The MeatEater Podcast - Ep. 596: An Alaska Native on Hunting Sea Otters and Honoring Her Culture

Episode Date: September 9, 2024

Steven Rinella talks with Heather Douville and Seth Morris. Topics discussed: How to pronounce Tlingit; setting halibut hooks in competitive pairs of two; drying fish over spruce sticks; putting good energy into what you’re doing; “do the best you can, your friend is coming to fight you”; salmon as a part of a way of life; only take what you need even if the law says you can take more; wearing seal; the sea otter fur trade; Heather’s small business, Coastal Fur and Leather; how sea otters eat 25% of their body weight in seafood a day; how there’s more hair on one square inch of a sea otter than there is on an entire German shepherd; soft gold; shooting off hand out of the boat; supporting the cause; restrictions under the Marine Mammal Protection Act; how kids are sacred; get Heather's handmade fur items here; and more. Outro song: "The World To Me" by Jared Hicks  Connect with Steve and The MeatEater Podcast Network Steve on Instagram and Twitter MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YoutubeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey folks, exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. You might not be able to join our raffles and sweepstakes and all that because of raffle and sweepstakes law, but hear this. OnX Hunt is now in Canada. It is now at your fingertips, you Canadians. The great features that you love in OnX are available for your hunts this season. Now the Hunt app is a fully functioning GPS with hunting maps that include public and crown land, hunting zones, aerial imagery, 24K topo maps, waypoints and tracking. You can even use offline maps to see where you are

without cell phone service as a special offer. You can get a free three months to try out OnX if you visit onxmaps.com slash meet. This is the Meat Eater Podcast coming at you shirtless, severely bug-bitten, and in my case, underwearless. We hunt the Meat Eater Podcast coming at you shirtless, severely bug-bitten, and in my case, underwearless. The Meat Eater Podcast. You can't predict anything. The Meat Eater Podcast is brought to you by First Light.

Whether you're checking trail cams, hanging deer stands, or scouting for elk, First Light has performance apparel to support every hunter in every environment. Check it out at firstlight.com. F-I-R-S-T-t-l-i-t-e.com okay joined today by heather duville holy cow thanks for coming over thank you flying over happy to be here yeah beautiful flight yeah you live in craig alaska i do um born and raised in craig born and raised in craig on the outside outside, what we hear at the inside of the island called the outside of the island. Wait, say it again?

Like we call that the outside of the island. Oh, okay. Gotcha. Prince of Wales Island. Yeah, like the west side of the island, the outside of the island. Yeah. Okay. And you were born and raised there.

Mm-hmm. And I got to plug something, and then I'm going to ask you a bunch of questions. Okay. But I'm going to plug it by asking you a question. Okay. We're launching a new thing called Meat Eater Radio Live. And it's going to be a show where we get,

it's live now. Meat Eater Radio Live is live now. And it's a show where we get call and reports from people from around the country about what's going on. I'm going to pitch you on being a correspondent. Oh, I'd love it. You'll call in. We'll be like, what the hell

are you doing right now? Oh, that would be amazing. Please do. That'd be cool. Yeah. You'll be our correspondent from the outside of Prince of Wales Island. Anytime. Folks can check out Me Eat It Radio Live. It goes live. It's live on thursdays and then lives everywhere you get your podcast lives on youtube so you we will meet you now

in great detail and then we will check in with you on that if this is cool with you oh i'd love it thank you and yeah i'm honored to be here okay uh let's start with this. You're Tlingit. Explain that to me like I'm five years old. Okay. So it's pronounced like Tlingit, T-H-L. Tlingit. Tlingit. But a lot of people say Tlingit because, you know, when settlers came, it was easier for them to say that. But my great-grandma would say Tlingit.

So a lot of our traditional words and traditional languages now difficult to pronounce for many folks. But yeah, Tlingit, my ancestry is from here. These are our traditional homelands. My great-grandma came from Angoon. Where's that? It's in a little village north of here in southeast Alaska. But I traveled down here when the cannery opened in Kluwak. Okay.

Yeah, it was the first cannery in Alaska. Yeah. So that's what brought your mom to this island? My great-grandma. Oh, I'm sorry, your great-grandma to this island, yeah. Yeah, and so then my grandma lived here, and my dad was born in Craig, and I was born and raised here too.

So yeah, these are our traditional homelands, and I'm really honored to be able to carry out the traditions of our people and practice our culture today still. And I just feel like I'm standing on the shoulders of giants, and I'm really proud to be here and be able to share my culture with you. Yeah, that's a funny thing because I'll catch you like on now and then and get to feeling all like, man, we've been coming here for 17 years. Yeah.

Don't tell me about that. I've been fishing here for 17 years. I can't even like that thing is hard to thing that's hard to imagine is, for me, is it's hard to picture being in a place where it's not that your grandparents came there, your great-grandparents came there from some foreign land but it's hard to picture what it would feel like to be in a place where your people have been there for thousands of years right because in my culture, in my experience, it's so uprooted. I know some people came from Italy in the early 1900s.

I don't know. At this point, we don't even know where the hell they came from. Do you know what I mean? It's so, for us to get a sense of having been here, 16 years feels like a good run. Right. You know, and I can't, that's what it's got to be amazing to have that. I'm sure it, I mean, you can tell me, but I'm sure it's painful in some ways because change, but in some ways it's got to be disinvigorating.

Yeah. To have that long of a history. You're right. It's, you know, and our history has been passed down through storytelling. You know, we didn't have it documented. There was no paper, pens, people weren't writing it down. So our culture has stayed alive for over 10,000 years and our cultural traditions that we practice today are you know still a part of our lives today because of you know the people that came before us and they had a responsibility to carry that on and pass that down and a lot of that is done through storytelling so my great grandma would say you, that her, you know,

grandparents came from up river, so like up the Yukon area. Is that right? And then made, so they're inland Tlingits, and then made their way down to Angoon. And, yeah, despite all of the attempts for Indigenous people to not be here anymore, we are still very much here and practicing our culture and carrying that on. And I feel like I have a responsibility to pass that on to the next generation, you know, to honor the people that came before me.

And that's just a part of who we are. And you're right, sometimes it is painful because so much has been lost you know through colonization and um what we can just really do today is really practice it and revitalize it and honor who we are and share it and i'm really glad to be here today and share this with you and and and me being able to tell my story and share with you about my culture is part of that storytelling and and I hope you know that you go and share that with other people and that's just how it stays alive and has for 10,000 years when I go to say the word like you're talking about pronunciation um I'll hear people say like people who are not familiar with the language you know what let me let me do this

before I say what I was gonna say no I'll say what I was gonna say then I'm gonna ask you another question um I hear tlingit and cling it right is one of those closer um no it's cling it why don't you ask that's like people aren't gonna be able to do that yeah people say clink it clink it yeah and that sounds that sounds close to right for you that's what i'm not no i'm saying for me yeah me and sam when you hear people say that are you just like take a stab you say it once clink it it. Okay. Yeah, it's good. I think it's good. Clink it. Yeah.

No good. It's good. You do it once. Fling it. Cling it. Fling it. It's like a, like a T-H. Mm-hmm.

Fling it. I can't, I'm not going to run around saying it. Fling it. Fling it. Fling it. And it's good. My dad would say, your great grandma would say it like this. Yeah, do that.

That's how he, like that. Okay, what does your dad say? Same. Yeah. would say it like this yeah do that that's how he oh like that okay what did your dad say same yeah uh give me a uh since we haven't established for how i can say it yeah you can cling it cling it cling it i'm trying to make it up uh is that do you guys like from okay from me like coming from from my influences and stuff we would look and we'd be like it's an athabascan culture is that like a is that a thing you guys talk about no like a family a language family like the athabascan language family no i don't think we look at it that way you know we say like this is how we were taught um this is how my great grandma would say it instead of like categorizing us into a certain

you know what i mean language yeah yeah yeah and there's a handful of things just for different areas oh there okay hit me with a handful of things just to get a feel for the language. Sure. So like thank you in our language is goodness chish. Okay. And I don't know a lot. So I guess I should start by saying, you know, like I'm learning.

I'm always going to be learning. Yep. A lot of our culture and language is lost. And I hope to be fluent in my language one day and so I'm a work in progress and always will be um so you know I hope those who know more than me will forgive me for if I don't do or say something right but um know that i'm learning and trying my best so um yeah my dad like when we're cutting fish he'll say height that means give me the knife say it again height and that's like give me the knife um if you mess up typically like your aunties or your grandma would say,

duh, and that's like no good, like duh. That sounds like, I can picture saying that to my kids. Yeah, duh, duh. Humor. And they'd like snap to your attention, right? Humor is really one of our values. So I think Tlingit people or indigenous people just always incorporate humor into everything.

It's just a part of, I think, our healing too. But my dad jokes, or like I've heard people joke and say, oh, I thought my traditional name growing up was Duh. My traditional name is Kootink. I'm named after my grandma's best friend. Her English name is Irene Pradovich from Kowak. I don't know what my name means, but... Tell me your name again. Kutink. Kutink. That's my traditional name. My clan is

Shonkwedi, so it's a really old clan. And if you look at the clan lists of clan names online it's not even on there it's so old um this is my clan crest it's tattooed on my hand this is permanent regalia so after like missionaries came here the government made it illegal to have permanent regalia tattooed on um on you so yeah this is killer whale so my clan is shankwidi and i'm eagle killer whale so then later you'll see a lot of like jewelry like this with carved clan crests on them, which is also eagle, eagle wolf, killer whale. That's me. This evolved after that government ban of permanent regalia because it could be removed

when it had to be removed in public. Oh, you mean like when they banned tattooing um people just use jewelry instead yeah it was it was like a culture ban you couldn't practice speak language have your regalia on you when they put when they took kids and put them in school and stuff too my grandma went to boarding school in wrangle and survived And they enforced that stuff. But she came back and didn't speak our language again. So it was lost. But luckily my dad remembered a lot of it from his great-grand, or from his grandma being my great-grandma.

Yeah, so this is permanent regalia, but this is my clan crest. And then this is, you know, a bracelet. So this is kind of how it evolved um but you actually you take your you follow your mother's lineage so like western cultures you take your dad's last name in our culture um you follow your mother's lineage so i have would have my mom's clan crest and my dad would be my opposite so a lot of what we do is really try to achieve balance whether that's like out you know we'll talk about sea otters later and like it's off balance right now with the population the shellfish and and so like there's two clan crests in our culture it's eagle and raven and they're opposites so eagle and ravens can marry each other and you'll follow your mother's lineage but that opposite clan crest coming

together like brings balance oh really yeah so we treat our opposites really treat try to treat everyone really well especially elders but we always take really good care treat our opposites. We try to treat everyone really well, especially elders, but we always take really good care of our opposites. So if ravens ask me to do something, I always do it for them, and it helps keep me grounded and balanced in my own way. Explain your other tattoo on the other hand. Yeah, so this other one is a wood hook, and in Tlingit, it's called a nah.

And it's a sea monster. And this is... Can you get one out so we can show the camera? Yeah, this is the only wood hook that we've retired. And my dad and I loved it so much, it's caught hundreds of halibuts. So a little over a year ago we decided to get them tattooed on our hands and you're holding the actual object yeah and this is this is hold that up because people that are watching oh for sure this is the enough that we retired so it's here and um you can see everything about how it's made and how it's set and how you encourage it?

So this one was made in 1996. It's caught hundreds of halibut. You can see the teeth marks here. And each one has eyes so it can see what it's catching. And this one's a sea monster and I brought a 30 year old sea monster and then a new one that hasn't been fished yet so you can see the color differences in the wood and I also brought an eagle but this is um yew wood and this part is yellow cedar and this is a post contact hook.

So you can see there's some modern materials incorporated in to this. But traditionally this barb would be made from a bare bone. Like a sliver of shin bone or something? Yeah, like a leg bone. Yeah, and then to secure that barb and to also secure the two pieces of wood together, we would use spruce root. And then this part here, the line, would be made from cedar bark cordage. and so these are set in pairs so they can compete against each other underwater and they're set on like a long line like a skate type of line and they're set in pairs of two and the sinkers we use as a rock with the groove carved in it and you still make those

yeah yeah and then um traditionally the float on top of the water would be a inflated seal stomach that's dried and then you have a tattletail buoy which is about you know this long and usually they're in the shape of a cormorant bird and so it got a long neck you know and a beak and face and then a larger rounded body and so when you had a halibut it would tip up so i think these would be set and then the people would go to the beach and like build a fire and wait until you could see if you got fire and wait. So these are baited with octopus and you take a octopus and you kind of shave the tentacles off in a long strip. So it looks like a lot of bait, but it's really thin and it stays light

because you don't want to put too heavy of a bait on here because it'll affect the way these float and you'd wrap the octopus tentacles around this part and you tie it with the string oh you secure it on there with string i got you and it kind of disguises this a little bit but you bait the whole yellow cedar part. And then you lower them down. When you get to where you're going to fish, you lower them down, and you have your rock that goes first.

And then about one or two fathoms, so 6 to 12 feet, you'd have your first hook. And it floats like this far off the bottom. And what would be a deep set for you guys? A deep set, I mean, they can go like 40 fathoms. Okay. You know, way out. 240 feet, yeah.

Or, you know, we've caught fish in 40 feet of water or less, 30 feet. Yep. And this yellow cedar part will float level. So you don't want it to float like this or like this. So the two different woods help it float properly. And then the way you bait them. And then you set. so those woods have like a real like uh you have to be very careful about the size and relative amount of each kind of wood because i can't picture ever getting that thing to float how you'd want it to yeah you just keep

shaping it and the shape and then my dad measures the distance by going like this. So it's like the width of your hand. Got it. So you have your sinker, your first hook, and then you have about two more fathoms, your second hook, your second rock sinker, and then your line up to your float. So it's not a big, you know, it's not a long set.

And then when you set them, kind of like you said you knock and hit the rock on the ground and make sure you wake up the pal bit and then when pal bit go to eat they they can't see very good because they have you know eyes on the top of their head so they go up to whatever they're eating and they open their mouth and it creates a vacuum it'll suck this in and then if they don't like it, they'll spit it out and it ejects that barb into their cheek and they can't get off here. You can't release halibut off of here either. When he's on there, he's on there.

Yeah, so sometimes you catch a really big one. You might not want to normally keep one that size, but these are not for catch and release but the good thing is you're setting two hooks so you know you can't catch more than two fish and you don't want to over harvest you want to make sure you know like we maintain that balance and don't take more than what we need what's your ideal size um i think anywhere like 80 pounds would be good or 50 to 80 pounds because we like to have fillets like this long because we take the fillet and leave the skin on the back of it

and then cut like this long strips of about a quarter inch thick halibut and then dry it get dried fish we also lightly smoke it in the smokehouse and then dry it so typically we fish for halibut to make dried fish and you brine that dry fish just put it in there fresh we brine salmon but we don't brine um halibut Or just put it in there fresh? We brine salmon, but we don't brine halibut. You just sprinkle a little salt on it. And dry it in your smokehouse? We smoke it in the smokehouse and dry it in a drying shed. I see.

When you use dry, you don't mean like you don't dry it out with fire. You just dry it out in a shed. Right. Yeah. We don't use a dehydrator. Just we use spruce sticks and hang it over the spruce sticks. They can hold a lot of weight. And how do you control, is there a time of year? Like how do you control flies and stuff when you do that? Or just that salt repels them?

Yeah. So we have a fan on them. Okay. Yeah. We keep fan blowing on them. We have a little homemade drying shed out of wood and the drying time really does depend on the time of year, the climate. You know, if it's hot out, it's going to take less time to dry. And if it's cold and wintertime, you know, it'll take a little bit longer. Hey, folks, exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. And boy, my goodness, do we hear from the Canadians whenever we do a raffle or a sweepstakes. And our raffle and sweepstakes law makes it that they can't join. Whew.

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of it. Be part of the excitement. You can even use offline maps to see where you are without cell phone service. That's a sweet function. As part of your membership, you'll gain access to exclusive pricing on products and services handpicked by the OnX Hunt team.

Some of our favorites are First Light, Schnee's, Vortex Federal, and more. As a special offer, you can get a free three months to try OnX out if you visit onxmaps.com slash meet. onxmaps.com slash meet. Welcome to the OnX Club, y'all. What's the word, you were saying that when you send a hook down,

they're down there to compete. Oh yeah, I'll give you one. But there's a word you use to, that you basically like to, a last word of encouragement. Yeah, so we, you try to put good energy into what you're doing and everything that you do.

And so when we set these, we give them encouraging words. And we, you could say jindagut, which is like charge or like fight, you know. Or there's a little bit of a longer saying too, where it's like, do the best you can.

Your friend is coming to fight you. And you lower them and say that. Tell me that one. That's cool. Let's see. It's, That's like, do the best you can. Your friend is coming to fight you

and you're kind of telling both them and the halibut like we're coming to compete so they compete against each other it's kind of fun especially for my niece and nephew to pick out which ones are going to be set together and

you said the eyes are abalone shells so these sea monster eyes are abalone shells? Oh, that's abalone? So these sea monster hooks have abalone eyes, and this is an eagle. It doesn't have abalone eyes, but it does have eyes so they can see what they're catching. You can see all the teeth marks in that one. It's caught hundreds of fish. Oh, it's been worked over.

Yeah, that's cool. Yeah. You mentioned that you dry, like you get halibut to dry. Yeah. Do you, would you ever just take a piece of halibut and fry it up or bake it or grill it? Yeah. So you do that? Okay, yeah.

We do. Is that not a favorite fish? Yeah. It's so funny because we hear, oh, a halibut. But we prefer to dry it and then eat other fish. What's your favorite? The way that you described. What's your favorite fish to eat?

Probably king salmon. Okay, where do you put cod? We've been catching a lot of cod. I love them. Ling cod is really good. Like gray cod or Pacific cod? Honestly, I don't think I've ever had that. Okay.

Yeah. But you like ling cod? I think my dad says it's pretty good. Oh, it's good. Yeah. Yeah, Pacific cod. If it wasn't morning time, I'd fry you up at home. Yeah.

Breakfast sandwich. So yeah, I prefer king salmon. You like king salmon? Yeah. I know the state of Alaska, they're kind of duking this issue out, but what would it mean if king salmon were listed as under the Endangered Species Act? Would you guys have an exemption?

Would native Alaskans have some kind of exemption to the closures? It doesn't sound like it, no. It doesn't sound like there'd be an exemption for native use? Not the way that I've, not from what I've learned. But, yeah, it would be devastating. That would be a real life, if that's your favorite fish. Yeah, well. Doesn't your father, your father is a king salmon fisherman, isn't he?

Doesn't he patrol? Yeah, and my brother, they're commercial trollers. But, you know, trolling is one of the oldest fisheries. Yeah? Yeah, sustainable hook and line. Very selective. Yeah, and, you know, we've been here for thousands of years, and salmon has always been a part of our way of life,

which is hakustei. It means our way of life. And I can't even imagine a life without being able to put up our traditional foods. And you think about subsistence use, which I try not to use that word because we try to say traditional harvest. To me, subsistence implies that you're scraping by.

Well, it's also a management term. Right. In Alaska, it's like people don't realize, but in Alaska, there's like subsistence regulations, right? Right. But you don't see like a traditional use regulation. Right. And if you look up the word subsistence,

it really doesn't encompass who we are and what we do. But traditional harvest or subsistence if you will is the least takes the least amount from a resource resource is also a management term because we believe we're steward you know we're stewards of this land so resource to me implies that you're taking from something but when you live here you try to live you, and be a good steward. So if you take, you give back or you don't take more than what you need. And you need fish to get fish. So you're not going to go to a river.

And just because you have a limit to take and you see it's depressed you don't fish no so you might get five deer tags but your household of one you might take one deer and then get one for an elder but you just don't take the maximum because the law says you can yeah so that's you don't view that it as a No, and it's just about taking what you need and then using what you take to sustain you for that year, and then you go harvest the next year. If you have some leftover from the year before, you don't need to harvest that much the next season.

So, yeah, making sure you respect yourself um it's called um kaya which is like having respect for yourself and all things so if you have that self-respect to do those things like you'll have respect for other people in land air water and all all the things that live around you uh your father and your brother are trollers king salmon trollers what is their what is the time of year that they are actively fishing and why didn't you go into that line of work? Yeah, so the King Salmon Troll opening is on July 1st every year. And I'm sure you've heard because of the ESAs and just there's been a lot of pressure surrounding King Salmon and commercial fishing.

But over the years, I've heard my dad talk about how like you know it's become less and less and like obviously more people move to alaska there's a sport fishing industry there's commercial fishing and more people here and everyone's taking a piece of the pie. Well, the pie isn't getting bigger, you know, it's getting smaller.

So, um, the reason why I didn't go into that line of work, I think is just because my brother and I are a year and a half apart. He's a year and a half older. So he was always going with my dad and crewing for him. Got it. Yeah. And, um, my dad was always like,

you need to go to school, you need to go get your education, which I did go for two years, but I came back. And after I moved back, he said, you know, you need to go finish and get your degree. And finally I looked at him and I said, I am in school. You know, we're out in the boat and I'm learning how to do all these things. And I said, I'm in the school I want to be in. And he got it.

He quit beating you up about it. And ever since then and before then then i've just been trying to learn everything i can from him and and these are the things that i really want to learn and and practice so i can pass them on and and that this is something i can't learn in school i'm not against school but where did you where did you try to go when you went um i went actually went to s Barbara City College. I played basketball there. Oh, you did?

Yeah. Did you play basketball growing up? Yeah. I was telling the float plane pilot who dropped me off here. Vance, Black Rock Aviation. That's how we. Nice guy. He's so nice.

He's the best. That's how we traveled for all of our games. Float planes? Mm-hmm. In Southeast. aviation that's how nice guy he's so nice that's how we traveled for all of our games float planes in southeast so our school would charter planes and and we would leave from hollis often and um oftentimes and go fly and we'd stay the weekend in other towns and we'd have to stay with the opponent's families. So we'd go home and sleep on their bedroom floor after we played them. It would be all mad whoever won or lost.

But we made a lot of great friends like that throughout Southeast. So you went down to Santa Barbara and thought you'd go to school. Yeah. Yeah, it was good. And it was good to go and get that experience and that perspective of a different place. So busy.

You enjoyed it while you did it? Oh, yeah, for sure. I mean, it's the sun and sand. Getting all that oil on your feet at the beach. Yeah, it's good. Oh, yeah. I forgot about that. I think it's important to do that. And then you come back, you really appreciate, you know,

what you have and the people in your life. So what do you call your business and describe? I'm sure I know you do a handful of things, but your business of fur products. For sure. So I started this little business and the main goal of that was to try to recoup the costs of hunting, processing, and sewing sea otter fur.

I work with some seal skins because we do harvest seals to eat. We make oil and eat seal meat, but we only get about two a year. So I mainly work with sea otter fur, but I started the business to try to sell items to recoup the costs for hunting. So in this region, you know, Southeast Alaska spans a distance of 13 states, so it's enormous.

You know, if you look at it on a map, it doesn't look that big, but it's a a humongous region and a recent aerial survey showed that there's like 22 to 25,000 sea otter in this region and I'm not sure um well I guess I should ask do you want the lengthy answer to that question? I want the big lengthy answer and I want you to explain who can hunt sea otters and who can't. I'll cover it all. So now, today, there's like 25,000 sea otter in the region. Historically, you know, there's the commercial fur trade, you know, for about 150 years.

Russians enslaved Alaska natives to hunt, and they would sell the furs commercially, primarily to China. So for about 150 years, there was a commercial fur trade in Alaska, and over a million sea otters were taken. And then in 1911, there was a fur seal treaty signed, which put a stop to that commercial fur trade, which also put a halt to the harvest of sea otters, but they're almost extinct. So there's zero sea otters, but they're almost extinct. So there's zero sea otters left in Southeast Alaska, or nearly zero.

And then, so that was in 1911. And then there was Amchitka Island in the Aleutians is the largest nuclear test site in the U.S. And so they were planning, the government was planning to do some nuclear tests in the late 60s, 1960s at Amchitka. And they were concerned about how that would affect the sea otter population. So in the late 60s, they actually captured around 400 sea otters and put them in these metal kennels with water in them and flew them to Southeast Alaska and relocated about 400 of them to seven different areas.

Oh, so it was like a reintroduction. I didn't know that. Yeah. So I believe one of the late 60s, and then there was that massive nuclear test in 1971 in Amchitko. It was like hundreds of times larger than the bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima. And it was like a mile down underground and it created such a huge explosion that it actually wiped out I think over 900 sea otters.

So a lot more than they thought would die. Now I'm going off on a tangent here, but that's why Greenpeace was formed. Okay. Because there was a group of people from Canada in 1971 who were protesting that nuclear test and the name of the boat that they tried to travel to protest that test was called Greenpeace.

Are you kidding me? So they tried to make it all the way up to Amchitka to stop the bomb. I didn't know that was the... I didn't know that was like the genesis of Greenpeace. So then the Marine Mammal Protection Act was put in place, I believe, in 1972, which part of that,

the Marine Mammal Protection Act states that you must be a certain blood quantum of coastal Alaska native blood quantum. It's 25% in order to hunt sea otter. Okay. you know, there aren't that many people who are qualified to hunt through the eligibility rules of the Marine Mammal Protection Act. Do you have any idea how many, like just take on Prince of Wales Island, do you have any idea how many meet the eligibility, but I do know it's illegal for me to teach my niece and nephew how to work with furs. They can't make seal oil. They can't cook the meat.

They cannot help skin one so there's um it's like criminalizing our cultural pass down in our hakustei our way of life because we want to be able to you know our culture has survived this long despite all the attempts to make it not survive and it really deserves to be passed down for that much longer and um i don't know how many people qualify, but I do know the effects of... Would it be in the hundreds or thousands? I don't know, but I do know there's only about 35 hunters in the region.

Okay. So there's very little incentive to hunt because another part of the Marine Mammal Protection Act states that you must convert the pelts into a sellable item to try to recoup the cost. So you have to significantly alter the pelts so you can't make them whole again. So you cannot sell whole pelts.

You can't just shoot a sea otter, flesh it, stretch it, dry it, and send it to a fur market. Right. Or send it off to get it tanned and then sell a whole tanned pelt. I brought some pelts to show you too. So by the time you know how to hunt and then go harvest sea otter skin, flesh, salt, get it tanned, get it home,

learn how to sew or have had somebody teach you how, cut it, sew it, make your pattern, get it right, and then have it the quality that somebody wants to buy and then market those items. It really, I don't think you're ever going to make your money back. But so a long answer to your question is I started this business. It's called Coastal Fur and Leather. And it's just to sell the items that I make to try to recoup some of those costs because there's so many sea otter in this region now and so few hunters that our traditional food security is at risk. So, you know, for 10,000 years we've harvested shellfish from our intertidal zones here, which are now, there's so many sea otter in the area,

and they eat 25% of their body weight in shellfish a day. So the average sea otter, let's say it weighs 70, 80 pounds, could be eating anywhere from 15 to 20 pounds of seafood a day every day and can you pull out that big ass hide just to show for sure i was uh when you pulled that out earlier i was quite surprised oh for sure yeah so they do of this of that one of those could get that big. Yeah. They get up to 100 pounds. I, a couple years ago, saw like 30 of them all together. And like, I didn't know that they ate that much.

Yeah. Just thinking about like how much seafood that 30 of those things are eating in a day. It's crazy. Yeah. So in where we used to harvest sea urchins and abalone last year we were able to get a few well about 10 sea otter moved in there and there's none left so just 10 sea otter in a small area can really do some damage and then you know it takes years 50 years

before it'll recover you know but here's here's a the pelt man look at that thing it's like a bear i can't believe how big i measure it's 58 inches long hey folks exciting news for those who live or hunt in canada and boy my goodness do we hear from the canadians whenever we do a raffle or sweepstakes and our raffle and sweepstakes law makes it that they can't join. Our northern brothers get irritated. Well, if you're sick of, you know,

sucking high and titty there, OnX is now in Canada. The great features that you love in OnX are available for your hunts this season. The Hunt app is a fully functioning GPS with hunting maps that include

public and crown land, hunting zones, aerial imagery, 24K topo maps, waypoints, and tracking. That's right. We're always talking about OnX here on the MeatEater podcast. Now you guys in the Great White North can be part of it.

Be part of the excitement. You can even use offline maps to see where you are without cell phone service. That's a sweet function. As part of your membership, you'll gain access to exclusive pricing on products and services, handpicked by the on X hunt team. Some of our favorites are first light Schne Schnee's, Vortex Federal,

and more. As a special offer, you can get a free three months to try OnX out if you visit onxmaps.com slash meet. onxmaps.com slash meet.

Welcome to the OnX club, y'all tell folks about some of the qualities of the hair oh yeah so they do have guard hair but it's not like you know like a beaver where it's like long hairs they're really close the guard hair is really close and linked to their undercoat and they have about a million hairs per square inch so there's more hair in one square inch of a sea otter than there is on an entire german shepherd just to kind of put it in perspective and sea otter don't have a fat layer like seals so they actually have a really high metabolism that they rely on you know for warmth and then also this undercoat it stays dry and they're always grooming themselves to make sure their fur is staying the way it needs to be to be able to trap that air and and keep them warm so their guard

hair gets wet but this under layer stays dry and you know unless they're diving down and then the pressure will push you know water back into there and so they'll they'll come up and you'll see them grooming a lot so um they do have really unique fur um i I learned that in the fur trade era, it was referred to as soft gold. Hmm. Hmm. That's cool. Yeah, they have different, so they have different, like, textures and colors. So each one is very unique.

And, you know, I brought a couple here and you can see like this one's curly. You can actually see that. So much darker. God, it's incredible, man. But they are incredibly soft. See, that is just wild. You were saying these things can that for can dive oh yeah 300 feet yeah so they can dive up to 300 feet but i think they they don't prefer to do that so you'll find them in a lot in the shallow intertidal areas where we're also trying to harvest shellfish from those areas

you know they're hanging out there because it's easier to dive food's more accessible it's easier to get and yeah you may see a raft of 30 or 300 a lot of times in males bigger males will be like loners you'll see singles kind of floating here and there. Typically those tend to be like a male, big male. But I learned that hunters have the ability to collect the most data on these because we're the ones, you know, skinning them. And I think a lot of biologists, they can't harvest, so they can observe to collect data. So I really was worried about traditional food security and started to up my game as far as hunting goes.

So my dad and I, we hunted like over 170 this winter, which is a lot. And there's no limit for you guys, right? Right. And at the rate they're holding. But you got to, so when you send 170 in to start making all your hats and other products. Yeah, they're about 100. When we talked on the phone one time, you mentioned what a. They're $100 each to tan. Yeah, so you got big out-of-pocket expenditure.

Yeah. They're $100 each to tan. Yeah, so you got big out-of-pocket expenditure. And like in a normal fur trap or whatever, it's like you get it, you put it up, it's out the door. You don't need to invest more money into tanning it. And gratefully, I know how to sew. So my auntie taught me how to make moccasins when I was 12, but I actually learned to sew with leather when my parents had regalia made for me. When I was in second grade,

they had a deerskin dress made for me, and I took the scraps, and I made matching regalia for my Barbie. And that was my first experience working with leather, and I always liked it. And then I learned how to make moccasins when I was 12. But you know, the items I sell, they, they are like higher price, but they actually don't sell for as much as what they would be appraised for because of the value is a lot higher than what the items sell for,

but they last forever. So my moccasins that I made when I was 12, they stretched as my foot grew and they just wore through. So they lasted almost 25 years. Wow. Yeah. I'm doing the math now to figure out how old you are. Well, I'm 38.

They wore out last year and i have avoided making myself a new pair until this year i wore them with a big hole in them so yeah so it was about 18 000 to to tan those pelts plus it's to send out 30 to 35 salted dried pelts, it's about $600 in shipping one way. And that's about half that to ship them back. What I thought was funny is, like we send stuff off every year just to do things, you know, product, we just have stuff made.

Like me and Seth have like big beaver blankets, you know. But we use that moil in Idaho. And when I askedaver blankets you know but we use that uh moil yeah and i don't and when i asked you where you send them to and you said moil i thought that was funny yeah i was telling you so you get a discount if you sell or if you send um like a certain amount so um i think it's 21 pelts to you know i'm gonna get this wrong but there's like a range where it's like 0 to 10, 10 to 20, 20 above or whatever the hell it is. There's also a break if you send like over 100. I try to send a whole lot and

you get a little bit of a price break which if you're sending that many it's definitely worth it. Yeah it makes a difference. And there's not, not every tannery can tan marine mammal fur. So there's only about five tanneries on the list right now that can tan sea otters. Okay. Moyle Mink is one of them and they do a tremendous job. You know, if you look at the back of this. It's a classy outfit, man. Oh, they do.

I've never been there, but. No, no, I just mean just like interacting with it online and the back it's a classy outfit man oh they do i've never been there but no no i just mean just like interacting with it online and stuff it's a classy outfit and the customer service is good yeah i mean they actually don't do online for sea otters they don't know but um they are great and you know you put so much into these like when i send them off and i'm like oh gosh you know please make it down there and please let them come back nice. It's devastating, man. You almost want to fly them down yourself. When they come back, they're beautiful.

This is nice cream colored. It's really soft. CRs smell really bad. So you want to make sure you're sending them to a good tanner so they don't come back stinky. I've seen some. They got an odor to them? just a fishy where they come back and they smell so i need to see that curly one again yeah this this one's pretty unique and i actually got like five out of the batch that were curly which you don't really find that often then how much time are you spending

like how are you when are you doing your sewing that is wild man yeah so it's typically a winter activity you know where the days light hours are shorter and our heart our food harvest season's over so after i get my deer you know in the fall i start sowing and hunting because you're trying to replenish your materials for next you know the next sowing season but i i hunt you know, you know, our traditional foods security and also to be able to continue to practice my culture and pass that down. How do you go about hunting these? Yeah. What's your strategy?

I was thinking about this. So I was thinking about showing you this, but it looks so funny because I went and sighted in my sea otter gun a couple days ago. What's your sea otter gun? I was practicing my boat stance for hunting sea otter and shooting at the gong to make sure I would be able to get one. So it's a lot easier if you have a driver. The driver has to be eligible to hunt. Oh, they do.

That makes sense. So they got to be the blood quantum. Yeah. So my dad and I usually go together, but I have gone alone. It's definitely a lot harder. So when you get one, you're like, oh, woo. You're like, I did good. So you typically shoot from the boat.

Sometimes you can get off on a rock, but it's really not common because they're smart and they adapt. So sea otters that have been hunted before, they know what's going on and they get out of there real fast. So if you're cruising by, if you're going sport fishing or just cruising on step on your boat they'll just look but if you slow down they know they know what's up especially the one you know the ones that have been hunted before you can tell when one hasn't we hunt an animal uh you're probably a pronghorn or antelope right and um it's funny man you could like

cars could drive by at 60 miles an hour all day you so much slow down it's totally different um yeah my dad's like we need to get a recording of a boat going you know on step and play it as you're idling up but um okay so you um i was shooting with up until christmas my dad got me an ar for christmas but um until then i had a pre-64 um 22 hornet is re-chambered to a 222 it's real heavy yeah has like a one and a half pound trigger pull so you know you think about shooting and it's going to shoot because you gotta be right off the rail the boat which is not stable well no not the rail you're not yeah just off hand oh so you're in the boat off hand yeah because that? Because you don't want to rest on the boat because the boat's moving.

Oh. So the stance is that. See, that's good to know. I mean, I'm not going to put it to use, but I would have pictured like shooting off a boat. I would have pictured you would use the rail and somehow like touch the trigger as you swing through. So that's not what you're doing.

Well, not off a rest, but you do time it. So your driver or you, if you're driving, you want to go around the sea otter. So where you're lined up to go with the chop, not against it. So you want to kind of make sure you know where the chop's going and get on that side. And then you'll be going with the chop so it's less bouncy. And then you stand up and you bend your knees. Stand up and show us. Okay. This bench is kind of, so you stand up, you bend your knees,

and you kind of get on your tippy toes. Got it. And then you're going to aim, you know, offhand. On your tippy toes got it and then you're going to aim you know offhand so when on your tippy toes yeah you can't see me but then when you're going with the chop and they're moving and you're moving oh i hadn't thought about that everybody's moving yeah they're moving they're trying to get away and they're moving in the swell you're going with the chop and idling. And so you want to be able to use your tippy toes and your knees to balance you

so you're kind of right on them. And then when your crosshairs cross their head, that's when you want to shoot. And what distance are you normally getting to them? You want to get as close as possible, but maybe 50 yards. So getting a deer to you is probably a cakewalk the shot the shot yeah i mean compared to this they're honestly hard to get they are some days you you you might

get nine and then some days you might get one it just depends depends on, especially if you're out of practice, you know, if you haven't shot in a while, you're like. Well, see, what you're saying is another thing I hadn't thought, just like I would have thought you shoot off the rail, okay? Yeah.

Like I didn't know that, but the other thing you're saying that I hadn't thought about is you picture that that thing's riding a wave and you're riding a different wave or a different sequencing. And you're moving

and they might be moving this way, but they might be in a pod like you mentioned. Usually it's pods of over 100. You know, we might shoot at a single, but you're also looking because we don't want to shoot any that have pups. Yep. And we shoot them in the head head make sure they don't suffer so you're looking and you're going okay that's a double there's a single mm-hmm and you're selecting them or I am I don't shoot any with pups so and they're buoyant look yeah you hit them you don't got to hustle over there and gather. Yeah, so they do float.

And my dad got me an AR for Christmas. So it has a bull barrel. It's heavy. What kind of AR is it? It's a Rock River. It's got a heavy barrel on it? It's got a bull barrel. Did you Sarah code it because of all the salt water? No.

Is it just a rusty mess? No, I mean it's new. But yeah, so because sometimes you can get a second shot before they dive. Once they start diving they're getting out of there and they're harder to get. So when you're going up to them and they kind of go, is where you shoot and you could get another shot off if you miss. So you're waiting for that little moment when they check out what's up.

Yeah, they're like, oh. And then when they go down, it's like, oh, now we've got to go try to get them, go after them. So then you're playing the game of where is it swimming? Which way is it going? how far is it going how long can it hold its breath oh oh so you're you're trying to keep up with it so when it pops up you're yeah shooting so you kind of want to get them right when you get there yeah so you got to be ready with the chop ready ready to aim in aim, in your stance, ready to go. And do you, so when you get one,

you go over and haul it up in the boat. And do you skin on the boat or do you take them all home? It depends. It's best to skin them on the boat, just easier, but you want to skin them right away because of their fur density. Even when it's cold out, you know, 20 degrees out,

they will hold their body heat so well that they'll get a green belly within the night. Like if you were to leave them the next day, they'll get spoiled. Yeah. So you want to skin them right away. And then I actually put them in the freezer and then wait till i get the lot where i can get the tanning break you know cost break and i'll flush like 30 at a time or i'm sorry 30 in a day so i might flush 60 in a weekend. But I use a pressure washer to flesh them.

It has a, I know you said you were against that. No, no, no, let me explain myself. I see you have the perfect setup because I've never done it. It's like a debate in the fur handling thing, the pressure washer thing. And so a buddy of mine that puts up hundreds of beavers every year.

I called him and he brought up two details I hadn't considered before. I texted him whatever the hell it was. I was like, what's up with the, do you do the pressure washer deal? And he raised two very good points. He lives in northern Minnesota. So it's like oftentimes sub-zero. Okay, so you have a frozen mess. And he also says, I don't like some quote like i don't

like blasting half of a beaver all over my yard yeah but you can go down to the tide line right like right down here you can go down to the tide line and just like well we have to wait just blast into thought yeah blast into the tide line and everything just comes up and eats it and it washes out and it's like you don't have a like like your cleanup is just, you know, you don't have all that cleanup. Yeah, you're right. And I've seen you do it. It's a clean job. Yeah, it's.

I mean, like, I mean, the finished product is beautiful. Oh, for sure. Yeah, and I don't, I'm not too aggressive because, you know, I don't want to blast holes in this, but. Have you ever done one with a draw knife? No. Did your dad grow up doing them with a draw knife? Yeah. No, we'd skin them real close.

So you wouldn't have to. Oh, yeah. Clean and skin them. Yeah. If you're doing... If you're trying to do this and recoup costs, you want to be as efficient as possible. And that is the most efficient way because you're already putting so much time into like converting these to sellable

items that it just doesn't make sense to flesh you know over a hundred of them by hand my dad says that the pressure washer seems like it works best for like heavier hides like sea otter seal maybe bear but he hasn't used it on beaver pelts he said it's just as fast to do a beaver by hand than it would be got it to do it with a pressure washer but we use a oscillating nozzle yep and then have a i had a piece of aluminum which worked great, but it blew into the water when I was doing it, so I lost it. So now I use plywood. How big is your piece of aluminum?

Like as big as a sheet of plywood, but it blew away. I got it. Crushed me. I got to take you out to my junkyard. I got to take you out to my junkyard, which is about 10 feet that way. It's not that big,

but I do got a hunk of aluminum I need to missing when i leave here i know i'm like still like real hurt about my aluminum being i don't have a sheet but i got a hunk of aluminum it's probably not gonna do any good so i rest the plywood now on a like a saw horse you know construction saw sawhorse, and I use the woodworking clamps. And, you know, clamp, it's like halfway down. You know, and this will hang over. And then you could just start and make a line and blast all that off, turn it around, and you can blast a pelt like this size, flush it in about four minutes,

and then the bigger ones like this will take maybe twice that long. They're a little thicker. They're actually harder to flesh. But still, fleshing that thing in eight minutes is... Dude, yeah. With a draw knife, man.

Way quicker than a fleshing knife. Yeah, and you know, it's been really nice and makes me feel good is people really want to help and so um there's a guy in craig who own he like runs his seafood um like they buy all the fish from the trollers and they have i guess like a seafood processing business yeah so um he donates salt to

me so like 500 pounds of salt a winter he'll give me like a big pallet of salt he's like i'm supporting the cause and people will want to buy me ammo or because they want to get shellfish and they know that sea otter are wiping them out. They want to help in any way they can. So I've had people bring me coffee when I'm out there fleshing in the freezing rain. People come up with like a hot coffee because they know I'm out there. They can see the spray on my beach. And I'm like, thank you so much. You know, it's like hailing and horrible, but it's all really worth it.

Hey, folks, exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. And boy, my goodness, do we hear from the Canadians whenever we do a raffle or a sweepstakes. And our raffle and sweepstakes law makes it that they can't join. Our northern brothers get irritated. Well, if you're sick of, you know, sucking a high-end titty there, OnX is now in Canada. The great features that you

love in OnX are available for your hunts this season. The Hunt app is a fully functioning GPS with hunting maps that include public and crown land, hunting zones, aerial imagery, 24K topo maps, waypoints, and tracking.

That's right, we're always talking about OnX here on the MeatEater podcast. Now you guys in the Great White North can be part of it, be part of the excitement. You can even use offline maps to see where you are without cell phone service. That's a sweet function. As part of your membership, you'll gain access to exclusive pricing on products and services handpicked by the OnX Hunt team. Some of our favorites are First Light, Schnee's, Vortex Federal, and more. As a special offer, you can get a free three months to try OnX out

if you visit onXMaps.com slash meet. OnXMaps.com slash meet. Welcome to the OnX Club, y'all. Now, what are some of the things you make? Do you wholesale? Do you sell it all yourself?

How do you work? Yeah, so you can't um i think another part of marine mammal protection acts like you can't like commercially sell items so it's just like handicraft and small scale but i make um i actually hand sewed everything until um this year i got a fur sewing machine but okay and i got a backup which is the thing you said i don't understand you can't commercially sell like so you mean like mass produce okay so you couldn't go to like uh you couldn't go to like uh what's a what's a store that's open nowadays it's not closed i was gonna say like se. Yeah, I think I may have said that wrong. Like Cabela's or something. I'm thinking like Fancy.

Oh, Fancy. You can't go to Macy's and they can't be like, we want 100,000 sea otter scarves. I wouldn't be able to do that anyway. We want 1,000 sea otter scarves. That's too... Yeah. I think it says mass produce.

So you could hand it, but you could make it though like i could buy could i buy 10 okay but you couldn't you probably couldn't have like a bunch of employees just sitting there all day long sewing for you you probably can't send it to like a sew shop overseas maybe no you definitely can't send it overseas you cannot send out of the country are you personally sewing everything? Yes. And I make my own patterns. So I brought this hat.

Oh, this is like one of the things I make. This is an aviator hat or they call it a bomber hat. Yeah, that's what that's called. What that's called is the perfect hat. Yeah. There's one modification I need to tell you about. Oh, I need to know. This is moose leather, moose suede, and sea otter.

I actually lined the cap portion with fleece because sea otter fur is so warm. This is too damn hot, huh? Yeah, you will overheat unless you're in like 60 below. So I put a cord lock on here because it's kind of a pain to tie this when you have gloves on or or just in general and then you can wear that with the flaps up and just use that cord lock but so this is one one of the items that i make and i made this pattern so it takes like five or six tries to make it fit nice. But you want to.

Do you have people send their head size with when they want to do custom? Yeah. I see that man. I can do. Yeah. Now people ask why I don't wear a helmet on my snowmobile. Cause I'm too busy wearing one of these. You know what?

That's the best. I mean, not see out of it, but the style and it covers your ears. It actually makes good ear protection. Oh, yeah. It's not going to work. Oh, yeah, no.

You can't hear a thing. When I'm out ice fishing, my kids are yelling at me. I don't hear anything. Well, that looks good. That's a ticket right there. You have to trade in whatever hat you're wearing for sea otter. I know, but that's going to be... you're wearing for sea otter what's sad is what would be sad is giving up on you know my own Oh my own beaver cap but here here's the deal. See, you guys, you live in the cloudiest place on the planet, right?

Down, I had one made with muskrat that instead of having this, it's got a little leather bill. Oh. Which is a lifesaver. Out ice fishing in the bright-ass sun. For sure. Yeah, you need like a little something and that really. I've seen people wear that over their hat.

Yep. My buddy Travis, he had one, and I was telling him about that, and he says he pulls it on over his baseball cap so he can get the sun. Yeah, because the rain here too. It'd be nice to have him do that. That's a beautiful hat though. Well, I'm going to try that then and call it the Steve Rinella. Yeah, I don't know what else to call it.

Steve Reno. Yeah. Yeah, a little leather bill. It's beautiful. Thank you. Let me see the scarf now. Oh, yeah, I brought some things. Do you mind saying,

no, of course you don't mind saying it. So what do you get for that? What do you sell that hat for? Someone wants to see your hat. On my website, those are $700. This is a double-sided sea otter scarf. It has a magnet to hold it in place because one of my friends bought one for his wife

and she was hiking and lost it. She was in tears, so I made a magnetic closure so it wouldn't fall off some other person gonna hike down that trail I think it's just a dead animal and um can I tell you a funny story about so I had a muskrat hat and uh there used to be this spot I would trap every year this marsh and there's like the spot where I'd pull over and trap muskrats in this marsh and there's like this spot where i'd pull over and trap muskrats in this marsh and i lost my muskrat hat in the winter trapping and didn't know where i lost it and then me and this in the spring me and this dude named barefoot are driving up to this place called cisco bayou and uh and i see what i think is i'm not kidding. I see a roadkill at the marsh. I see a roadkill muskrat in the bank.

Oh my gosh. I'm like, oh my God, pull over. So I go to grab the roadkill muskrat. It's my hat melting. It's my hat melting out of the snow bank like a snowplow truck. A snowplow truck and push it up into the bank on the side of the road. How lucky that you did. I was like, holy shit, it's my hat.

That's awesome. Then I lost it again and it's gone. I feel like it will find its way back to you. Yeah. It's been a while. Don't give up. It's been a while. But that was funny when you said someone was out hiking.

Man, this is like my wife. I actually brought that for you. See, I always give my wife goofy stuff. I brought that for you to give to your wife. Yeah, she'll actually like this. I'll get stuff. Me and Seth found a weird rock yeah and i had her earrings made out of that weird rock oh that's nice and she said she feels

that it looks like something from lord of the rings what you gonna say about this no she's gonna like that she's gonna no no that her style. And I had her a big red fox scarf made, but it really says hello before you do because it's like huge. But that's like subtle. Yeah, it's actually beautiful. I have other scarves. They're shorter and you can actually put a scarf in it

so they're interchangeable. So you can wear it as a headband and then when you go inside, wear it as a scarf and you can swap out the insert to match any outfit but yeah i can make like hats blankets moccasins scarves purses i make seal skin purses and wallets and what's the seal skin what do you gotta get for a seal skin purse um i sell them for 600 i haven't sold a wallet yet i actually make i see the wallet yeah i make dude this stuff is so cool man i make these and then i test them to make sure that they're the best quality before posting it for sale so so you put a little money in there go buy something this is make sure it works good so that's a harbor seal wallet so i want to make sure their quality

because they're an investment so you so i'm testing it out gorgeous do you have good luck i mean are you able to sell as much as you can make um so far i have been able to recoup my cost i don't think you'll ever i mean like do you have are you able to like are you able to find a market you know i mean or do you have are you backlogged do you have a lot of fur that you haven't been Are you able to find a market? Are you backlogged? Do you have a lot of fur that you haven't been able to get sales on? I think what limits me is my time because I work full time on a regular job. And then this is what my dad calls it, my hobby, which is becoming a little side business. So you could sell it as fast as you could make it.

The bottleneck is making it. Yeah, and there's not a lot of fur sewers. That's incredible. You know, who work with sea otter, who are selling items. So I think they're harder to find. Dude, you know what? For single people out there, single guys out there, you get one of these and you give it to

a lady if she likes it then you know you got to keep her yeah if she don't you don't want nothing to do with her man that's how that's how i would use this i'd be like what do you think about something like that and she's like ew i'd be like okay that is so get out of my house get out of my house yep joke there's a word the cling the thing word for that is joke it means go away Get out of my house. Get out of my house. Yep. Juk. There's a word. The Tlingit word for that is juk. It means go away. I remember going out with my friends, you know, in college.

Guys would hit us and we'd be like, oh, juk. Because they wouldn't know what that meant, but we did. That's funny. Juk. Let me see the other thing. Oh, this is my test purse seal skin oh my goodness so you're really like you're good though like you're really talented i mean just sewing is you're really that looks like something you just go like like something you like you buy that purse at a store thank you like that very well done no you got a great sense of style now i got

a i'm gonna compliment sandwich you means i'm gonna give you an insult okay i don't think the strap is is like i'm underwhelmed by the strap how could you put that strap on this bag let me show you okay we need to be that bag deserves a better that bag bag is something different. Okay, it does... That bag deserves a better strap. It does deserve a better strap, but this is a prototype. So it was like, you can do an over the shoulder. You can do a cross body

or all those... Like what... My daughter now. I'm old now, so I call it a fanny pack. Oops. It is a sling bag. I call it a fanny pack oops it is a sling bag i call it a fanny pack because i'm a 90s kid you could wear it as a fanny pack or like you know how the sling bags

everyone's wearing them like this that's what my daughter does yeah i called her bandolier so that's why she does that because i want it to be versatile and like that's a great yeah that's her style it's a little my yeah, that's her style. My little girl style. Maybe needs a leather strap. I don't know, something different. I'm just underwhelmed by it. Because the bag is so cool.

Okay, well my hats need a bill. No, no, no, that's a specialty item. That's a one-off specialty item. You have the winning design. I'm just telling you first. I gotta get this off. Okay, I want my feedback to be... I want to make sure you understand my feedback. Okay. The bill

is a one-off special. Oh, yeah. No one wants that. I think that's a great idea. No one wants that. I want that. I think I want that, too. I'm just saying your bag is so cool. I feel like the one that just... It needs a cool strap. It needs a strap that's as cool as the bag. That's all. Maybe leather.

Yeah. Because you have a cool, like, yeah, it's just got like a style. I'll put it this way because I'm having a hard time. I'm not being very articulate. I have found, like, when you look at fur sewing today, there's a lot of fur sewing today that's just real g just real gaudy like it's not sleek you know i mean it's not like it's like it's it's it's overstated there's a lot of stuff that's really overstated bougie yeah like just huge you know like huge big whatever but your stuff is it's

like it's it's um it's it's more subtle it's kind of more elegant. Do you know what I mean? Thank you. Than things that are just, you know, you picture like a red fox vest. Right. A big red red fox vest. Yeah. From across the parking lot, you'd be like, there's a lady with a red fox vest. For sure.

But with this stuff, it's like, you know, you could be sitting there 10 minutes and all of a sudden I'd be like, holy shit, is that seal? Yeah. Right? Yeah. I get that. It has that feeling to it. like it's it's subtle thank you i try and make them functional yeah i want people to wear these i don't want these to be on display i want this is moose it's a little heavier you know than deer leather but it's not so stiff that it's going to be uncomfortable to wear and i want you to be able to like put this in your hunting bag, you know,

and pull it out and like shake it and put it on and it not be bulky. And you can fold this up and this can get soaking wet and still keep your head warm. And then you just dry it and shake it and it fluffs right back up. So I try to think about stuff like that when making items, because people are going to invest in you and your work and you know believe in me and buy something online without having felt it like you guys know what it feels like now and you can see the fur is tremendous but a lot of people buy things without knowing what sea otter furs like and then they get in they're like whoa because it is incredible

and incredibly warm for the for the listeners uh i'll share with you that prior to when we when uh we started recording heather was showing my two younger kids her sea otter stuff and my daughter observed all of our friends right now are out in our boats fishing. And my daughter observed that they shouldn't have gone out on the boats so that they could have heard about this. I know. And I got an order for a sea otter. Sea otter.

Sea otter or teddy bear and a hat and um super excited to make your kids some things um they deserve it kids are sacred and yeah tell me they deserve it yeah tell tell everyone um tell everyone what you were telling my kids about the importance of kids oh yeah i mean kids are sacred you know they um i just feel like they they deserve so much and so much more recognition than they get oftentimes and um we believe that they're sacred they're they're the ones who are gonna learn all of this um knowledge that we have that we carry and pass it down to the next generation and and um so um yeah just that that they are really special and they have a special place and just having them present when you're doing things like when I said it like it really hurts when I know that it's

illegal for me to teach them how to work with some of our traditional foods and materials because it shouldn't be that way and they're just little sacred beings and they they deserve to learn and be there and not have those limitations on them when it comes to you know them learning and practicing their culture and they're really the the vehicles you know they're going to be the ones who pass that on. So as much as I can invest in youth, you know, my niece and nephew, but not just them, any and all youth. So they know that they are valued, they have a purpose. It's really important to know that you have a purpose in life and like my culture is is a big part of you know my purpose and then you know that you're important and and you have a responsibility to you know carry that on it kind of helps give you some direction too in your life and and and like you learn what you know what your cultural values are through practicing your culture and like being

around elders or you know your aunties and uncles and it's not something where someone would blatantly say like we value respect or you know what i mean you just learn it by being a part of the process not wasting fish only taking what you're going to use using all parts of it you know smoking the heads of the fish the collars the backbones really minimizing waste um that's just all like learning your values by practicing and that's really important and kids do that without knowing you know what's happening and it's really special to watch and and see and watch them like live their purpose be proud of that that's great advice i i practice it half the time and half the time i'm uh freaking out on them because like last night i come in there's granola bar crumbs my bed's somehow wet like the hell's going what are you doing i forget i forget all the stuff you just

said yeah then i wake up in the morning I recommit myself to being a good dad. I think, and there you have the balance, right? It's all about balance. So you're not going to be 100% every time, every day. But if you live by your values and you do what you can to align yourself and practice those, that's all you can really do. And you're not going to be 100% every day, so that's okay. Your kids are great.

You know, I got to spend a little time with them and I wanted them to sit next to me during this podcast because I think they're so great. Oh, thank you. Yeah. Thanks for coming on the show. Yeah. So Heather Duvilleville and i know on

instagram you're ak moosey so a-k-m-o-o-s-i-e and your fur and your product page is what coastal fur and leather man i think you're gonna um i have a feeling you're gonna get a few people checking out the stuff because it's just beautiful. Thank you so much. And thanks for bringing some of your traditional hooks and things. Yeah, I really appreciate your, yeah, you being able to share my culture with you and you sharing your stories with me. And I would love to be able to have you guys join us and fish with the NAC one day. So you have an invite. That'd be an honor, man. You're more you have an invite that'd be an honor welcome to be cool yeah thanks for sharing all your all your knowledge uh

even just before we recorded you told me a lot of things about the the fish and stuff that i hadn't known so i appreciate all your everything you've picked up over your life from your family and and uh that's great been great to visit with you. Thank you. And you're going to take that, you're going to do the gig as the correspondent? Oh yeah,

I can't wait for you to call. I better be doing something though. We'll warn you. Yeah. Better not. In the winter, I'll be sewing. Yeah.

We'll warn you ahead of time. We'll find out when a good time is. That's awesome. So how does that work or do we talk about that? We'll talk about that later. All right. We'll talk you ahead of time. We'll find out when a good time is. That's awesome. How does that work? We'll talk about that later. You met Corinne? Mm-hmm. Corinne will deal with that.

Sweet, man. What's this one called? Sea Monster. No. No, no, no. You had an old faithful. What was his name? Oh, the veteran.

Oh, the veteran. The veteran hook. The retired hook. The veteran the retired monster all right thanks for yeah i appreciate it that got me a 30-06 kicks like a mueller's like a son of a bitch but it's put a cup of beer on the wall that i'm pretty proud of It ain't nothing fancy just a savage 110 Walmart special that I got

from a friend who was getting divorced and needed cash so bought his gun And there's an old red Ford sitting in my drive, we just keep on ragging up the miles It used to be my dance now he's gone it's got his

pocket knife in the ashtray it's been there ever since the day i got the keys of that truck from my mom from my mom. Almost everything God's got some kind of story to tell. And they're filled with a bunch of memories. Most of it wouldn't mean much

to anybody else. It all means the world to me There's a glass man, a trap sitting on my desk Right next to some pliers my Uncle Joe Gave to my kids one day That made me think of his old hands And the stuffed heart I want

One night from my wife The next day we met our firstborn child We still laugh about it every now and then Almost everything God's got Some kind of story to tell And they're filled with a bunch of memories Most of it wouldn't mean much to anybody It all means the world to me I guess I could sell it all

get a little extra cash It wouldn't be long I'd be wanting it all back Most of everything God's got some kind of story to tell It's filled with a bunch of memories Most of it wouldn't mean much to anybody else

It all means the world to me Most of it wouldn't mean much to anybody else. It all means the world to me. It all means the world to me. Hey folks, exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. You might not be able to join our raffles and sweepstakes and all that because of raffle and sweepstakes law, but hear this. OnX Hunt is now in Canada. It is now at your fingertips, you Canadians. The great features that you love in OnX are available for your hunts this season. Now, the Hunt app is a fully functioning GPS with hunting maps that include public and crown land,

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