it.
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: You got a whale.
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: When you went out to get a whale after this
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: hundred year break and whaling, you went out to get
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: a whale. Did you launch out and go get a
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: whale because you got all your paperwork in order? Or
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: did that become a point when you just went for
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: it or did you have like your little permits and
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: ship all printed out? You know, I mean, like what
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: what what ultimately happened?
• 29:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah? Well we we did uh, you know, agree on
• 29:59
  Speaker 3: on doing a permit system with with the federal government
• 30:03
  Speaker 3: at that time, and we'd have a permit issued, you know,
• 30:08
  Speaker 3: for a hunt period and you know we wouldn't give
• 30:10
  Speaker 3: specifics on a date and time, right, but it's like, hey,
• 30:13
  Speaker 3: we're gonna there's a permit covers covers this amount of
• 30:19
  Speaker 3: time and and then you know that permit would be
• 30:24
  Speaker 3: issued by the government and then we'd issue our own
• 30:27
  Speaker 3: permit to our whaling crew to go go do the hunt.
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: So you could keep a little bit secret like when
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: this was going.
• 30:35
  Speaker 4: To go down.
• 30:36
  Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, for their safety. Yeah, for their safe sure man,
• 30:40
  Speaker 3: because it was Yeah, I mean you may have seen
• 30:44
  Speaker 3: the video of our whalers being charged by yeah activists
• 30:51
  Speaker 3: out there on the water on jet skis, you know,
• 30:53
  Speaker 3: gonna looking like they're going to ram them, and you
• 30:55
  Speaker 3: know the coast guard took them out before they took
• 30:58
  Speaker 3: our canoe out.
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because they were just waiting.
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: Yes, So walk me through that day, Walk me through
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: that day, Like how did that hunt day go down?
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: I mean, like let's forget, let's forget for a minute
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: the jet skiers and the protesters and whatnot, but like, like,
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: how did the day play out just from a hunter's perspective,
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: from a hunting a whaling perspective, what happened that day?
• 31:25
  Speaker 3: But you know, Daniel, you want to go through.
• 31:26
  Speaker 6: That or yeah, So I guess that the day before,
• 31:31
  Speaker 6: I think they had a lot of success on approaches
• 31:35
  Speaker 6: and so.
• 31:37
  Speaker 4: It was.
• 31:40
  Speaker 6: Pretty well known that they were going to get it.
• 31:41
  Speaker 6: That next day. I think all the stars were aligning.
• 31:44
  Speaker 6: All the prayer, training, everything, you know, came came together
• 31:48
  Speaker 6: that day and it was kind of a a feeling
• 31:50
  Speaker 6: that that everyone had. And so they're getting they're getting
• 31:54
  Speaker 6: it down right. The approaches, the studying of the whales,
• 31:58
  Speaker 6: the watching the feeding currents.
• 32:02
  Speaker 4: And got it.
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: And we say approaches mean just getting the boat up
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: to it, like how to approach, how to approach?
• 32:07
  Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, yeah, all the teachings are coming coming together.
• 32:11
  Speaker 6: I'm on the water was paying off and so yeah,
• 32:14
  Speaker 6: it was. It was a magical moment when they harpooned
• 32:16
  Speaker 6: the whale. It's ingrained in every Macau's mind. I think
• 32:21
  Speaker 6: that day.
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: At what at what distance to day, like, like how
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: close do you have to approach that whale?
• 32:29
  Speaker 3: You get to be pretty close pretty much right on
• 32:31
  Speaker 3: top of it.
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, because you know, you don't normally, you know,
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: we spend a lot of time in southeast lastas are
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: as whales around.
• 32:39
  Speaker 6: Yeah, you don't.
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: You don't wind up right on top of them. No,
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: like you know, they they gotta they know what's going on,
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: you know, I mean they don't.
• 32:48
  Speaker 4: You know.
• 32:48
  Speaker 6: Yep, you're watching studying them, just like like you watch
• 32:51
  Speaker 6: Elk and study Elk eating habits. You're watching the currents
• 32:54
  Speaker 6: and and you're knowing where to position yourself, you know,
• 32:57
  Speaker 6: to have a successful strike.
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: So so you're trying to you're trying to when it
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: goes down, I imagine you're trying to anticipate where it's
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: gonna come.
• 33:05
  Speaker 6: Up, where it's gonna come up. And then you're watching
• 33:07
  Speaker 6: it's breathing. I mean, there's a there's a lot of
• 33:09
  Speaker 6: different techniques that go into it. They're up at the
• 33:12
  Speaker 6: surface for X amount of time and I got before
• 33:15
  Speaker 6: they go under and then yeah, you never do when
• 33:17
  Speaker 6: they're feeding. You never know where they're gonna come up again.
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: And the approach, I'm guessing the approach has got to
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: be like on its sixth position, like you're coming from
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: behind it.
• 33:29
  Speaker 6: There's a couple of different ways too. Yes, that is
• 33:32
  Speaker 6: one of them. Yeah, you don't want them to you know,
• 33:37
  Speaker 6: tail swap you something.
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I got it. Yeah. So when they got
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: they hand harpooned it.
• 33:46
  Speaker 6: Hand harpooned it.
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: Yes, And how did you guys make the how did
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: you guys build your harpoon?
• 33:52
  Speaker 4: Like what what? What did you do?
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: What kind of thought did you put into that?
• 33:55
  Speaker 6: It was the traditional harpoon. So all those techniques are
• 33:59
  Speaker 6: passed down generations. So we quit whaling in the nineteen twenties,
• 34:02
  Speaker 6: but we never quit teaching about it. So the importance
• 34:06
  Speaker 6: of it, like you said, is the pinnacle of our society.
• 34:08
  Speaker 6: So you know, we held onto those teachings.
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: Did did people hold on to some of the equipment.
• 34:14
  Speaker 6: The equipment also?
• 34:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah?
• 34:15
  Speaker 6: So yeah we do really yeah, so we have equipment
• 34:18
  Speaker 6: from a long time ago.
• 34:19
  Speaker 4: Do you really?
• 34:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah?
• 34:20
  Speaker 6: And his family had their own so oh is that right?
• 34:23
  Speaker 4: Okay?
• 34:23
  Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, along with you know, ceiling and you know other.
• 34:30
  Speaker 3: Mammals.
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: So they they got a harpoon into it and it's
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: got a detachable head on it or somehow it's connected
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: to the line.
• 34:38
  Speaker 6: The first piece yeah, yeah, or the valve whatever you
• 34:41
  Speaker 6: call it.
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: That gets into it, and then there's a float system.
• 34:46
  Speaker 6: Yep, so it starts paying out. And then there's a
• 34:49
  Speaker 6: bully tender that's sitting to the right of the harpooner
• 34:51
  Speaker 6: and he's clipping on bullies while they're slowing down. You
• 34:54
  Speaker 6: have to be one. The care has being unison so
• 34:57
  Speaker 6: to turn the canoe into the right direction and get
• 34:59
  Speaker 6: heading forwards. The line don't pay out, you know, too fast.
• 35:02
  Speaker 6: You have a line tender buoy tender.
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: How much line.
• 35:07
  Speaker 6: It depends about, you know, two hundred and seventy feet
• 35:09
  Speaker 6: or so.
• 35:09
  Speaker 3: Or more, and you're clipping booies on as it goes,
• 35:12
  Speaker 3: clipping bullies as it goes. Yeah.
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: Is that thing at risk of sinking? Definitely? Yeah, So
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: the more bullies are better. So it's not just to
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: slow it down, but to keep it from sink. Keep
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: it from sinking. Yes, got it should.
• 35:24
  Speaker 5: Chat about the seal skin float system.
• 35:28
  Speaker 6: Oh yeah, the old floats were made out of seal skins.
• 35:31
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 35:32
  Speaker 6: They were skinned in such a way where you could
• 35:34
  Speaker 6: turn them inside out and inflate them.
• 35:37
  Speaker 3: Huh.
• 35:38
  Speaker 6: Yeah, they're big, you know, big floats. Some of them
• 35:40
  Speaker 6: were you know, six feet or more.
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: And when this was happening, there's how many people are
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: observing this the actual hunt?
• 35:51
  Speaker 6: Yeah, the ninety nine hunt or the ninety nine hunt. Oh,
• 35:54
  Speaker 6: there is hundreds of people, you know, outside the zone.
• 35:57
  Speaker 6: The close guard set a zone for.
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: They said a perimeter, so your people could be in
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: the perimeter, but other people had to stay out of
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: the perimeter.
• 36:05
  Speaker 6: Our canoe and our our chase boat.
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: So how far was it? How far? How far out
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: to see are you?
• 36:13
  Speaker 4: And this has happened?
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: Like how far from your how far from your reservation
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: are you our?
• 36:17
  Speaker 6: You know, they migrate past our front door? So so
• 36:19
  Speaker 6: you just want close to home. We hind close to home. Yeah,
• 36:22
  Speaker 6: we can also hunt, you know, out further. I see
• 36:24
  Speaker 6: if we're going after different if we went after a
• 36:26
  Speaker 6: different species, So.
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: Okay, and you're and you're not, do they draw like
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: does the government draw a line and say these waters
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: are okay?
• 36:39
  Speaker 6: They did do a restricted zone right.
• 36:43
  Speaker 3: To harvest a whale in Yeah?
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Like let's say you wanted to take off, like
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: you you would never go take off and be like,
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: oh hey.
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: We're gonna go whale up. We're gonna go whale up
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: in Alaska and try that out right? They had they
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: had to specify in some way where you can go.
• 36:57
  Speaker 3: Well that that's a really really great question, and I
• 37:01
  Speaker 3: got a couple answers for that. Actually there's so for
• 37:04
  Speaker 3: that ninety nine hunt, Yes, there was a defined hunt area.
• 37:08
  Speaker 3: We agreed to stay out of the straight a Wana
• 37:10
  Speaker 3: Fuca and just on the Pacific Ocean, the tribe has
• 37:14
  Speaker 3: a usual and accustom fishing area that's adjudicated that went
• 37:18
  Speaker 3: to the Supreme.
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: Court from that Stephens treaty.
• 37:20
  Speaker 3: From that Stephens treaty, So we have a defined area,
• 37:25
  Speaker 3: but that's only for fishing. We do not have a
• 37:28
  Speaker 3: defined area for whaling. And the court was very specific
• 37:32
  Speaker 3: about that because we in that court case, we brought
• 37:36
  Speaker 3: forward our whaling and sealing activities as part of that
• 37:40
  Speaker 3: and the government said, we're here to just talk about fishing.
• 37:44
  Speaker 3: You're usual in a customed fishing area. We acknowledge that
• 37:48
  Speaker 3: you you've gone eighty to one hundred miles off shore
• 37:52
  Speaker 3: for whaling, but we're not going to allow that evidence
• 37:55
  Speaker 3: as part of that case.
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: Why did they want to punt on that question, Well.
• 38:01
  Speaker 3: I think it's a limit to limit us.
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: Really, it's because they're like, let's talk about the local stuff.
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: Let's not talk about the far out stuff. Yeah, because
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: they wanted they wanted to shrink that zone.
• 38:14
  Speaker 3: They wanted to put us in a box. Because before
• 38:16
  Speaker 3: that case, Macaw people we fished from California all the
• 38:23
  Speaker 3: way up to the Burying Sea under okay, under our treaty,
• 38:28
  Speaker 3: you know, like.
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: People just take off and go on see sea journeys,
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: I'm imagined.
• 38:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and now we're put in a box.
• 38:37
  Speaker 4: I got you.
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: But they never fixed the whaling box.
• 38:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah, there's no whaling box right now.
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: So when ninety nine and they made a whaling box,
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: they didn't. It wasn't as big as the fishing box, no, huh.
• 38:50
  Speaker 3: And in our current permit, yeah, you know, we we
• 38:53
  Speaker 3: have an agreed upon area as well, which is essentially
• 38:57
  Speaker 3: on the Pacific Ocean, you know, out outside of the
• 39:01
  Speaker 3: Straight of Wanda Fuca. And and then you know, there's
• 39:04
  Speaker 3: a National Marine Sanctuary that's out there now, so there's
• 39:09
  Speaker 3: areas of other marine mammals, you know, haul out areas
• 39:12
  Speaker 3: for seals and sea lions and things like that that
• 39:15
  Speaker 3: we you know, we agree to transit in a responsible
• 39:20
  Speaker 3: manner while we're hunting, you.
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: Know, so you've agreed to stay out of the sanctuaries.
• 39:24
  Speaker 3: Not not out of the sanctuary, out out of it.
• 39:26
  Speaker 3: Got no, No, the sanctuaries is within our waters, gotcha. Yeah,
• 39:30
  Speaker 3: so we we fish and exercise our treaty in the sanctuary.
• 39:34
  Speaker 4: Got it.
• 39:34
  Speaker 3: And they're there. They've been a good partner and they
• 39:37
  Speaker 3: support that.
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: Oh okay, Yeah, the ninety nine hunt happens. It's now
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: twenty twenty six. What why was there not a two
• 39:53
  Speaker 2: thousand hunt, a two thousand and one hunt, two thousand
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: and two hunt, like what happened?
• 39:57
  Speaker 3: There was? And you Daniel can there wasn't we talk
• 40:02
  Speaker 3: about those those hunts. But in in two thousand and two,
• 40:08
  Speaker 3: you know, I believe there was an injunction put on
• 40:11
  Speaker 3: our whaling. Yeah, the federal government was sued over there.
• 40:17
  Speaker 3: You know how they put together the NIPA for our
• 40:19
  Speaker 3: whale hunt and that they didn't didn't do a thorough job.
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: And that was so that was in two thousand and
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: two that they came in and said they blocked it
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: or something correct. Yeah, but did you got did you
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: guys have the desire to continue? Like would you have
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: continued if that injunction hadn't happened? Was the desire there
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: that you do an annual whale hunt. Absolutely, why did
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: you pay attention to that? I'm not criticized, but like
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: when the injunction came, what was the decision to abide
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: by it?
• 40:54
  Speaker 3: Rule law?
• 40:55
  Speaker 6: You know?
• 40:55
  Speaker 3: Okay, it's it's a you know, I think we our
• 41:00
  Speaker 3: our leadership and our MACCAP people, you know, believe in that.
• 41:03
  Speaker 3: You know, we have our own laws that we pass
• 41:07
  Speaker 3: as well around those and things I got, yeah, things
• 41:11
  Speaker 3: that we agree to. And so it's I don't know
• 41:17
  Speaker 3: that whole That's why I can get into that more
• 41:20
  Speaker 3: if you want. But I mean there there's really a
• 41:23
  Speaker 3: lot to say around around that.
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: You mean, around internal debates about how do we negotiate
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: and engage with the government. Yeah, I mean, we don't
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: need to spend tons of time on it.
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: But you've you've exercised where you've generally been. I mean,
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: I know this, but you've generally been trying to.
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: Work within the constraints of the regulatory bodies in the
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: federal government, right and haven't stepped outside of that, Like,
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: haven't gone the vigilanti wouldn't be the right word, but
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: haven't gone your own way on it?
• 41:57
  Speaker 3: Well, you know, we we did have we had a
• 42:01
  Speaker 3: group of Macaws that got frustrated with the process at
• 42:04
  Speaker 3: one point. Yeah, but you know, so in two thousand
• 42:09
  Speaker 3: and two, you know, I think there was an injunction
• 42:13
  Speaker 3: and court case Anderson Verse Even's court case that took place,
• 42:18
  Speaker 3: and you know that basically that case basically decided that
• 42:25
  Speaker 3: the Marine Mammal Protection Act applies to the Macaw tribe,
• 42:29
  Speaker 3: which we to this day we disagree with that. You know,
• 42:31
  Speaker 3: we think we don't think that's a correct ruling, but
• 42:35
  Speaker 3: we're stuck with it. And so under the Marine Mammal
• 42:40
  Speaker 3: Protection Act, it requires you to get a waiver to
• 42:45
  Speaker 3: take a marine mammal in our case, whaling, and then
• 42:50
  Speaker 3: after a waiver, the government has to issue a permit.
• 42:53
  Speaker 3: So in two thousand and four we submitted documents to
• 42:58
  Speaker 3: start that application process for a waiver under the remount
• 43:02
  Speaker 3: of Protection Act, and we've been in that process ever since.
• 43:05
  Speaker 4: Got it, Yeah, got it.
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: In the meantime, have gray whales stayed off thet We're
• 43:13
  Speaker 2: grey whales delisted and stayed off the list. Yes, yes,
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: so no one's put them back on the endangered species list.
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: Can you guys explain to me I wasn't even ware
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: of this till Nate told me, you guys get gray
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: whales from ship strikes, you'll you'll take Is this true
• 43:36
  Speaker 2: that you'll take possession of gray whales that are that
• 43:38
  Speaker 2: are killed and from from getting hit by boats or
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: tangled in nets.
• 43:42
  Speaker 3: Or something like that. Yes, yes, we have.
• 43:45
  Speaker 2: How does that play out?
• 43:47
  Speaker 3: We have a process with National Marine Fisheries too, you know,
• 43:52
  Speaker 3: to obtain those for our use. You know, we basically
• 43:55
  Speaker 3: submit a request for this incidental take, you know, because
• 43:58
  Speaker 3: of whatever that morey event was, whether it's a ship
• 44:02
  Speaker 3: strike or some entanglement or and and then we have
• 44:07
  Speaker 3: our own marine mammal biologists that that works with the
• 44:09
  Speaker 3: tribe as well. So when that happens, you know, we
• 44:14
  Speaker 3: decide if we want to utilize that whale, and you know,
• 44:18
  Speaker 3: and then we tow it to our shores, and you know,
• 44:20
  Speaker 3: we check the health of it, see how fresh it is,
• 44:23
  Speaker 3: is it is it Is it something that's that's fresh enough?
• 44:26
  Speaker 3: Is the whale healthy?
• 44:27
  Speaker 2: You know?
• 44:27
  Speaker 3: Is it something that we can you know, harvest the
• 44:30
  Speaker 3: blubber and the meat for for consumption or you know,
• 44:36
  Speaker 3: or do we you know, just butcher it up and
• 44:38
  Speaker 3: utilize some of the other parts, Whether it's the bones,
• 44:41
  Speaker 3: the vertebrae. You know, Balen, you.
• 44:44
  Speaker 2: Know that that And is it your job to go
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: fetch it?
• 44:48
  Speaker 3: Yes, not mine specifically, but but yeah, but the macaw people.
• 44:52
  Speaker 2: Right, So how does it? How does it? Because this
• 44:54
  Speaker 2: has to happen fast, right, So how does it come
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: to you? You know, let's say a cruise sh it's
• 45:00
  Speaker 2: a whale, right, bam, they hit a whale. It's crippled, dying,
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: Like the phone rings, like like, how does this play out?
• 45:10
  Speaker 3: Just like that? It does?
• 45:11
  Speaker 2: Get the phone, someone calls, someone calls.
• 45:13
  Speaker 3: You know, people know that might cause or whalers in
• 45:16
  Speaker 3: that area. And you know, there's a whole reporting system
• 45:20
  Speaker 3: for those sort of things. So when those reports happen,
• 45:23
  Speaker 3: you know, sometimes that call comes from a federal government
• 45:27
  Speaker 3: official say hey, we got this report. Yeah there's this
• 45:30
  Speaker 3: whale located off a Tattoosh Island or wherever, and so
• 45:36
  Speaker 3: we go check it out.
• 45:37
  Speaker 4: Got it?
• 45:38
  Speaker 2: You send your own boats out and your own agency
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: guys or whatever out and check it out.
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you know what I saw a long time ago.
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: Have you ever heard of you know, cook in let
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: and turning an arm in Alaska? So we're way up
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: turning an arm going salmon fishing, and that thing gets
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: flooded on these huge tide swings and blue gas coming
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: there when the salmon are running, bluegas come up into
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: this long I know, it's like a like an arm,
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: like a fjord kind of thing, and it's at low tide,
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: it's a mudflat for the most part.
• 46:16
  Speaker 2: Now high tide it's enough water for a blue whale.
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: We're way up in that arm, twenty miles up in
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: that arm because it's a twenty mile river, and there's
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: these bluegas in there, and we're talking about, me and
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: my brother talking about how.
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: Do they get out of there.
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: We're like, they must have a channel or something that
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: we can't see, and we just go.
• 46:39
  Speaker 2: About our business fishing.
• 46:42
  Speaker 4: Well.
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: The next day in the newspaper is that those whales
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: that we are commenting on, like wondering how they're going
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: to get out of that little pool they're in, are dead.
• 46:53
  Speaker 2: And it was and I don't know what tribe did it,
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: but they, I mean they rushed out there and got
• 46:59
  Speaker 2: all butchered and hauled out of there like quick, you know.
• 47:03
  Speaker 2: And I always remember being kind of impressed by that,
• 47:05
  Speaker 2: like what a haul that was, you know, but just
• 47:08
  Speaker 2: utilize them all when you think they normally lay there
• 47:10
  Speaker 2: and rot.
• 47:11
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we we try to utilize everything on that whale.
• 47:16
  Speaker 3: And when those unfortunate things happen, Yeah, don't want those
• 47:21
  Speaker 3: things to go to waste if we we can get
• 47:24
  Speaker 3: them in time.
• 47:25
  Speaker 2: How is it divided up like something like that happens.
• 47:27
  Speaker 2: I mean it's a huge hall food. Let's say you
• 47:29
  Speaker 2: get one, it's like uber like megafresh, or you kill
• 47:32
  Speaker 2: one and it's real fresh. Do you and you're view,
• 47:35
  Speaker 2: does every.
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: Macaw have a right to some of it? Anyone that
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: wants it has a right to it? Or does it
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: play out differently?
• 47:43
  Speaker 6: I think eventually Yeah, we'd like to be that. I
• 47:46
  Speaker 6: mean there's harpooner usually has you know, can can get
• 47:52
  Speaker 6: what he wants. But yeah, it gets divided amongst uh
• 47:56
  Speaker 6: the crew, and then that goes to their family.
• 48:00
  Speaker 4: So I see, Yeah.
• 48:01
  Speaker 2: What's the most coveted part.
• 48:04
  Speaker 6: There's parts that we do ceremonies with. Oh it's the
• 48:07
  Speaker 6: most coveted.
• 48:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, guy, But what about just for regular everyday consumption?
• 48:11
  Speaker 2: What part is the best.
• 48:12
  Speaker 6: My favorites of skin and blubber. I absolutely love that.
• 48:16
  Speaker 6: Ye taste like the ocean.
• 48:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I've had some. I've had some of that.
• 48:21
  Speaker 6: It's amazing. It's that's you can't beat that in my book. No,
• 48:24
  Speaker 6: these guys might have.
• 48:26
  Speaker 2: That's one thing you can imagine, like.
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: Picture like sushi restaurants, like high end sushi restaurants and stuff,
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: or people want to try interesting things. That item when
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: they you know, like cut it with it's like almost
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: like that French fry shape with a little bit of
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: skin on it. That item would be the most popular
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: thing in the world if people got turned onto that.
• 48:46
  Speaker 2: It was amazing. We ate some right here?
• 48:49
  Speaker 6: Oh nice? Okay, yeah, no, it's good stuff.
• 48:52
  Speaker 2: What about the meat, the actual meat?
• 48:54
  Speaker 6: Yeah, like the meat too.
• 48:56
  Speaker 4: I mean it.
• 49:02
  Speaker 6: Tastes now seal. I mean it's it's got its own taste.
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: But I mean, like put it like with stuff that
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: I'd be familiar with or can't you even.
• 49:11
  Speaker 6: Draw can't draw comparison.
• 49:13
  Speaker 2: I got it's just it's just different.
• 49:14
  Speaker 5: It's like ocean elk. Yeah, super, it's super lean. The
• 49:18
  Speaker 5: meat itself is super lean. It's super there's a lot
• 49:20
  Speaker 5: of blood in it. Okay, but dark, Yeah, it's real dark.
• 49:24
  Speaker 5: You can throw it on a smoker, you can fry
• 49:27
  Speaker 5: it up like a steak you can do you could
• 49:29
  Speaker 5: braise it.
• 49:30
  Speaker 2: I mean, there's what what parts.
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: Like I'm just imagine it's not like flaying a fish,
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: like like you're what would be like how do you
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: describe the parts of it?
• 49:42
  Speaker 2: You know, Like let's say you're doing the elk, you'd
• 49:43
  Speaker 2: be the cave.
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: We got the backstraps, do you know what I mean?
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: You got your grind pile, you got your ribs, you
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: know what I mean? Like when you're doing a whale.
• 49:50
  Speaker 2: Is it that there's parts that are good for this,
• 49:52
  Speaker 2: parts that are good for that?
• 49:54
  Speaker 5: I mean, I think you separate naturally, separate in the blubber.
• 49:57
  Speaker 5: You have your blubbering skin, and then you have your meat.
• 50:00
  Speaker 5: And so you kind of think of it as like
• 50:02
  Speaker 5: a if you've seen some of the pictures from ninety
• 50:04
  Speaker 5: nine or some of the other things where they're butchering
• 50:07
  Speaker 5: in sections, yep, and you get it.
• 50:09
  Speaker 4: You know, you take the.
• 50:09
  Speaker 5: Section and and you kind of have this big blob
• 50:12
  Speaker 5: of meat that has a ton of blobber. It's a
• 50:15
  Speaker 5: ton of meat, and you know it's enough for plenty
• 50:18
  Speaker 5: of your family if you were to cook it up
• 50:20
  Speaker 5: for six, eight, ten people.
• 50:21
  Speaker 2: And yeah, are guys freezing it, like freezing it up.
• 50:26
  Speaker 5: Yeah, especially with the last kind of ship strike whales
• 50:31
  Speaker 5: that were healthy. They were divided up and passed around
• 50:35
  Speaker 5: the community, and people froze the blobber. People froze some
• 50:38
  Speaker 5: of the meat, and then obviously everybody took advantage of
• 50:41
  Speaker 5: tasting it, eating it right away, rendering the oil, smoking
• 50:44
  Speaker 5: some of the meat.
• 50:45
  Speaker 7: And it's cool because you see it.
• 50:47
  Speaker 5: You know, shared around the community. Yeah, and it's just
• 50:49
  Speaker 5: a it's it's really cool.
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: Tell me a way, Tell me a couple of ways
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: one might fix the meat, like cook the meat jerky.
• 50:57
  Speaker 2: Oh, like whale jerk?
• 50:58
  Speaker 4: Is it jerk? That was the best jerky you've ever had?
• 51:02
  Speaker 2: Really?
• 51:02
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Guy that used to be on the Whaling Commission,
• 51:06
  Speaker 4: God rest his soul, Gary Ray. He he made whale
• 51:10
  Speaker 4: jerky and it it was really good. It was the
• 51:14
  Speaker 4: best drink I ever had.
• 51:15
  Speaker 2: Huh. Just slice it thin, dried it, yeah, or smoked it.
• 51:22
  Speaker 4: I mean yeah. He had a you know, traditional smokehouse
• 51:26
  Speaker 4: and he smoked it up in there strips and he
• 51:30
  Speaker 4: gave me some.
• 51:33
  Speaker 3: Like yeah.
• 51:34
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 51:35
  Speaker 7: But he also makes the best salmon, candied salmon.
• 51:38
  Speaker 2: So he knows what's up.
• 51:39
  Speaker 7: With making the dry he was he was like he
• 51:42
  Speaker 7: was really good at all that stuff.
• 51:43
  Speaker 2: Is there any such thing like do you guys.
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: Do you guys grind? Do you guys make grind meat
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: from deer and elk and stuff? Would anybody ever grind
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: up whale meat?
• 51:57
  Speaker 5: I don't think anybody's thought of it, like.
• 51:59
  Speaker 2: A whale burger. It would be like that kind of meat.
• 52:02
  Speaker 5: It's interesting too because of the you know, how you know,
• 52:05
  Speaker 5: you have your your elk tally, you have your elk
• 52:08
  Speaker 5: fan binds really well. Yeah, keep your grinder cold, you
• 52:12
  Speaker 5: grind your meat, add your fat, it stays really well.
• 52:15
  Speaker 5: Imagine whale blubber, Oh would melt o such a lower temperature,
• 52:22
  Speaker 5: and so I mean, I imagine your patty would kind
• 52:24
  Speaker 5: of fall apart.
• 52:25
  Speaker 2: Now I can imagine that because.
• 52:27
  Speaker 4: If everybody was to get like distributed from a whale,
• 52:31
  Speaker 4: you'd get about seven pounds of meat and then about
• 52:34
  Speaker 4: one point just about two pounds of blubber.
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: So, oh, you mean if your if your whole tribe,
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: all the tribal membership shared a whale.
• 52:43
  Speaker 2: It would be seven pounds apiece. That divides it out
• 52:46
  Speaker 2: pretty good. Yeah, how is that oil? Is it stored
• 52:54
  Speaker 2: as a liquid or a solid or how's it stored.
• 52:57
  Speaker 5: Usually stored as a liquid. So usually it's rendered real
• 52:59
  Speaker 5: slow render down. Sometimes some people, especially with seal, they'll
• 53:03
  Speaker 5: smoke like a cold smoke, or they'll smoke at first,
• 53:06
  Speaker 5: but they'll render it down into oil oil smoke the
• 53:10
  Speaker 5: yeah blubber and then you get a smoky oil. Oh really,
• 53:13
  Speaker 5: but you generally now people render that oil down into
• 53:19
  Speaker 5: a like a mason jar, like the salmon that's out there.
• 53:23
  Speaker 3: And you can keep it like that for it's a
• 53:26
  Speaker 3: bit like ever honey and cinnamon. It don't really go bad.
• 53:30
  Speaker 3: I got you, Yeah, I got You can freeze it,
• 53:32
  Speaker 3: you can freeze the whale oil.
• 53:34
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: I spent some time with some cupic Eskimo guys and
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: they would have seal oil, and I remember we would
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: dip fish in it, just like where you're eating frozen
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: raw frozen fish, like little chunks of like actually frozen
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: fish dipped in the seal oil.
• 53:58
  Speaker 2: And when you taste it, man, it would be like
• 54:00
  Speaker 2: the real peppery, Like I can't you describe it like
• 54:04
  Speaker 2: peppery like olive oil, Juman like a like a not
• 54:07
  Speaker 2: a burn.
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: But you know what I'm saying, there's like a pepper
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: tooled Yeah, bold what what?
• 54:12
  Speaker 2: What? How do you describe that whale oil? Is it mild?
• 54:15
  Speaker 2: Is it like kind of grabs you when you taste it?
• 54:19
  Speaker 5: Depends on who it is. I mean it's pretty normal,
• 54:22
  Speaker 5: Like it's pretty mild for us. Yeah, kind of, everyone's
• 54:26
  Speaker 5: kind of used to it.
• 54:27
  Speaker 2: But if you handed it to some kid, like I
• 54:29
  Speaker 2: don't like, some kid never had any kind of that stuff,
• 54:32
  Speaker 2: would that kid be like, oh that's good. Would the
• 54:34
  Speaker 2: kid be like, man, that is wild taste.
• 54:37
  Speaker 5: This probably tastes like like omegas. Okay, your fish oil.
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: Okay, so it's got like it's got that a little
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: bit of it's got that fish oil taste to it.
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: And how do you how are you using it? You're
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: dipping meat in it?
• 54:51
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean you could use it a ton of
• 54:53
  Speaker 5: different ways. I'm sure there's still ways to expand to
• 54:55
  Speaker 5: that that palette now that you know, once we get
• 54:58
  Speaker 5: back into the mix. But I mean, really, like you said,
• 55:00
  Speaker 5: dipping fish or even bread or different things with with
• 55:04
  Speaker 5: your dinner.
• 55:05
  Speaker 2: Do you ever oil a pan with it?
• 55:07
  Speaker 4: I haven't, but I mean the reason you couldn't.
• 55:11
  Speaker 7: You could cook with it I don't know what.
• 55:12
  Speaker 5: The smoke temp is, to be honest, because it's rendered
• 55:15
  Speaker 5: really low temperature. I see it's super low temperature. Ore
• 55:19
  Speaker 5: you'll burn it got so you'll get a real like
• 55:22
  Speaker 5: dark amber. Like you'll see first timers making like rendering
• 55:27
  Speaker 5: whale oil and it's like real dark.
• 55:29
  Speaker 3: And then you kind of get the older folks who are.
• 55:31
  Speaker 2: Like, oh, they know how to keep it clean and clear,
• 55:34
  Speaker 2: so it's like whiskey colored or something.
• 55:36
  Speaker 5: Well, So like generally it's like like light olive oil
• 55:39
  Speaker 5: even lighter than that.
• 55:40
  Speaker 4: That's clear. Oh okay, it's not.
• 55:42
  Speaker 2: I mean it's not there of being like honey.
• 55:44
  Speaker 5: No, it's not like water, but the like the smoked
• 55:47
  Speaker 5: seal oil kind of a little closer to like an
• 55:51
  Speaker 5: olive oil color. Yeah, but generally it's like the clearer,
• 55:55
  Speaker 5: the better. It's like you did a good job rendering
• 55:57
  Speaker 5: it if it's nice and clear.
• 55:58
  Speaker 2: Is there a does your community does your community have
• 56:05
  Speaker 2: Is there a communal area where stuff gets done or
• 56:08
  Speaker 2: do people would it be that hundreds of people would
• 56:11
  Speaker 2: go home and all render oil on their own, or
• 56:14
  Speaker 2: do you have a big spot where you just render
• 56:16
  Speaker 2: all the oil collectively and then hand it out.
• 56:21
  Speaker 5: Well, generally when the whale gets you know, gets pulled
• 56:23
  Speaker 5: up right, you know, drop an elk, it's there, it's
• 56:26
  Speaker 5: in that spot, but we pull up the whale and
• 56:28
  Speaker 5: it kind of gets distributed there and that's where the
• 56:30
  Speaker 5: time is. You know, everybody's hustling to make sure it's
• 56:33
  Speaker 5: taking care of business. And then you know, wherever you
• 56:36
  Speaker 5: take that your portion, you know, probably similar to an elk,
• 56:40
  Speaker 5: you go home and okay, clean it up, make sure
• 56:43
  Speaker 5: it's nice and good, and then you take your section
• 56:46
  Speaker 5: it apart, and then you plan to do your oil.
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: Got it, And that's that's your own business in your
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: own area. Like it's cut up in a in a
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: way where people that want them get some. But then
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: if you got your chunk of meat, you go home
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: and deal.
• 56:58
  Speaker 4: With your chunk of meat.
• 56:59
  Speaker 5: But say there can't be you know, I'm sure like
• 57:02
  Speaker 5: those are some of the things that are really kind
• 57:04
  Speaker 5: of frustrating to notice. Is you see other tribes and
• 57:07
  Speaker 5: other places have these communal ceremonies of like they're celebrating
• 57:12
  Speaker 5: the teaching their kids how to process these different animals.
• 57:19
  Speaker 5: And for us to not even let alone not only
• 57:22
  Speaker 5: be not able to whale, but not able to even
• 57:25
  Speaker 5: engage in those ceremonies to physically show our younger kids
• 57:29
  Speaker 5: how to do this kind of stuff, you know, And
• 57:32
  Speaker 5: so the tribe's doing really well at you know, hey,
• 57:35
  Speaker 5: the process of making paddles never died. Never will processes
• 57:39
  Speaker 5: of you know, making harpoons, Like we have our Cultural
• 57:42
  Speaker 5: and Research center that has an incredible display of all
• 57:46
  Speaker 5: of the model, all the technology for whaling and all
• 57:50
  Speaker 5: of those. You know, there's folks who are well detailed
• 57:54
  Speaker 5: in you know, making your harpoons and teaching your kids
• 57:57
  Speaker 5: too and family how to do those things. But for
• 58:01
  Speaker 5: us to not be able to kind of you know,
• 58:03
  Speaker 5: it's kind of like that box that year and you
• 58:05
  Speaker 5: think about being able to have those kind of ceremonies,
• 58:08
  Speaker 5: were like, hey, my cos's coming together like macads. But
• 58:11
  Speaker 5: for just us to teach generations how to do this
• 58:15
  Speaker 5: process and to get better at it, how to handle.
• 58:17
  Speaker 2: Stuff you mentioned you guys is you guys hunt seal
• 58:21
  Speaker 2: and porpoise. Yeah, and that's that's less like that's just
• 58:26
  Speaker 2: kind of that's that's less like regulatory stuff involved in that.
• 58:32
  Speaker 3: There's regulations around that. There's it's incidental take permits that
• 58:37
  Speaker 3: we get issued. You know, we work with National Marine
• 58:42
  Speaker 3: Fishery Service again and our Marine mammal biologists. You know,
• 58:46
  Speaker 3: if we do any any type of incidental take what
• 58:51
  Speaker 3: gets caught up in fishing gear.
• 58:54
  Speaker 2: So that would be how you'd wind up with one, right,
• 58:56
  Speaker 2: got you?
• 58:57
  Speaker 3: And then we there's a reporting system that we have.
• 59:01
  Speaker 2: To report that if you have listen, if you have
• 59:04
  Speaker 2: a porpoise, what is that porpoise good for it? Would
• 59:07
  Speaker 2: you use it exactly how you use the whale? Pretty
• 59:10
  Speaker 2: similar blubber skin, meat oil.
• 59:14
  Speaker 4: They actually do have backstraps.
• 59:17
  Speaker 7: I've heard it's very good.
• 59:18
  Speaker 4: Yeah, say, very good tasting.
• 59:20
  Speaker 2: You've heard that.
• 59:21
  Speaker 4: I've heard that, but you haven't tried it.
• 59:25
  Speaker 3: But it's good, Steve.
• 59:27
  Speaker 2: It's word is word is. It's gonna be good where
• 59:29
  Speaker 2: it is, it's great.
• 59:30
  Speaker 4: All right.
• 59:31
  Speaker 2: So I want to get into the time.
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: I want to get back to this timeline more and
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: try to get like where the where the situation stands
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: right now? So the injunction goes in two thousand and
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: two thousand.
• 59:43
  Speaker 3: And one, what was it two thousand and two.
• 59:44
  Speaker 2: Two thousand and two, two thousand and two.
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: The federal government know its forms Noah yous fit whatever
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: all the agencies.
• 59:54
  Speaker 2: It comes down.
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: We don't need to get into the details, but basically
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: it comes down, Hey, there's an injunction the Macaw. You're
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: done whaling two thousand and two, but now you're talking
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: about whaling.
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 2: Again, like you're getting ready to go. You want to
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 2: get everything squared away to go.
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: What what happened this time around?
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 3: So in two thousand and four, we made an application
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 3: for a waiver to to go whaling under the Remammal
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 3: Protection Act and there is no process for it. So
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 3: we had to work with a government to develop that
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 3: process as we went.
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 2: Oh and then you had to ask them, Let's say
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 2: a fellow wanted a waiver, what would the waiver need
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 2: to look like?
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 3: Right?
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: And you got a legal team, I mean you got lawyers.
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: We do, Like you just got lawyers getting paid to do.
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 4: This kind of stuff.
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 3: Yes, huh, yes we do. Yeah. And and so we've
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 3: been in that process, you know since two thousand and four,
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 3: since we first put in that notice. We've had to
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 3: reboot it a few times.
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 2: So are they just do they just kind of slow
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 2: walking like they stall it? Yes, but I mean for.
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 3: Years or years. Yeah, there's you know, you're you're looking
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 3: at you know a lot of the both scientific and
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 3: the biological information, you know, with with the whale population,
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 3: and and so in the you know, in that process,
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 3: the government, you know, like anybody can sue the federal government, right,
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 3: So that's their real concern. It's like they don't want
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 3: to get sued and lose, so they're so the slow
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 3: walking is so that they're thorough on their end. No,
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 3: I understand, and and yeah, that's the area and it
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 3: can withstand a challenging court. Yeah, so that's that's that's
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 3: part of the part of why it's been delayed so long.
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 3: We think it's unreasonable, you know. And now we went
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 3: we were finally issued a waiver in twenty eighteen, I believe,
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 3: is that the right year, twenty twenty four the waiver
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 3: for the June the waiver or we applied for the
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 3: waiver in eighteen, maybe it was.
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 5: We have the twenty four hundred page environmental impact statement,
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 5: that's whatever.
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 3: So yeah, anyway that.
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: You guys generated a twenty four hundred page environmental impact statement.
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 3: No no, uh, noah did no?
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 1: It did an environmental impact statement about what would happen
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: if you got a whale, right.
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 5: Yes, so once that was done, then we would be
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 5: able to apply for the waiver, granted the waiver and
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 5: then goes to the permit system.
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 4: Oh here's what.
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: Here's where I'm a little bit confused. Go ahead, but
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: I'll tell what's excusing me.
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 3: Okay. So there was a alj Administrative Law judge hearing
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 3: on on this, and you know, we had to basically
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 3: go through this court process, bring in tell the government
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 3: how we're going to do the hunt, how we're going
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 3: to manage it, and bring in our cultural experts and
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 3: all those you know, Daniel testified in that, and the
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 3: judge recommended that we be granted the waiver because that's
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 3: what I was I was trying to get at earlier
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 3: and in that timeline. And then you know, we're finally
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 3: granted that waiver in twenty twenty four, and then in
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 3: March of twenty twenty five we applied for a permit.
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 3: You know, we're granted the waiver. Now you got to
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 3: get a permit for how many whales? So it's for
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 3: twenty up to twenty five whales over a ten year period.
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 2: Okay, Yeah, So okay, because that's what I was confused about, Okay,
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 2: is I was like, if you look at just the
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 2: pop population demographics of Wales, which I don't understand well,
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 2: but I gathered these are long lived, low fecundity creatures,
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 2: but there are thousands of them.
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 1: So in my mind, I'm like, how could any serious
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: person argue that harvesting a whale a year is going
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: to have a population level impact when you factor in
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 1: that you have this mortality happening from cruise ships, you
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: have mortality happening from entanglements, you have mortality happening from strandings.
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: And then someone would say, but if you get one,
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: that's gonna.
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 2: That's going to tank the grey whale population.
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 3: Now we agree with you.
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: On that just seems like a heart That seems like
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: such a weird It's like they're dying all over the place.
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: We're talking about, oh whale. But I guess if you're
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: looking at two point five whales a year, if you
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: had said one whale a year, would it have been
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: a different conversation or would it have been all the same?
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 3: Bs It probably would have been all the same, being
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 3: it wouldn't have changed. I don't think it would have
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 3: changed anything, you know. I think I think our our opponents,
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 3: our adversaries on this, you know, they're absolutists, and and
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 3: so we're the way we proposed to do the hunt is,
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 3: you know, the most we could most whales we could
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 3: take in any any year under this waiver is two, okay,
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 3: because you can't take a half a whale, right ye. So,
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 3: and it's only one per hunt season. So there there's
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 3: the hunt season that we're applying for is a summer fall.
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 3: Hunt starts July first, goes through October thirty first.
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: So you got like an opening day and everything. Yeah, yeah,
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: you has like white people, You got like opening.
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 3: Days and and if you know, if we harvest a
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 3: whale then that's done, that permit for that period is
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 3: done and we have to wait for we can't go
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 3: the very next year in that hunt period. We got
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 3: to wait un till the following year, oh to go.
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 3: We we can also apply for a permit for a
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 3: separate hunt season, which is a winter spring goes from
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 3: December to through May, and we could harvest a whale
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 3: during that as well. But once we harvest that whale,
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 3: then that that hunt period's done. So there's we wouldn't
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 3: get more than two a year under under how it's
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 3: structured right now, and right now, we're not proposing to
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 3: go in that in that winter spring hunt. You know,
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 3: it's it's more dangerous. These are farther offshore, so it's
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 3: it's more ideal to go in the summer fall hunt period.
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 2: What kind of ground are these gray whales covering? Like
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 2: what's their northern range and southern range? Because when they
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 2: come by you, they're coming through.
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 3: Right right, yeah, they're they're coming through the eastern North
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 3: pacifics that we're targeting. You know, they go from Baja
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 3: California to the Soclen Islands way up.
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 4: I don't no Soccolene.
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 3: It's way up in the sharing straight Russia. Oh really yeah, yes,
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 3: got yeah, yeah, that's there. That's their feeding range.
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 2: So these seasons is you're it's.
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 1: It's it's different swings of a migration, right, Like one,
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 1: I'm just like one is that they're sort of generally
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 1: moving south, and one they're generally moving north. Correct, And
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 1: that summer season they're generally moving north.
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 4: Right now, they're moving south to go down to the
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 4: well how to have their calves and no breeding. Yeah,
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 4: so right now they're going past us. They're feeding and
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 4: you know, slowly making their way down there, and they
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 4: have their calves, and then the male whales start making
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 4: it up and the females make it up after them
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 4: with their calves slowly. Okay.
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 2: Oh, when you if you imagine the ideal whale, is
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 2: it a male or female?
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 4: Male?
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 2: Can you tell?
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 4: There's a way you want to you want to explain
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 4: how you you tell how female is the male? Ahead?
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 4: So you have to stick your arm in them, and
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 4: if it goes a certain direction, that's a male or
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 4: a female.
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 2: But yeah, but that's dead checking them. Yeah, you can't
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 2: live check them.
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 4: It's a little harder.
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 2: Okay. So there's not like it wouldn't be that.
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 4: We have an observer that like a specialist, a marine
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 4: specialist that identify as if it's a male or a
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 4: female for us before we strike it, because we can't
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 4: strike a female after males.
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 2: Oh okay, that's okay. So it would be out of
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 2: the question to kill a female with a calf. Yeah,
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 2: that's that's not gonna happen.
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 4: It's not gonna happen, got it.
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 2: And you're targeting males?
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I see. And whether we get get it or not,
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 4: those same whales we have the shared quota basically, so
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 4: if we don't get them, it goes into their quota.
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 4: Those two wheels that we're not getting all that tribe.
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, where are they located?
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 3: Russians?
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 2: Man, your quota goes to the Russians.
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, there's seriously. Yeah, during the and when I explaining,
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 3: we we first agreed to be part of this international process. Yeah,
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 3: federal government, wont us do that? We said, okay, and
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 3: so we went and did it. There's a there's a
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 3: whaling quota you know, given globally to whaling whaling nations,
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 3: and that right through this process. Well, there's already established
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 3: quota for for these gray whales the eastern North Pacifics
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 3: that was mainly being taken by the chi Cookins up
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 3: in Russia. And so when we first started working to
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 3: get our international quota, what we were asking for the Chacokins,
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 3: you know, we were able to build relationships with them
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 3: and they supported us and they were willing to give
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 3: up part of their quota, so that we said, right,
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 3: so that we can continue our whaling. So it's an
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 3: agreement that.
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 2: So did you have to send some ambassadors up to
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 2: meet with these guys.
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 3: Yes, yes, and and talk this out and and talk
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 3: it out and spend time with them during their whaling
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 3: activities and huh yeah, and.
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 2: You guys were generally well received by them.
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 3: Yes, yes, mm hmm.
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 2: Do they have the same arguments with the Russian government?
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 4: Not all? Right?
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 2: Do they have the same level of negotiating with the
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 2: Russian Like what are their treaties?
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 3: Like, I'm unsure, Yeah.
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 1: I want I wonder if they have all the layers
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 1: of government or if they just do their own thing
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 1: or what that's like dealing with the Russian government.
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I haven't been there myself. It's pretty remote, more
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 3: remote than we are, so imagine they don't have to
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 3: deal with them quite as much, not as much.
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we keep getting into the timeline leaving the timeline,
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 2: but where like, what are you waiting on right now?
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 2: You're not going to whale this summer or you.
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 3: Might, Well, it's it's still possible this summer. It's still possible. Yeah,
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 3: it's still possible. You know, we're we're at the end
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 3: of coming up on the end of July. You know what,
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 3: there's the whales are still present. That's that's kind of
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 3: the factor, you know, the whales got to be there.
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 3: But yeah, sure, when they decide to leave, you know,
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 3: then then they're gone. But we're waiting on the Secretary
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 3: of Commerce too to sign the permit. You're waiting on
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 3: Howard Lutnik correct to sign the permit. Yes, really, he's
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 3: got to sign it. He does, or he's got to
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 3: delegate someone to sign it.
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 2: And what what what's his what's his thinking?
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 3: We don't know. We haven't been able to talk to
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 3: him directly on this issue. We've requested it. We've requested
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 3: government to government consultation on this, which you know normally
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 3: those are honored by the federal government.
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 2: But these guys don't want to hear you out.
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 3: Not too early to say, not Howard himself yet. But
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 3: he's uhes deputies is his deputies. We've talked with them.
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 3: They're super supportive. They've been great.
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 2: Oh I got you all right, So there's no resistance there.
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 3: No, we don't. And so it's it's a little puzzling
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 3: for us. Frustrating for sure.
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 2: Like you mean, like the recept the receptive they're not dismissive,
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 2: but then there's not the signature.
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 3: Yet, right right, Yeah, I would say it's even more
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 3: than receptive. I'd say they're supportive.
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 2: Supportive. Yeah, okay, so let's say, I mean, is it
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 2: is there a possibility that tomorrow someone emails you over
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 2: like a how does it happen? Like one day someone
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 2: signs it and then there it is.
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 3: Yes, So we have a pain permit application. I've actually
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 3: signed my part of it already for twenty twenty five
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 3: and twenty twenty seven. Was it a docu sign No,
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 3: it was it digital? No, it wasn't a paper document.
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 3: Was a paper document? Yeah, And we've well, our understanding
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 3: last year was that we were we're both going to
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 3: sign this and it would be effective August first of
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 3: two thousand and twenty five. And we're preparing for that moment.
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 3: We're working with with our media teams and you know,
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 3: going to be prepared for any whether it's pushback or
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 3: you know, people will want to tell the story, right,
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 3: you know that it's going to get some coverage. And yeah,
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 3: so we were, I mean, we were just weeks away,
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 3: two weeks away from what we thought, you know, being
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 3: issued our first permit on last year last year, and
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 3: and then nothing happened and we yeah, it just went radio.
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 2: Silence and that's under the Trump administration.
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's what's real puzzling about. I mean, you know,
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 3: these these types of things is something you know, you know,
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 3: hunting and outdoor type stuff, and you know those things
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 3: seem right up this administration's alley, right, you know, they
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 3: seem to be supportive.
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 2: Of yeah, like stripping regulations, strip.
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 3: Yeah, less regulation, those sort of things. So, yeah, we're
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 3: not sure what what's going on.
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 1: But this is you might want to not even answer this,
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 1: and I would probably I wouldn't, but I'll ask anyway, just.
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 2: Because of what you just said. Is it possible to
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 2: say something like this, Is it possible to say that
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 2: that that who's better friends to the macaw like generally
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 2: Republicans are Democrats? Or is that not a possible You
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 2: can't answer it.
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 3: No, I've answered that question a number of times, and
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 3: and I think both of them have their They have
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 3: their points.
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 2: That's what I think.
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 3: They have their points of where the friendship ends it
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 3: or starts right, you know, in general, and this is
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 3: a pure generality, is that you know, Democrats will support
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 3: our treaty right up unto the point it starts conflicting
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 3: with labor and jobs. Oh, Republicans, they'll support our treaty
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 3: right up into the point it starts affecting industry.
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 2: Oh so like the AID, like the Age Old conflicts,
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 2: you just like find your own Indian way into the
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 2: Age Old conflicts. But here's the thing, Democrats and Republicans.
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 3: Yeah, here's the thing, is that that our treaty rights
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 3: should be nonpartisan.
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, if it was a well written treaty, you think
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 1: that it would be Yeah, that it would be debatable.
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 1: But I mean, as you know, I mean, documents don't
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 1: always anticipate every development. But what's funny about not what's funny,
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 1: but what's interesting about treat Like we look at the US Constitution, Right,
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 1: so the founding fathers didn't come in and be like,
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 1: they didn't make.
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 2: A big passage about AI.
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 1: Right, So then you got to get down the road
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 1: and you gotta say, well, how would they have looked
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 1: at this issue? Based on what we know about how
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 1: they looked at other issues, how might they look at
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 1: like an AI issue?
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 2: Okay, but but what's and you know it way better. Mean,
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 2: but if you look at tribal treaties, it literally contemplates hunting, fishing, landmarks,
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 2: things that they're really.
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 1: Clear about I agree, yes, I mean it's like you
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 1: can't get any more clear, Like you guys are cool
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 1: to go on and fishing and here right, So it's
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 1: not like you're not contemplating AI. You're contemplating like a
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 1: very concrete, specific activity. So that people find so many
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 1: things to the debate about it is. You know, I
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 1: understand the complexities, but it's just it's different because it's
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 1: not abstract. It's like your father, your your your father's
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 1: argued this out.
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 2: They did, yeah, and brought up like, hey, we need
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 2: we eat.
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 1: This is what we eat. We need to be able
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 1: to get our food. Here's the deal, you know. And
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 1: now you're in this situation where you're like arguing about it,
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 1: which I understand it's complicated, especially something like Wales.
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 3: Well we're not even arguing right now. We're just waiting, waiting.
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 3: We're just waiting.
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 2: If if you all of a sudden get the permit,
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 2: you all of a sudden get the signature. Do you
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 2: got a team you know, you know you call it.
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 2: Do you got a crew? Is there a crew ready
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 2: to roll? They got the gear straight, they got the
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 2: plan put together?
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah we have I mean, we got some additional training
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 3: that will have to be done, you know, because you
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 3: know to be able to go tomorrow. You know that,
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 3: you know, if we get the permit sign tomorrow, there
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 3: isn't a team that's going to launch tomorrow.
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 2: I see.
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 4: Yeah, how do you.
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 2: Get to be? Who selects the crew?
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 3: Our whaling Commission?
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 2: Okay, so you.
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 1: Can't just freelance it. No, two dudes can't just be like, hell,
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 1: I'm going like that wouldn't fly.
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 3: No, it don't.
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 1: No, it has that. It goes through the tribe, the
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 1: Whaling Commission. Yes, got it?
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 2: And and how do you apply to be Like, if
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 2: you want to be on crew, what do you got
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 2: to do? Who's on the crew?
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 3: Yeah?
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 5: So the way that the Whaling Commission handles that kind
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 5: of stuff is essentially the you know, you're you're interested
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 5: in being a captain, You're responsible for the crew. So
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 5: the captain is the one who will apply for the permit,
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 5: and the council, the tribal council's ultimate authority that signs
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 5: the permit for the crew.
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 4: So if you're going to be a.
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 5: Captain, you you know, you gather your crew, you do
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 5: everything you need to do. Say, you know, like you're
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 5: doing for a a hunt for whatever, You're gonna pick
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 5: your guys and this is what we're gonna do, this plan,
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 5: train up whatever.
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 4: But the captains you.
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 5: Know, selects his crew, make sure they got everything going,
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 5: and he's going to be the one to take the
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 5: crew out and to actually do the do the hunt.
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 1: So that captain goes to the commission and gets the Okay,
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 1: what if you had eight captains.
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 5: Well, so the commission will select the captains, the captains
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 5: will select their crew, and the Commission will make a
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 5: recommendation of the Council of of you know, who should
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 5: gather the permit based on who's you know, who's ready.
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 4: There.
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 5: There might be one captain that's ready, there might be eight.
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 5: And we've even talked about doing things like, you know,
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 5: having multiple crews and and you know, not your first
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 5: hunt's not always successful.
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 4: It can be, but it's not always.
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 5: And so we've talked about having different crews hunting at
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 5: different times. That requires a couple of different technical you know,
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 5: tribal hunt, observers hunting, both communication.
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 4: To make sure you're not doubling up.
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 5: But there's a lot of different ways that we've discussed
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 5: internally on how to handle and on how to handle
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 5: you know, multiple crews, multiple captains and got it. And
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 5: even having the positions of the whaler's just kind of
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 5: trained up in multiple positions so that you know, people
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 5: get sick or people get hurt, or you know, you
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 5: can swap around and you can move.
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 2: And so what would be the attributes of a captain
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 2: he's coming out of what is he is?
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 6: He?
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 1: Is he probably a commercial fisherman? Is he probably a fisherman?
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 5: I mean, I'll hand that one over to Daniel, But
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 5: I imagine he's got to be well versed in the sea.
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 6: And yeah, yeah, well versed in the sea, knowing the history,
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 6: actually knowing the whales, okay, personally spending time you know,
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 6: on the water, you know, observing whales, knowing positions in
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 6: the canoe, how to make the harpoons battles that.
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 4: So, got it.
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 2: So they got to be invested, be invested in it, yes,
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 2: and have a reasonable claim to why they should be
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 2: doing it.
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 4: Yes, for sure, got it.
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 2: So someone comes up with like a crackpot idea, they're
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 2: gonna get weed, They're gonna get weeded out.
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 6: And get weeded out for sure.
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, how big is the Commission.
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 7: About twenty four.
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 2: No kids are they all tribal.
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 5: They're all either heads or descendants of like traditional heads
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 5: of families. And so that's that's what I wanted to
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 5: get into a little bit. It's like, traditionally you're brought
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 5: up as a whaler, captain or leader because it's central
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 5: to the like I said, the society of the tribe.
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 5: And so it's like it's not hey, we're going to
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 5: go sure to elk, We're going to grab our permit,
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 5: but like it's a lifestyle, okay, right, the training, the mindset,
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 5: even just who you are as a person. If you're
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 5: going to be a captain, you're you're already set apart,
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 5: I understand. And you're you're brought up in a way
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 5: like you're a leader, You're a you know, take care
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 5: of your family.
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 4: You know.
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 5: You's like you said, spend time in the ocean, spend
• 1:21:59
  Speaker 5: time with the sea. You know, wales breathing patterns, fluke
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 5: fluke prints, like you kind of know, I see you
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 5: know you're gonna be.
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but they've been prepared for this their whole life.
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 2: Is there a clan.
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 1: System with the Macaw? Do you guys, are you guys
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 1: from different clans.
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 5: So the tribe has five traditional villages, okay, and the
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 5: five traditional village are kind of what make up the
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 5: reservation now. So we have Ozette Sus, we have watch
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 5: Dia and Bejeta. So those are the five villages that
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 5: kind of make up the tribe now. But as far
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 5: as clans go, everybody kind of you know where you
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 5: come from, you know what family you come from, what
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 5: village you come from.
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 1: And people might have It's like a step down from
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 1: Macaw would be that you'd associate by.
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 5: Village in family village and family village and family. You
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 5: kind of tie your family, you know where your village.
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 5: Everybody knows who comes from what village for the most part,
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 5: and that's just part of how the oral history has
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 5: continued to transpire as everybody understands whose family, who comes
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 5: from who, and that kind of gets into our potlat
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 5: system of you know and all.
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 2: And in the Whaling Commission, the different there would be
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 2: representation from all the villages.
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 7: Yeah, and multiple multiple families from multiple.
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 4: People from all villages and they come together.
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 3: It's a heads it's heads of family type structure.
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 4: Heads a family.
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 3: It's a family rather than clan. It's we, that's how
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 3: we associate. Each village would have so many heads of
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 3: family that would be part of that village's governance of
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 3: of their village. And you know there are different number
• 1:23:41
  Speaker 3: of seats per village, and that was up to the
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 3: village to decide how many I got it, how many
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 3: seats they wanted filled as heads of family on.
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 2: These whaling decisions and captain selection and and when to
• 1:23:53
  Speaker 2: when to push on it and try to do it
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 2: and when anot is it? Is it contentious or do
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 2: you guys usually hit a consensus.
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 3: We don't disagree on anything, Steve No, never, No, it's
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 3: it can get contentious.
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 1: There can be Yeah, does it do you settle it?
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 1: Do you settle by vote? Or do you hash it
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 1: out until there's a consensus. Well, I think there's attempt
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 1: to reach consensus. But you know at the end there
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 1: is a voting mechanisic.
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 2: So just any any sort of issue would be eventually
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 2: might be resolved by a vote.
• 1:24:31
  Speaker 4: Yes, yeah, I got you.
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 2: What will happen Let's say in two years, So you've
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 2: got this relationship with the.
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 1: Commerce Department under Howard Lutnik. Right now, what's say in
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 1: two years.
• 1:24:46
  Speaker 4: It's a new administration.
• 1:24:48
  Speaker 1: At that point, I'm like, oh my god, now we
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 1: got to start all the way over again.
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 2: Or is it is there a chance that it would
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 2: be smooth?
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 4: Well?
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 3: It there definitely be the concern that we gotta reboot
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 3: the waiver process. You know that that would you know,
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 3: that would be concerning, but or the permitting process. Sorry,
• 1:25:10
  Speaker 3: you know we we've already been granted the waiver. You
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 3: know that can't be walked back, but you know we
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 3: need a permit. So yeah, I don't know. I don't
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 3: know what administration change would do. We've been through a
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 3: lot of them.
• 1:25:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, who was president when Stevens was the negotiating
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 2: all those treaties?
• 1:25:30
  Speaker 6: Oh a Buchanan, was it not?
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 2: You've been through a few administrations. Hey, here's here's what
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 2: I wanted to ask. Sorry, Loop, We've been having a
• 1:25:44
  Speaker 2: lot of conversations. You know, we had a lot of
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 2: fish and game, and some of the guys work here
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 2: fish a lot, and we've been having all these conversations
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 2: about like pfast chemicals and fish health warnings and fish.
• 1:26:01
  Speaker 2: If you had to rate, like you know, in our
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 2: in our world, it.
• 1:26:04
  Speaker 4: Would be that.
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 1: You know, like tuna, that's a questionable fish for heavy
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 1: metals contamination.
• 1:26:13
  Speaker 2: Our own state has now.
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 1: Advisories about pfast chemicals and fresh water fish.
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 2: Here is a.
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 1: How how much you see into stuff in whale in
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 1: whale fat, because I mean they're like a mega accumulator,
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 1: you know, just for listeners to understand, I mean this
• 1:26:37
  Speaker 1: picture that picture that there's a fish that a small
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 1: fish that eats plankton. He's not accumulating a bunch of
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 1: heavy metals.
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 2: But let's say there's a fish that eats fish, that
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 2: eats fish. So every fish he eats, he's absorbing all
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 2: the things that not just that they ate, but that
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 2: what they ate ate. Right, And you get to be
• 1:27:02
  Speaker 2: where you have these certain fish that are loaded because
• 1:27:04
  Speaker 2: they're accumulated. They're just eating fish, they ate fish. So
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 2: it is a whale. Is a whale like a bioaccumulator
• 1:27:16
  Speaker 2: of environmental toxins.
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 4: There's not much data on it. I mean what I
• 1:27:23
  Speaker 4: what I have found was they have done some studies
• 1:27:26
  Speaker 4: on some whales that whether they were you know, ship
• 1:27:31
  Speaker 4: strikes or beach themselves, and I believe they detected you know,
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 4: levels in the blubber. They didn't find it. I think
• 1:27:39
  Speaker 4: there was like maybe twenty whales, but a lot of
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 4: them were inconclusive and they didn't find any in the liver,
• 1:27:46
  Speaker 4: it sounded like. And then like the red meat, there
• 1:27:49
  Speaker 4: wasn't as much. But I mean, you know, you could
• 1:27:53
  Speaker 4: see the tribes that have been eating whale for all
• 1:27:57
  Speaker 4: these years, and you know, it is medicine. And I
• 1:27:59
  Speaker 4: mean the even the government is getting back to like
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 4: food is medicine, you know. Yeah, turn the triangle upside
• 1:28:06
  Speaker 4: down now red meats at the top. Oh yeah, and
• 1:28:10
  Speaker 4: you know it normalizes glucose metabolism. You know, whale meat
• 1:28:14
  Speaker 4: it's been shown to do that. You can see that
• 1:28:16
  Speaker 4: in the and the tribes that are still eating it,
• 1:28:19
  Speaker 4: you know, on a daily basis, and it's it's their
• 1:28:23
  Speaker 4: main fat source, you know. And you can see in
• 1:28:27
  Speaker 4: those where the health related diseases are not as large
• 1:28:32
  Speaker 4: as you know, say like a coastal triver like a
• 1:28:35
  Speaker 4: lot of the the tribes you know that that got
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 4: hit with like you know, the commodities you remember, you know,
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 4: no no so commodities. You know, it was a oh yeah,
• 1:28:45
  Speaker 4: the food Western like Western foods you know, introduced into
• 1:28:49
  Speaker 4: our diet once we laid down our harpoons, you know,
• 1:28:53
  Speaker 4: twelve years before anybody else started to, you know, knowing
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 4: we were going to get back to it, but still
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 4: you know, traditionally eating all of our our foods and
• 1:29:05
  Speaker 4: which even there's we had elders that were you know,
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 4: they were probably around when we had our last couple
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 4: hunts in the twenties and they lived to be in
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 4: their hundreds.
• 1:29:16
  Speaker 1: Oh, they were enjoying good, long lives on that diet.
• 1:29:20
  Speaker 4: He could speak more on that as well, but you know,
• 1:29:23
  Speaker 4: the I think it's like with the grey whale on
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 4: the few of the villages up there, because it they
• 1:29:32
  Speaker 4: get about. I think they have sixteen thousand people that
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 4: they get whale distributed to and they get about I
• 1:29:40
  Speaker 4: think it's one hundred and seven pounds of gray whale
• 1:29:43
  Speaker 4: meat and twenty six percent of them. I think it
• 1:29:48
  Speaker 4: was that they said it was their main food, like
• 1:29:50
  Speaker 4: their main fatty foods. Is that right?
• 1:29:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah? And so even us reinteresting.
• 1:29:57
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 1:29:57
  Speaker 2: Wow, there's like people who's main like that's their main Yeah,
• 1:30:00
  Speaker 2: a main meat would be whale meat.
• 1:30:02
  Speaker 4: Yeah. And even for us, you know, introducing it back
• 1:30:07
  Speaker 4: into our diet, which it's been missing since the twenties
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 4: since we've stopped and you can you can see the
• 1:30:14
  Speaker 4: you know, diabetes and whatever else. You know, the health
• 1:30:16
  Speaker 4: related diseases, they're pretty rampant, you know. And then even
• 1:30:21
  Speaker 4: with those you know, those microplastics and everything in the.
• 1:30:25
  Speaker 6: Food that.
• 1:30:28
  Speaker 4: I believe that it is something that will need to
• 1:30:31
  Speaker 4: be studied more once you know, we're where if we're
• 1:30:34
  Speaker 4: whaling on a regular basis, I'm sure it's something we're
• 1:30:36
  Speaker 4: gonna be able to study if it is higher because
• 1:30:40
  Speaker 4: they are eating fish, eating fish, eating fish.
• 1:30:43
  Speaker 2: But then you got the question too of of like.
• 1:30:47
  Speaker 1: Relative to like let's say they do have some chemical contamination,
• 1:30:51
  Speaker 1: it's like relative to what? Then you got to ask yourself,
• 1:30:54
  Speaker 1: I don't know, is the other stuff that everybody's eating
• 1:30:56
  Speaker 1: so great?
• 1:30:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there's you know.
• 1:30:58
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of focus on wild fish. You know,
• 1:31:01
  Speaker 1: I'm like, I don't know, are they checking everything? Like
• 1:31:04
  Speaker 1: have you gone to the grocery store and checked all
• 1:31:06
  Speaker 1: that stuff? Like it is wildfish really worse than all
• 1:31:08
  Speaker 1: the junk that's in the grocery store.
• 1:31:09
  Speaker 4: It's definitely better than farm fish.
• 1:31:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, It's like it winds up being like this totally
• 1:31:13
  Speaker 1: relative thing. But there's all this focus on contaminations and fish.
• 1:31:16
  Speaker 1: I'm like, i'd have to see the data on all
• 1:31:17
  Speaker 1: the junk that normal people.
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 5: Well, now it's getting into lab grown, lab grown meat,
• 1:31:23
  Speaker 5: but I don't.
• 1:31:23
  Speaker 2: Think no one's making lab grown whale meat.
• 1:31:25
  Speaker 4: Don't quote me.
• 1:31:26
  Speaker 5: I don't think are A tested it on the mercury
• 1:31:30
  Speaker 5: for gray whales are.
• 1:31:32
  Speaker 7: I don't think it was much.
• 1:31:34
  Speaker 2: That'd be interesting, I could, Yeah, because one thing they're
• 1:31:37
  Speaker 2: not doing is they're not eating They're not eating big
• 1:31:41
  Speaker 2: fish like tuna. Big tuna eat small tuna.
• 1:31:45
  Speaker 1: I mean, they're they're eating bio like tuna, eating bioaccumulators.
• 1:31:49
  Speaker 1: And a lot of times a tunea is eating a
• 1:31:53
  Speaker 1: fish that's eating a fish that eats fish.
• 1:31:57
  Speaker 2: So it's just a different But you can picture.
• 1:31:58
  Speaker 1: With a whale eating a lot of or lived plankton feeders,
• 1:32:02
  Speaker 1: then maybe they don't get loaded up.
• 1:32:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:32:05
  Speaker 5: And if you eat like so, you eat whale meat
• 1:32:08
  Speaker 5: and blubber and then cut out all the processed stuff.
• 1:32:12
  Speaker 5: Is the whale meat with chemicals and toxins better than
• 1:32:16
  Speaker 5: a diet of processed food with chemicals, with chemicals and toxics.
• 1:32:20
  Speaker 2: That's that's what I mean. Yeah, do you got let
• 1:32:24
  Speaker 2: me ask you question. This is just on on the
• 1:32:26
  Speaker 2: behalf of non non natives.
• 1:32:29
  Speaker 1: You know what thing we always argue about, man, is
• 1:32:32
  Speaker 1: whether it's okay to call you guys Indians or not.
• 1:32:34
  Speaker 2: Give me your take on this, like like like just
• 1:32:37
  Speaker 2: for listener's sake.
• 1:32:39
  Speaker 6: Up like a dude.
• 1:32:40
  Speaker 1: Like here's a dude like me, a dude like me,
• 1:32:42
  Speaker 1: and I say, you guys are Indians. Just for people
• 1:32:47
  Speaker 1: out there who want to do the right thing, but
• 1:32:49
  Speaker 1: they get confused, what does that mean to you?
• 1:32:51
  Speaker 3: Steve's say, quidicch chuck, qutic chuck.
• 1:32:57
  Speaker 2: So is it offensive or not offensive?
• 1:33:01
  Speaker 3: We're not too uptight about that most most of our people,
• 1:33:05
  Speaker 3: you know, it's for us. We say, yeah, I can
• 1:33:07
  Speaker 3: call us Indians. Our treaty. It's the Indians of Kate
• 1:33:10
  Speaker 3: flattery in there.
• 1:33:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but you might not like that treaty. I'm not asking,
• 1:33:13
  Speaker 2: I'm asked to be cute. I'm like, it's like an
• 1:33:15
  Speaker 2: honest thing. There's not a month goes by, I'm not
• 1:33:18
  Speaker 2: I'm not kidding you.
• 1:33:19
  Speaker 1: There's not a month goes by that I don't have
• 1:33:23
  Speaker 1: a conversation with someone about the appropriateness sure of native
• 1:33:32
  Speaker 1: like Native American first Nations Native Alaskan, you know what.
• 1:33:36
  Speaker 2: I mean, like like.
• 1:33:39
  Speaker 1: The appropriateness of it, and maybe it's offensive that I'm
• 1:33:41
  Speaker 1: even asking about. I'm going to ask anyway, because there's people.
• 1:33:44
  Speaker 1: There's like people that want to do that. There's people
• 1:33:46
  Speaker 1: that want to be respectful. But there's a lot of
• 1:33:49
  Speaker 1: mixed signals and feelings. I remember asking the earlier, I said,
• 1:33:53
  Speaker 1: Chupic eskimo. I asked the Chupic Eskimo. I said, man,
• 1:33:56
  Speaker 1: you know a lot of people, like in our culture,
• 1:33:59
  Speaker 1: a lot of.
• 1:33:59
  Speaker 2: People say that they shouldn't say that.
• 1:34:02
  Speaker 1: And he goes, if I'm not an Eskimo, I don't
• 1:34:04
  Speaker 1: know what I am, because he goes, I'm a Cubic Eskimo.
• 1:34:07
  Speaker 2: I don't know what they told you back home, but
• 1:34:09
  Speaker 2: that's what I.
• 1:34:09
  Speaker 3: Am, you know, and that you know, that's how we are.
• 1:34:13
  Speaker 3: Any English word is the wrong word. So that's that's
• 1:34:17
  Speaker 3: my take on it. It's like, you know, you he
• 1:34:20
  Speaker 3: tried to say quid. That's what we call ourselves, you know,
• 1:34:24
  Speaker 3: but any English word is the wrong word. But I
• 1:34:29
  Speaker 3: don't stress about it.
• 1:34:30
  Speaker 2: But there's some of you learned to live with and
• 1:34:32
  Speaker 2: learn not to live with.
• 1:34:35
  Speaker 3: It's more in them. You know. To me, it's it's
• 1:34:37
  Speaker 3: more how are you saying it? Right, Yeah, you know,
• 1:34:40
  Speaker 3: it's how are you saying it? How are you using it?
• 1:34:42
  Speaker 3: How are you saying it?
• 1:34:43
  Speaker 2: That's what I would imagine. That's what I That's how
• 1:34:46
  Speaker 2: I kind of imagined it is is is in that way.
• 1:34:51
  Speaker 1: But I but maybe am I? Am I right to
• 1:34:54
  Speaker 1: say that? The best thing? I can't say your word?
• 1:34:58
  Speaker 1: But if I just said he's macaw, that's fine. Yeah
• 1:35:03
  Speaker 1: you're not like, wow, I'm not that's what someone else
• 1:35:05
  Speaker 1: called me.
• 1:35:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's respect. That's respect. That that shows respect if
• 1:35:09
  Speaker 2: I say that, or it doesn't show a lack of respect.
• 1:35:13
  Speaker 3: Correct, it doesn't show a lack of respect.
• 1:35:14
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:35:15
  Speaker 2: And if I say Native American, that's cool, that's.
• 1:35:18
  Speaker 4: Cool too, all right, all right, yeah, you know, like
• 1:35:21
  Speaker 4: a good example the the Washington Redskins. Yeah, it wasn't
• 1:35:25
  Speaker 4: the it wasn't the family of the chief of the
• 1:35:29
  Speaker 4: head that they used on their helmet for that Redskins
• 1:35:31
  Speaker 4: that got rid of it. It was those other groups.
• 1:35:34
  Speaker 4: What do you mean, like, it wasn't so that that
• 1:35:37
  Speaker 4: picture was actually from a chief in that area.
• 1:35:41
  Speaker 2: Oh, they didn't have a problem with it.
• 1:35:43
  Speaker 4: They didn't know.
• 1:35:44
  Speaker 1: Huh, there's probably one hundred stories like that.
• 1:35:50
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:35:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah, our high school mascot is the Red Devils.
• 1:35:55
  Speaker 2: Your high school mascot still now still now yeah, you
• 1:36:00
  Speaker 2: do you find that that's a problem.
• 1:36:03
  Speaker 4: No, No, that's interesting.
• 1:36:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but there's got to be a lot of it.
• 1:36:09
  Speaker 2: A lot of it is, like you said, where it's
• 1:36:10
  Speaker 2: coming from?
• 1:36:11
  Speaker 3: It right, you know who's saying it, where it's coming from.
• 1:36:18
  Speaker 3: I would like to see a mascot that the whalers
• 1:36:21
  Speaker 3: with their own name.
• 1:36:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, with your own name.
• 1:36:23
  Speaker 4: Yeah, you know in our.
• 1:36:24
  Speaker 3: Language, there's a there's a tribe near us that that
• 1:36:29
  Speaker 3: did that. And uh, but finding one that's easy to
• 1:36:33
  Speaker 3: say and in Quadit language just is tough. You know.
• 1:36:37
  Speaker 3: That's so there's a school mascot chitwins. You know it's
• 1:36:42
  Speaker 3: a tribal tribal community and you know that just means
• 1:36:45
  Speaker 3: a beard. It's like easy to say. Anybody can say it,
• 1:36:49
  Speaker 3: and it's a great mascot.
• 1:36:51
  Speaker 1: Can can can any of you guys give me a
• 1:36:53
  Speaker 1: sense of what your language sounds like. Just just say
• 1:36:56
  Speaker 1: something whatever. I don't know anything that just that guy.
• 1:36:59
  Speaker 6: But to ask Clay with those.
• 1:37:03
  Speaker 3: Duke checks h.
• 1:37:05
  Speaker 6: Husha Bots, Okay to talk about whaling the whales.
• 1:37:11
  Speaker 4: Talking about the whales. Yeah, I got it.
• 1:37:15
  Speaker 6: Yeah, it's kind of Marlan quiet. So plush is my name. Yeah,
• 1:37:19
  Speaker 6: watch you have to watch.
• 1:37:21
  Speaker 1: God it's a good sound of language, dude. So that's
• 1:37:23
  Speaker 1: a good sign of language, man like that.
• 1:37:25
  Speaker 6: It's a yeah, very good. And then we share our
• 1:37:27
  Speaker 6: language families in Canada. So Johnny is where we come from.
• 1:37:31
  Speaker 6: Whaling societies all along the Canadian West Coast island. So
• 1:37:36
  Speaker 6: that's where we come from.
• 1:37:37
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 1:37:38
  Speaker 2: So if I if like you go up, you got like.
• 1:37:46
  Speaker 1: The hidea Simshian with those have been wu there been
• 1:37:51
  Speaker 1: cultural similarities.
• 1:37:54
  Speaker 4: Were just very different.
• 1:37:55
  Speaker 6: They're pretty different. Yeah yeah, yeah, so we're just just
• 1:37:58
  Speaker 6: south the Hida had Yeah, I guess northern northern end
• 1:38:03
  Speaker 6: print troupert we had ties in with them, Okay, but
• 1:38:06
  Speaker 6: I to guay kind of got different.
• 1:38:08
  Speaker 2: That's a different way different people. Yeah. If you guys
• 1:38:13
  Speaker 2: get this thing signed, this paper signed.
• 1:38:17
  Speaker 1: Would you ever would you consider photocopying me a photocopy of.
• 1:38:20
  Speaker 2: That sending me that.
• 1:38:23
  Speaker 3: The permit the permit.
• 1:38:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, with like all like a permit, I just want
• 1:38:27
  Speaker 1: to frame it, hang it in the studio A photocopy
• 1:38:30
  Speaker 1: of your signed permit.
• 1:38:31
  Speaker 2: I'm sure we're like your whale tag, the photocopy of
• 1:38:35
  Speaker 2: your whale tag.
• 1:38:37
  Speaker 3: We could do that.
• 1:38:39
  Speaker 2: Just some kind of i'd like to have. I just
• 1:38:40
  Speaker 2: like to see a dog make I'd like to see it.
• 1:38:45
  Speaker 4: Now.
• 1:38:45
  Speaker 2: I want to just I want to photocopy from you guys.
• 1:38:47
  Speaker 2: I don't want to.
• 1:38:48
  Speaker 1: I don't want to have to go through the legal Yeah,
• 1:38:49
  Speaker 1: just a document that's sort of like, is like, what
• 1:38:51
  Speaker 1: what a whale permit looks like? A right, I'd like
• 1:38:55
  Speaker 1: to see a whale permit do They probably don't have
• 1:38:57
  Speaker 1: like the little date things you notch out and stuff.
• 1:39:00
  Speaker 2: Find them. No, No, I'd like to see one.
• 1:39:03
  Speaker 4: Man.
• 1:39:03
  Speaker 2: I wish you guys, I don't know, man, not, I
• 1:39:06
  Speaker 2: don't know. I hope you guys permit comes in.
• 1:39:08
  Speaker 4: Thank you.
• 1:39:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I hope your permit comes in. It's just like
• 1:39:12
  Speaker 2: to me, it feels to me, it feels like there's
• 1:39:18
  Speaker 2: not a situation where there's not a situation one where
• 1:39:22
  Speaker 2: sort of the general commercial fishing fleet is going to
• 1:39:25
  Speaker 2: re engage in whaling and there's going to be like
• 1:39:28
  Speaker 2: a resource battle about it, you know what I mean?
• 1:39:30
  Speaker 1: You guys got a claim to it.
• 1:39:33
  Speaker 2: It's not a thing that's gonna get overblown. There's a
• 1:39:36
  Speaker 2: limited number of there's a limited number of groups that
• 1:39:40
  Speaker 2: have it, be that it's part of their tradition. It's
• 1:39:42
  Speaker 2: such a small harvest. It just seems like it's it's
• 1:39:47
  Speaker 2: doing it seems like it's doing enormous good. It's doing
• 1:39:50
  Speaker 2: enormous good for your community, and it's not doing any
• 1:39:57
  Speaker 2: harm to other It's not doing any harm to other communities.
• 1:40:01
  Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying.
• 1:40:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah, no, we we agree.
• 1:40:04
  Speaker 2: It's just like it's like it's kind of like a
• 1:40:06
  Speaker 2: it's it's not you know, you say, like a win win.
• 1:40:09
  Speaker 2: It's a win. It's like a win.
• 1:40:11
  Speaker 1: Nothing like it doesn't mean like it doesn't impact my life, right,
• 1:40:16
  Speaker 1: it's not. I just feel like it's not my business.
• 1:40:18
  Speaker 2: I feel it's like if it does you guys good
• 1:40:21
  Speaker 2: and you want to do it, it's not going.
• 1:40:24
  Speaker 1: To tank the great whale population. If you guys are
• 1:40:26
  Speaker 1: getting the whale every year. Yeah, it's like it's it's
• 1:40:31
  Speaker 1: it's just doesn't feel like my business.
• 1:40:33
  Speaker 5: You know, I think it's I think it's important to
• 1:40:36
  Speaker 5: mention also that it's it's ceremonial on subsistence it's not
• 1:40:40
  Speaker 5: for the tribe's pleasure.
• 1:40:42
  Speaker 7: It's not for.
• 1:40:44
  Speaker 5: Anything other than it's who we are as a people
• 1:40:48
  Speaker 5: and getting back to that. And it's not about going
• 1:40:52
  Speaker 5: out to do it just because we can. It's it's
• 1:40:55
  Speaker 5: central to the tribe. So that's the importance. So when
• 1:40:58
  Speaker 5: it comes to respect, as far as you know names
• 1:41:00
  Speaker 5: and what to call everybody, like as far as respect goes,
• 1:41:03
  Speaker 5: like I would like to see people understand and get
• 1:41:07
  Speaker 5: to know who the tribes are, Like you want to
• 1:41:11
  Speaker 5: know Maca, go learn about Macaw. Yeah, you know, Joshua
• 1:41:15
  Speaker 5: read Doctor josh Reid has a really great book called
• 1:41:18
  Speaker 5: The Sea Is My Country. Really did extensive research not
• 1:41:21
  Speaker 5: only at Macaw but across other tribes to to get
• 1:41:24
  Speaker 5: their perspective of Macaw. Oh really, and it's it's incredible
• 1:41:27
  Speaker 5: my country. Yeah and so what I haven't even heard
• 1:41:30
  Speaker 5: of that one, but yeah, it's incredible and so we'll
• 1:41:32
  Speaker 5: get your copy.
• 1:41:33
  Speaker 4: But it's it's good.
• 1:41:34
  Speaker 2: So if I mean, if you know that that book,
• 1:41:37
  Speaker 2: that book resonates with your understanding of stuff. Yes, yes, yeah,
• 1:41:42
  Speaker 2: you know what I'm saying, because sometimes you read books
• 1:41:44
  Speaker 2: and come from observers, but then the people being observed
• 1:41:50
  Speaker 2: are like that, like, that's not how we understand.
• 1:41:53
  Speaker 4: It to be. No, Josh is a great partner.
• 1:41:57
  Speaker 5: You really came in on behalf of the tribe and
• 1:41:59
  Speaker 5: and really put together really accurate. You know, I was
• 1:42:05
  Speaker 5: able to tell the story the way it happened.
• 1:42:08
  Speaker 4: You know.
• 1:42:08
  Speaker 1: What's pretty funny is there's this there's this French dude
• 1:42:11
  Speaker 1: named Jacques Cardier and he goes over to the He
• 1:42:16
  Speaker 1: lands over on the Canadian coast north of Maine, goes
• 1:42:19
  Speaker 1: up the Saint Lawrence River in the late fifteen hundreds,
• 1:42:23
  Speaker 1: and he meets these He meets these.
• 1:42:25
  Speaker 2: People called the static Conons.
• 1:42:27
  Speaker 1: They're like a Saint Lawrence Iroquois Iroquois and he's like
• 1:42:33
  Speaker 1: he's got this passage in his journal where he's like.
• 1:42:35
  Speaker 2: Here's what's up with their religion?
• 1:42:39
  Speaker 1: You really like, man, I just don't think they would
• 1:42:43
  Speaker 1: describe the religion that way.
• 1:42:47
  Speaker 3: That's funny.
• 1:42:47
  Speaker 2: He's like they think this this and this and that's it.
• 1:42:51
  Speaker 1: You know, it'd be like if someone it'd be like
• 1:42:53
  Speaker 1: it's as bad as if someone said, hey, I went
• 1:42:57
  Speaker 1: you know, I went to America.
• 1:42:58
  Speaker 2: There's Christians. They think that when God gets mad, he
• 1:43:03
  Speaker 2: floods their planet that's about you know, that's about the
• 1:43:07
  Speaker 2: main baby, that's it. He's like, so there's that explain.
• 1:43:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah, there's a there's a story in that book that
• 1:43:18
  Speaker 3: Josh did that really you know, puts it in perspective
• 1:43:24
  Speaker 3: what the ocean meant to us and means to us today.
• 1:43:28
  Speaker 3: But Captain Meares, when he was you know, doing his
• 1:43:31
  Speaker 3: uh exploring and trading, came into our area and you know,
• 1:43:37
  Speaker 3: met with you know, our head chief. I guess to
• 1:43:42
  Speaker 3: get safe passage through that area because he was he
• 1:43:46
  Speaker 3: was meeting with other tribes coming down Vancouver Island from
• 1:43:49
  Speaker 3: the north to south and they're like, you're going to
• 1:43:52
  Speaker 3: be entering McCaw waters, and you know, they're you want
• 1:43:56
  Speaker 3: to make sure you get their permission. So he had
• 1:44:00
  Speaker 3: a meeting and was trying to get get permission and
• 1:44:03
  Speaker 3: you know trade trading some things too. You know, there's
• 1:44:06
  Speaker 3: like an exchange of exchange of goods there to get
• 1:44:10
  Speaker 3: that safe passage. Well, he tried to low ball us, right,
• 1:44:13
  Speaker 3: he didn't want to pay what he paid other tribes
• 1:44:17
  Speaker 3: for safe passage, and we knew it, and so we
• 1:44:21
  Speaker 3: didn't let him pass. And he was looking for first
• 1:44:24
  Speaker 3: you know, as that was part of us. He's trying
• 1:44:26
  Speaker 3: to gather up first in the northwest, and and so
• 1:44:30
  Speaker 3: you know, our our people stayed out on you know,
• 1:44:36
  Speaker 3: in their canoes and basically kept his ship from transiting
• 1:44:41
  Speaker 3: the Straight of Wanda Fuca entry in the Straight of
• 1:44:43
  Speaker 3: Wana Fuca for several weeks. And then and why that
• 1:44:48
  Speaker 3: was being done, we sent another contingency to go up
• 1:44:52
  Speaker 3: the Straight of Wanda Fuca and Puget Sound and and
• 1:44:54
  Speaker 3: buy up all the first and then we let him
• 1:44:58
  Speaker 3: pass and the price went up when he had to
• 1:45:03
  Speaker 3: come back and deal with us.
• 1:45:04
  Speaker 1: Right, So there's another I don't want I don't know
• 1:45:07
  Speaker 1: why Cardier is on my mind, but there's another thing
• 1:45:09
  Speaker 1: like that with this Cardier dude. He gets the mouth
• 1:45:12
  Speaker 1: of Saint Lawrence and he builds this giant cross and
• 1:45:18
  Speaker 1: they right, like God Save the King or something on there,
• 1:45:20
  Speaker 1: and they pray there and.
• 1:45:22
  Speaker 2: The local.
• 1:45:24
  Speaker 1: The local Indians come up and they're like, what's going
• 1:45:27
  Speaker 1: out with the cross, you know, and he explains to him,
• 1:45:28
  Speaker 1: like everything you see, everything you see is our land,
• 1:45:33
  Speaker 1: and he punts on it and he tells them, no,
• 1:45:36
  Speaker 1: this is just showing people where to cut in. It's
• 1:45:40
  Speaker 1: a it's a navigational.
• 1:45:42
  Speaker 2: Marker, and that's how he explains in his journals like no, no,
• 1:45:46
  Speaker 2: you got me all wrong.
• 1:45:47
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it just.
• 1:45:48
  Speaker 2: Shows you where to turn left, because he don't want
• 1:45:53
  Speaker 2: to get into it. Well, man, I appreciate you guys
• 1:45:57
  Speaker 2: coming on. It means a lot. You'd come out and
• 1:45:58
  Speaker 2: talk about all this.
• 1:46:00
  Speaker 3: We uh, we're happy to you know, get that education
• 1:46:04
  Speaker 3: out there. You know, we we we have a part
• 1:46:08
  Speaker 3: of our culture and and and part of who we
• 1:46:10
  Speaker 3: are is we're not able to realize that right now. Yeah,
• 1:46:14
  Speaker 3: you know, there's we want to be whole, you know, understood.
• 1:46:18
  Speaker 3: We want to carry on what we asked for in
• 1:46:22
  Speaker 3: our treaty. Yeah, it's and it's important. It changes whaling,
• 1:46:27
  Speaker 3: changes lives in our community for the better. It makes
• 1:46:33
  Speaker 3: our community better.
• 1:46:34
  Speaker 1: I can tell it's true. I can tell it's true. Well,
• 1:46:37
  Speaker 1: the guys, thank you all for doing this. Appreciate it
• 1:46:39
  Speaker 1: and thank you for the gift. Oh yeah, you bet.
• 1:46:42
  Speaker 1: These guys brought me some Si Samon jarred up, beautiful Micagold, Macagold.
• 1:46:49
  Speaker 3: You don't have to share, you know.
• 1:46:53
  Speaker 1: That's I'm glad you brought that up because I might
• 1:46:54
  Speaker 1: have felt conflicted later. I might have wanted to slip
• 1:46:57
  Speaker 1: and fill and Nate jar here Man, but I don't
• 1:47:00
  Speaker 1: doing thanks a lot, not doing it all right, Thanks guys,
• 1:47:03
  Speaker 1: thank you, thank you,