The MeatEater Podcast - Ep. 911: Makaw Whaling Practices, Treaty Rights, and Regulatory Challenges

Episode Date: August 3, 2026

Steven Rinella talks with the Makaw Tribe about: whaling techniques; whale sushi; the history of Makaw whaling; regulatory hurdles; and more. 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.

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

You've been with the tribal council for nine years? Yes. All right. We got Daniel Green, who's the vice president of the whaling commission and has been involved in whale hunts, butcher and whales, all that kind of stuff, all the above. We have Lupe Castaneda. Am I saying that right? Yeah.

Who's a council member and a first foods expert. He's going to help us understand a little bit. bit about nutrition, health impacts, and environmental toxins that can be found in whale meat. And we have Chris Martinez, who he's just hanging out. But just quick, tell people what you do. I'm the chief of staff for the Makkah Tribal Council. I also sit as the secretary of the Macaw Whaling Commission. Got it. So I'm here just hanging out. All right. So let's start with this, man. And TJ, you can answer this question. Explain who are the macaw.

Okay. And, and what does that word mean? All right. And what, what do you regard as, like, what do you guys regard as your, your traditional homeland? And what, what do you regard as your homeland now? Well, the maca tribe is very northwestern tip, a Washington state. We've been there since the first light is how we say it. Okay.

Yeah. And we're, you know, we got about 3,100 members and 1,600 live on a reservation. It's a federal Indian reservation now. Okay. And, you know, we're ocean people. You know, we're connected to that ocean. That's been the lifeblood and our spiritual existence and our cultural practices all revolve around activities on that ocean. Okay.

And so, you know, that's who we are. You know, macaw is not our word. Oh, okay. It's not. not our word. It's a sailish word. Our neighbor neighboring tribe was a sailish nation. Called us macaw and that means generous host. Oh, because a lot of times those names are like, a lot of times there's names that get picked up that are not great. Yeah. That translate to sort of like a like, you know, like the enemy, the enemy or whatever, you know. Sure. Sure. So yeah, generous host.

Generous host, even though we had wars with that nation. Oh, you did. Okay. That's what they called us. That's what McCa means. that's what macaw means what what was your traditional like like not traditional but what was what what what did the maca call themselves at the time that the sailors started calling them the macaw what's that mean that's that's a harder word to say people who live amongst the rocks and seagulls oh really yeah that was the name that's that's do you guys still use that name now we do yeah okay yeah so so but in your relationships with the government you're like in the media you're the macaw tribe the macaw correct that's uh during the treaty negotiations 1855 treaty in ibe that's what the governor stevens yeah he you know he there's he couldn't say quidditch jod i'm sure so oh really he was like me he was like me mad he couldn't say it huh that's

interesting man um here's one for for for the most part you guys could just decide amongst yourself who's best to answer a question. If you want to both take a stab at, you can both take a stab at. But I wanted to ask, because Daniels had experience with, you know, sort of on-the-ground experience. Maybe all you guys have had on-the-ground experience with whaling, but with like historically. And is it annoying if I say historically? No.

Okay. Because that's the thing, like a white dude's heads a lot of times, you know, you know this. In white dude's heads, there was like there was Native Americans and they kind of like stopped. do you know i mean people view it like they they like stopped and then became that something different happened so if i say to you historically and you're like what do you mean i mean i mean i don't know like a while ago or you know but in this question i mean historically how serious how serious were the macaw about wailing you know i mean like how did it how did it fit into the seasonal well if i can just start out yeah it was it was um it was a focal point

of our society. Okay. Whaling was. It was our main nutritional. It's how we fed our people. Got it. You know, we have no big rivers out there that are lush with salmon or anything like that. Okay. So, so we were out on that ocean and whales were swimming there and we, yeah, so we understood. We harvested them for a nutritional source and it became a source of wealth for us. Okay.

In the society that we built for over thousands of years. Explain that when you say wealth as a trade item? Absolutely. Yeah. And what components of a whale would be used? What components of a whale would be, I mean, I can imagine the parts that would be used internally, but what would be a item that you could that you could barter with or that you could monetize off a whale? Whale oil is one that's, you get a lot of whale oil from oil. An interior, like I imagine like interior people would want it. Right. Because they didn't have something, they didn't have an equivalent. Correct. Yeah. I got it. I got it. And then how, how. how were whales hunted? I mean, physically, like, how were they hunted?

If you went back, just pick, like, pick a towel. Let's say we go back to, I don't know, 200 years ago, 300 years ago, how was the whale caught? Out of a, we'd go out in a cedar dugout canoe. Okay. You'd have, you know, seven paddlers or so in that canoe. And everyone had their own, their own job. Someone harpooned it. someone steered the canoe and then you had your paddlers and we had a the harpoon was made of

a you wood shaft and it was in three pieces so it would come apart you know we probably learned that the hard way right like probably stabbed a whale with a one that wasn't in three pieces and that whale rolled around probably smacked the heck out of people oh yeah that's good point man yeah so it's imagine that right yeah so it comes apart and The harpoon tip was made of muscle shell. Really? Yeah. Muscle shell and elk, um, what part of the bone.

I need a little help on that. Yeah, like the bow, the toggle. Get a little close to that mic, bud. Oh, it was the toggle. The, yeah. So that muscle shell would be like, like barbs or prongs embedded into that thing? Uh, yeah, it was shaped, shape, just like a, like a regular harpoon, I guess. Okay.

I had a, like, broad tip, but. But it'd stay in there good. Yeah, it would stay in there. good. Yeah, and it was tempered and aged and and hardened. So, yeah, there's a lot that went into it. Do you do you, well, two things. What, what was there one specific type of whale or did you get opportunities on multiple kinds of whales in your, I know now the focus is on gray whales. Yeah. We're going to talk a lot about gray whales, but, but like your people might have had that that was the one they wanted or was there other kinds of whales? that might be targeted at different times. Yeah, there's definitely a lot of different whales. We hunted each a big old whale, right whales.

We hunted gray whales, humpbacks, anything that slam pretty much. But gray whales were the tastiest. Is that right? Yeah. That was a preferred whale. It was a preferred whale. Just I think due to the abundance also.

And the migration patterns were near shore. I see. Humpbacks are a little further offshore. We did target those also. Do you know in the, like in your tradition, or were a lot of dudes killed hunting whales? I mean, it had to been a hazardous business, man. So that's what, that's what it is.

And that, that leads, you know, into the preparation and stuff. So, you know, essentially, yeah, you are preparing for death when you're training with, you know, the eight guys in the canoe. Is that right? And it's a, and it's a, understand. It's the biggest creature on Earth. Yeah, yeah. Um, then they have, they have, uh, they want to live also. So they have a, a wild side and, uh, yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's pretty scary.

It could be dangerous. Yeah, it could be very dangerous. You know, you mentioned like Vegas. It's, it's the thing I always bring up to my kids is it like all, you know, kids are always tripped out about dinosaurs and stuff. But the biggest animal to ever live on earth is now. Yeah. You know, like a blue whale. Yeah.

As big as it seems like, you know, these like dinosaur statues and stuff are, it's like the biggest critters there now. You're like, you go see the damn thing. Like big whales, you know? Yeah. What does what, like, what does a gray whale? What does that thing weigh? 20, so about 2,700 pounds on average. We kind of target that general area.

It's about 30,000 pounds. About 27,000. Yeah. 20,000 pounds. Yeah. It's about a ton of foot. Yeah. of the length, one ton per foot.

The main focus of our conversation is going to be like the resumption of whaling. Okay. And you guys fights with, maybe don't use the word fight. You guys negotiations with the American government and others about what you're, what you're allowed to do by the treaty you signed with the American government, right? Like, and whether or not you can do it and what it takes to do it. But for background, walk me through. How did whaling wind down?

And when did it wind down? Like, when did it go from being an annual occurrence to being a thing that faded out? What was the process of it going away? Well, in the early 1900s, you had commercial whaling was really ramping up around the world. I see. Yeah, yeah. So our whalers at that time were noticing it was harder and harder to do our traditional hunts. So in the 1920s, we made the decision on her own to not whale anymore because they just weren't in our area the way they used to be.

Because of the impact of the commercial whalers. Right. Yes. Like the Moby Dick type dudes. Right. Like rendering, you know, killing them like industrially. Industrial, you know, the big old harpoons on the big ships. Yeah.

Rendering all that oil and selling all that oil in Massachusetts and stuff. Yeah. Yes. So that was with. away the whale population. Yeah, I was whittling that away. And so we stopped in the late 1920s. We had our last harvest before we did the one in 99. And then, you know, it took the world a while to catch up, you know, 20 years later. You get the Whaling Convention Act and those agreements, those international agreements to start, you know, trying to be more responsible with, you know, with the stocks that are around the world there. And when you say it took the world a while to catch up, you mean it took the world a while to respond to the industrial slaughter.

Yes. To regulate it. Like they let it get, it got bad. Yeah, it got bad. Yeah. I mean, populations were at near extinction. Do you guys have much idea when the disease epidemics came from Europeans? Did it, did those diseases hit?

did they like hit the maca like suddenly and hard were there were where there was just huge losses of people or did it was it with you guys was it a slower thing that played out over centuries no it was it hit us hard we had two major smallpox um epidemics in our communities um you know one in the uh believe it's 1820s and then another in the in the late 1840s okay Took out 90% of our population. And then what was left from that 90% negotiated the 85% treaty in the obey. That's the thing, man.

That's the thing I talk to people a lot about that I just don't think, like a lot of Americans can't picture it. You know, can't picture that kind of loss. But the only way to really get there is just to try to imagine in, like, I don't know, pick whatever town. you live in, right? Like, picture that you live in Toledo, Ohio, right? And then imagine that all of a sudden, over the course of a couple years, of that nine out of 10 of the people in Toledo, Ohio,

die or wherever, right? Nine out of 10 of them die. And you look at your broader family structure, your siblings, cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, nine, like, if you count them all up and you go, I have 20 family members. Okay, 18 are now dead. Now come tell me about your family and come tell me about how your family functions. Right. Like people cannot picture it, man. Yeah.

People can't picture it. No, I appreciate that because, you know, when I thought about that, you know, growing up and reaching the age I'm at now and what we have as a tribe and how rich we are in our language and our culture and our traditions, you know, that 10% that survived that. you know gave that to us they carried that on yeah i think how rich was our society before that oh that the 10% the 10% the 10% remains of richness because think about what gets lost yeah huge things get lost man all the history and that's the thing is especially with without now everything gets so captured captured written word right captured you know captured and banked in the internet but like all of a sudden like 80% of the narratives are gone 80% of the oh yeah but we we came from here and your grandfather was this and right and that's all wiped yeah you got and you got up in those 10

you got two people left like here's what I think happened but I'm not really sure people lose sight I mean it's just too hard to comprehend people flipped out during the COVID pandemic oh yeah do you know I mean like people like people in wherever like really hard hit places like people flipping out in Manhattan because I don't know what it was percentage but Like it was overwhelming the morgues. It's like, dude, that is nothing, nothing compared, nothing compared to what was happened to native communities with smallpox. Right.

You know, to get the equivalent, you'd have had to go into Manhattan and remove, I don't know, 10 million people in Manhattan. And you'd be like, that would give you an idea. What will, that'll give you an idea of what went on. Sure. It's staggering. So. Oh, sorry.

Even with those diseases, we, we as McCauley. we did a really good job at avoiding them for quite a while because we would catch wind of it depending on where it wasn't we would keep people out of certain areas and we'd steer clear of certain areas oh is that right yeah and like towards you know 18 the 1850s is when ted stevens actually caught wind of you know oh the macawser hit hard right now smallpox hit him and that's kind of when he's like let's let's let's go get this treaty that's kind of when he came out and you can even see in the notes that even a year ago, we weren't the big chiefs.

We wouldn't have been the one signing this. We're here now and there was a lot of sadness in the notes because they've lost so many of their family and loved ones. Oh, is that right? That's in Steve. Because that dude inked a lot of treaties in the Pacific Northwest. Stevens did. He kind of made like a big run, man.

He knew he couldn't take us when we were full force, you know, before disease hit us. But he's like, oh, he caught wind. And he's like, you know, it's probably a good thing. time we're going to negotiate. Huh. Because you guys were in a weakened position. Yeah.

Militarily. Yeah. And then even with the, during the COVID, like we avoided, you know, we locked down the reservation. He was the chairman,

needed a really good job. He kept, we avoided a case for sure he did. How long was it until there was finally one in the reservation? It was about three, four months. But you guys held out for that

without any infections or yeah yeah and we didn't no loss of life there there's you know as you know well we have maybe seven reservations in montana five or seven um and during the pandemic you know there was you'd go down to the i came here if it was northern Cheyenne or the crow reservation there's basically signs like don't stop on the highway passing through and i was like you know, to my kids, I was like, man, you got to understand the history here of, like, pandemics. That means something totally different. That means something totally different native communities, man, because they got a fresh memory of that stuff, you know. Right.

After, so, well, let me ask about that, the quitting whaling. Was it, would you describe it more like, more like it just wasn't worth it and it faded or was it a formal decision to quit? it was a formal decision you know it like I mentioned in the introduction it it defined our our societal structure yeah and and we still have that reverence for it today it's it's that important that's why you know we we went 70 years between a harvest and kept that knowledge and you know that how-to and and how we passed that on made that available to people so we could carry that on through all those generations that that

span that 70 years yeah yeah like my my lifetime i would have loved to be a whaler you know i'm 54 now you know it's not likely in the cards for me but oh is that right yeah we'll talk about that so so almost a century later so if you if you imagine that the macaa quit whaling in let's say 1920 Was that that close? 20, I don't know, it was like 27. Okay, 1927. Yeah. And then fast forward up to the lead up to the next whale that was harvested by your tribe.

And that whale was harvested what year? 1999. 99. Walk me through the years prior to 99. Like what needed to happen? Because when you quit, when you guys quit, you quit because you decided to quit. But you weren't at liberty to decide to start.

Right. I mean, a lot happened. Right. You could just be like, hey, we're going out. Yeah, well, because this whole world had been built up around marine mammals, right? This whole protection world. So what did that look like to say like, hey, man, we're going to go, we're going to resume our treaty rates. There's enough whales now.

We're going to go whaling. Like, who do you pick up the phone? You know, I mean like who do you call right when you want to go get a whale? Well, I mean for for tribal nations are our first call you know that our main contact in the federal government is Department of Interior. Okay. The Bureau of Indian Affairs. Yeah. So it's their responsibility to advocate for for those rights for us in the federal government. Yeah. Yeah. There are trustee is what we say and and then from interior, you know, the whaling falls under Department of Commerce so you know through noa national marine fisheries and and those

regulations you know were set up you know by different federal acts like the marine mammal protection act so in 72 that marine mammal protection act was passed and the gray whales were listed you know as an endangered species as well you know the ESA comes into play and so when in the 90s when the population was recovering so well you're getting some pretty high you know at least record numbers in in in our lifetime you know near 30,000 whales okay in the 90s and and so it was proposed to be delisted you know that that was the trigger for us that that's what did it yes I got yeah the delisting of the eastern North Pacific gray whale population was was our

trigger to resume I see our treaty right got it yeah but why this is probably ultra-complicated question. If you have an agreement as a, if you have an agreement as a sovereign nation, you have agreement with the government, right? And you have certain levels of autonomy. Would it have like, were you be, were you guys being nice by bringing it up? Like, why couldn't it be the just one day you just went and did it? No, you're right on that.

That was a discussion of leadership at that time. Yeah. Actually, Daniel's father. my older brother you know he was he was part of those discussions as as well as his grandfather oh really ben jonson the former chairman internal discussions internal discussions about that you know should what prevents us from just going it's in our treaty it's not listed you know but yeah we we were i would say we were being nice and we you know we met with the federal government and you know the federal government has these international agreements in place right they they work with the

International Whaling Commission they're a member of it and so they wanted us to be a part of that process like the Alaskan Eskimos on the North Slope yeah so so we agreed to do that you know we went and advocated for a quota worked with the Alaskan Eskimos and the Chakokokans in Russia to to get an Aboriginal subsistence whaling quota through the International Whaling Commission and what kind of quote are you looking for one Well, they do it over, over multiple years. I see. Yeah.

So it was like, at that time, it was up to five whales in any given year over a, you know, like a five, six year period. Okay. Yeah. And you guys hit enormous resistance. Absolutely, yes. Where, in that first go-around back in the 90s, was government resistance or social resistance strongest? I think the social resistance was strongest, but that translates into government resistance, right? You know, things get, you know, where's the political temperature of my constituents if you're a politician in D.C.

And how much do I want to support this issue? Okay. Right? So those things come into play. But it was pretty bad for, you know, these guys when they were younger in school, you know, there were. our community was getting threatened, you know, physically threatened, bomb threats in our, in our schools. By who, though? You know, there were, it's mainly your animal welfare groups.

Yeah. So, but as I'm saying, so the organizations were doing this. Was it like Greenpeace or what were the organizations that were coming after? Or was it just like crackpot individuals? There was a lot of crackpot individuals, but there was one organization, Sea Shepherds. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that that was the main one that, you know, they're, they're very aggressive and, you know,

they'd send their ships into our harbor that we have and get on the loudspeaker and, you know, just start putting insults out there to our community, which really? Yeah. Yeah. We had to get a federal restraining order on them. Did you really? And the Coast Guard enforced that and eventually kept them away, but yeah, it wasn't good for a while. They were coming into your bay, into your harbor.

Yes. In a ship, I mean, obviously. Yes. Huh. And you guys, you guys never, you guys, it didn't ever blow into like fist fights and brawls and stuff. No, there was some very, very close, I guess, encounters. Yeah, there was, it might have been some rock throwing and things of that nature. The community got fed up with them, right?

Yeah. So. Hey. neighbor, you know that guy your neighbor? He's been out there all summer. He's hanging cameras. He's watching the photos roll in. He knows where that buck is bedding, where he's feeding. He's pinpointing where he needs to be on opening day. You've seen the pictures and you know the deer is there. The question isn't whether that buck gets shot this fall. The question is whether it's your story or his. So tip the odds in your favor with the on-x hunt app, trail camera analysis, hyper-local

wind and weather forecasts, and the insights to act on you're seeing. Don't show up to opening day empty-handed. Bring on X-Hunt. Get Bell Pure Fiber Internet with Crave Netflix and Disney Plus from $94 a month. Price guaranteed for two years on internet with a two-year term and auto pay credit. Visit bell.ca for details and to check availability. Bell, connection is everything. Good Lord, they're finally here at long last. After fighting and yelling and fighting some more, Clay Newcomb and first. have done it. They have built a pair of work bibs together.

Not just any work bibs. We're talking the bare grease bibs from Clay. Now I've watched Clay work long enough to know that he wasn't going to put his name on a pair of hunting pants pretending to be work bibs and boy he did not. These are Clay's invention for things like

breaking mules, rendering grease, kneeling in the dirt. I'm going to use them all the time, trap and working, fixing stuff. It doesn't matter. If you want good, durable, comfortable bibs, These are your bibs made from tough stretch duck cotton. They got briar-proof chaps that run from cuff to thigh. They got pockets damn near everywhere.

Again, comfortable and durable. Put them on. You don't need to worry about having anything go bad. If it wasn't so hot right now outside, I'd be wearing them right now. But you can bet your ass I got them in my truck. And they are up at the meat eater store right now at the meat eater store.com. So within your community in the 90s, was there division around the idea of resuming whaling or was it pretty much unanimous within the macaw? Was it like, this is our right, this is what we're going to go do, the population is strong enough to support limited harvest, or was it a fight amongst you guys?

No, it was heavily supported. Okay. I mean, we have a need statement, you know, 80, I think in the 90. it was like 84, 85% of the community wants to go back and do this. So overwhelming. Overwhelming. Yeah. In our need statements we've done, we have to do those for the international whaling

quota that we get. And that's just gone up since then. But there were people that didn't want to go back to it. And we just worked through that. Did you, I mean, that turned in, I followed that whole thing. I forgot a lot of the details now, but I remember being very interested in it. And it turned into,

I mean, it turned into a media spectacle. Like, everybody had an opinion about it, right? It kind of like, maybe not for you guys, but for the,

in the normal, in the normal, like, if you're just a dude that followed the news, the main thing that was reported was, like, was the social fight. Right?

It was, it became a news, story about this this dispute that seemed to over probably maybe not from your community but that seemed to oh the coverage of of the argument overshadowed any conversation about you know how many whales are there what is your treaty right it just it became like the story became the dispute no it certainly did yeah it certainly did i think um your local media which is out of Seattle, you know, those, those stations, you know, they covered it. Were they supportive generally?

Then, I wouldn't say they were generally supportive. Okay. You know, I mean, they were looking to get the story. They, you know, they would go get on the ship with, with Paul Watson and on his, whatever the heck is, C. Shepherd boat walls. Oh, they would cover it from that angle. They cover it from that angle as well. And that, you know, that didn't sit well with us.

It's like how how can we build trust and think we're going to get a fair shake in the media if we have those things going on. That was. Yeah. But you guys then, you got a whale. When you went out to get a whale after this 100 year break and whaling, you went out to get a whale, did you launch out and go get a whale because you got all your paperwork in order? Or did they become a point when you just went for it? Or did you have like your little permits and shit all printed out? You know, I mean, like what ultimately happened?

Yeah. Well, we did, you know, agree on doing a permit system with the federal government at that time. Uh-huh. And we'd have a permit issued, you know, for a hunt period. And, you know, we wouldn't give specifics on a date and time, right? But it's like, hey, we're going to. there's a permit covers this amount of time and

and then you know that permit would be issued by the government and then we'd issue our own permit to our whaling crew to go to go do the hunt so you could keep a little bit secret like when this was going to go down yes yeah for their safety

yeah sure man because it was yeah I mean you may have seen the video of our whalers being charged by activists out there on the water on jet skis, you know, looking like they're going to ram them and, you know, the Coast Guard took them out before they took our canoe out. Yeah. Because they were just waiting. Yes. So walk me through that day, walk me through that day.

Like, how did that hunt day go down? I mean, like, let's forget, Let's forget for a minute, the jet skiers and the protesters and whatnot. But like, how did the day play out? Just from a hunter's perspective, from a hunting, a whaling perspective, what happened that day? But, you know, Daniel, you want to go through that? Yeah. I guess the day before, I think they had a lot of success on approaches. And so it was pretty well known that they were going to get it that next day.

I think all the stars were aligning, all the prayer training, everything, you know, came, came together that day. And it was kind of a feeling that everyone had. Yeah. And so they're getting, they're getting it down, right? The approaches, the studying of the whales, the watching the feeding currents. Got it. And when you say approaches, you mean just getting the boat up to it, like how to approach, how to approach it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

All the teachings are coming together. Okay. time on the water was paying off. And so, yeah, it was, it was a magical moment when they harpooned the whale. It's ingrained in every macaw's mind, I think, that day. At what distance today? Like, how close do you have to approach that whale? You have to be pretty close, pretty much right on top of it.

Yeah. Yeah, because, you know, you don't normally, you know, we spend a lot of time in southeast Alaska. It was always whales around. Yeah. You don't wind up right on top of them. No, you know, they got to, they know what's going on. You know, I mean, they don't, you know. Yep, you're watching and studying them just like, like you watch elk and study elk.

They're eating habits. You're watching the currents. And you're knowing where to position yourself, you know, to have a successful strife. So you're trying to, when it goes down, I imagine, you're trying to anticipate where it's going to come up. Where it's going to come up. And then you're watching it's breathing. I mean, there's a lot of different techniques that go into it. Yeah.

They're up at surface. for X amount of time and I got it before they go under and then yeah you never do when they're feeding you never know where they're going to come up again so yeah and the approach um I'm guessing the approach has got to be like on its sixth position like you're coming from behind it there's a couple different ways to yes um that is one of them um yeah you don't want them to you know tail swap you or something oh yeah I got yeah yeah yeah So when they got, they hand harpooned it? Hand harpooned it, yes.

And how did you guys make the, how did you guys build your harpoon? Like, what did you do? What kind of thought did you put into that? It was the traditional harpoon. So all those techniques are passed down for generations. So we quit well in the 1920s, but we never quit teaching about it. Oh, I see. So the importance of it, like you said, is the pinnacle of our society.

So, you know, we held on to those teachings. Did people hold on to some of the equipment? The equipment also, yes. So, yeah, we do have. Oh, really? Yeah, so we have equipment from a long time ago. Do you really? Yeah.

And each family has their own. Oh, is that right? Okay. Yeah, yeah. Along with, you know, sealing and, you know, other marine mammals. Yeah. So they got a harpoon into it and it's got a detachable head on it or somehow it's connected to line? The first piece, yeah.

Yeah, or the valve, whatever. you call it. That gets into it. And then there's a float system. Yep. So it starts paying out. And then there's a buoy tender that's sitting to the right of the harpooner and he's clipping on buoys while they're slowing down. You have to be one. The crew has to be in unison. So to turn the canoe into the right direction and get heading forward so the line don't pay out, you know, too fast. You have a line tender, buoy tender. How much line? It depends about, you know, 270 feet or so or more. And you're Clipping buoys on as it goes. Clipping bullies as it goes, yeah.

Is that thing at risk of sinking? Definitely, yeah. So the more bullies are better. So it's not just to slow it down, but to keep it from sinking. Keep it from sinking, yes. Got it. Should chat about the seal skin float system. Oh, yeah.

The old floats were made out of seal skins. They were skinned in such a way where you could turn them inside out and inflate them. Yeah, they're a big, you know, big floats. them or six feet or more. And when this was happening, there's, how many people are observing this? The actual hunt? Yeah.

The 99 hunt or? Yeah, the 99 hunt. Oh, there is hundreds of people, you know, outside the zone. The Coast Guard set a zone for the hunters. Oh, they set a perimeter. Yeah, a perimeter. So your people could be in the perimeter, but other people had to stay out of the perimeter.

Our canoe and our chase boat. So, you know. How far? was it how far how far how far out to sea are you when this is happening like how far from your how far from your reservation are you we're you know they migrate past our front door so so you just hunt close to home we can hunt close to home yeah we can also hunt you know out further at see if we're going after if we went after different species so okay and you're and you're not do they draw like does the government draw a line and say these waters are okay um they did do a restricted zone right for

To harvest a whale in? Yeah, yeah. Like, let's say you wanted to take off. Like you, you would never go take off and be like, oh, hey, we're going to go whale up. We're going to go whale up in Alaska and try that out, right? Yeah. They had to specify in some way where you can go. Well, that's a really, really great question.

And I got a couple answers for that, actually. Okay. So for that 99 hunt, yes, there was a defined hunt area. Okay. We agreed to stay out of the straight of Wandafuka and just on the Pacific. ocean. Okay. The tribe has a usual and a custom fishing area. Yeah. That's adjudicated. That went to the Supreme Court. From that Stevens Treaty. From that Stevens Treaty. So, so we have a defined area, but that's only for fishing. We do not have a defined area for whaling. And the court was very

specific about that because we, in that court case, we brought forward our whaling and sealing activities as part of that. And the government said, we're here to just talk about fishing. You're usual in a custom fishing area. We acknowledge that you've gone 80 to 100 miles offshore for whaling, but we're not going to allow that evidence as part of that case. Why did they want to punt on that question? Well, I think it's a limit to limit us, really. It's to limit our- Oh, because they're like, let's talk about. the local stuff let's not talk about the far out stuff yeah because they wanted they wanted to shrink that zone they wanted to put us in the box because before that case yeah maca people

we we fished from california all the way up to the bearing sea under okay under our treaty you know yeah like people just take off correct and go on sea sea journeys i'm imagined yeah and and now we're put in the box i got you but they never fixed the whaling box yeah there's no whaling box right now so when but 99 when they made a whaling box they didn't it wasn't as big as the fishing box no huh and in our current permit yeah you know we we we have an agreed upon area as well which is essentially on the pacific ocean you know outside of the strait of wandafuka and and then you know there's a national marine sanctuary that's out there now. So there's areas of other marine mammals, you know, haul out areas

for seals and sea lines and things like that that we, you know, we agree to transit in a responsible manner while we're hunting, you know. You've agreed to stay out of the sanctuaries. Not, not out of the sanctuary. Okay, not out of it. I got you. No, no, the sanctuary is is within our waters. I got you. Yeah. So we, we fish and exercise our treaty in the sanctuary. Got it. And they're, they've been a good partner and they support that. Oh, okay. Yeah. The 99 hunt

happens. It's now 2026. Why was there not a 2000 hunt, a 2001 hunt, a 2002 hunt? Like, what happened? There was. Okay.

And, you know, Daniel can maybe talk about those, those hunts. But in 2002, two, you know, I believe there was an injunction put on our whaling. Yeah. The federal government was sued over their, you know, how they put together the NEPA for our whale hunt and that they didn't do a thorough job.

That was, so that was in 2002 that they came in and said it, they blocked it or something. Correct, yeah. But did you guys have the desire to continue? Like, would you have continued? If that injunction hadn't happened, was the desire there that you'd do an annual whale hunt? Absolutely. Why did you pay attention to, I'm not criticizing, but like when the injunction came, what was the decision to abide by it? Rule of law, you know? Okay.

It's, you know, I think we, you know, our leadership and our macaw people, you know, believe in that. You know, we have our own laws that we pass as well around those and things. i got you yeah things that we agreed to and and so um it's i don't know that whole that's i can get into that more if you want but i mean there's really a lot to say around around that you mean around internal debates about how do we negotiate and engage with the government yeah we i mean we don't need to spend tons of time on it but you've you've exercised where you've generally been i mean i know of this but you've generally been trying to work within the constraints of the regulatory bodies and the federal government right and haven't stepped outside of that like

haven't gone the vigilante wouldn't be the right word but haven't gone your own way on it well you know we we did have a we had a group of macaws that got frustrated with the process okay at one point yeah um but you know so in two thousand 2002 you know I think there was an injunction and Court case Anderson versus Evans court case that took place and you know that basically that case basically decided that the marine mammal protection act applies to the Macaw tribe Okay, which we to this day we disagree with that you know we think we don't think that's a correct ruling but we're stuck with it. I got you Yeah. And so under the Marine Mammal Protection Act, it requires you to get a waiver to take a

marine mammal, in our case whaling. And then after a waiver, the government has to issue a permit. So in 2004, we submitted documents to start that application process for a waiver under the Riemmammal Protection Act. And we've been in that process ever since. Got it. Got it. In the meantime, have gray whales stayed off the, were gray whales delisted and stayed off the list?

Yes. So no one's put them back on the endangered species list. No. Can you guys explain to me? I wasn't even aware of this until Nate told me. You guys get gray whales from ship strikes. You'll be, you'll take, is this true? that you'll take possession of gray whales that are that are killed and from from getting hit by boats or tangled in nets or something like that yes yes we we have um how does that play out we have a process with national marine fisheries to um you know to obtain those for our use you know we basically submit a request for this incidental take you know because of whatever that mortality event was whether it's a ship strike or some entanglement or and

And then we have our own marine mammal biologists that that works with the tribe as well. So when that happens, you know, we decide if we want to utilize that whale. Uh-huh. And, you know, and then we tow it to our shores and, you know, we check the health of it, see how fresh it is. Yeah. You know, is it something that's fresh enough? Is the whale healthy? You know, is it something that we can, you know, harvest the blubber in the meat for consumption?

Yeah. Or, you know, or do we, you know, just butcher it up and utilize some of the other parts, whether it's the bones, the vertebrae, you know, baline, you know, that. Okay. And is it your job to go fetch it? Yes. Not mine specifically, but. But, yeah. But the macaw people, right?

So how does it, how does it? Because this has to happen fast, right? So how does it come to you? You know, let's say a cruise ship hits a whale, right? Bam. They hit a whale. It's crippled. It's dying. Like the phone rings. Like, like, how does this play out? Just like that. It does. Someone calls. Someone calls, you know, people know that macaws are whalers in that area. And, you know, there's a whole reporting system for those sort of thing. So when those reports happen, you know, sometimes that call comes from a federal government official say, hey, we got this report. There's this whale located off a. Tatush Island or wherever.

And so we go check it out. Got it. You send your own boats out and your own agency guys or whatever out and check it out. Yeah. You know what I saw a long time ago? Have you ever heard of, you know, Cook Inlet and Turning an Arm in Alaska? Yes. So we were way up turning in arm going salmon fishing.

And that thing gets flooded on these huge tide swings. And Blue was coming to. When the salmon are running, Balugas come up into this long, I don't know, it's like a, like an arm, like a fjord kind of thing.

And it's, at low tide, it's a mud flat for the most part. And at high tide, it's enough water for a beluga whale. We're way up in that arm, 20 miles up in that arm, because it was a 20 mile river.

And there's these belugas in there, and we're talking about me. my brother talking about how do they get out of there we're like they must have a channel or something that we can't see and we just go about our business fishing well the next day in the newspaper is those whales that we are commenting on like wondering how they're going to get out of that little pool they're in are dead and it was and i don't know what tribe did it but they i mean they rushed out there and got them all butchered and hauled out of there like quick you know and i always remember being kind of impressed by that like what a hall that was you know

but just utilized them all when you think they normally lay there and rot yeah we've we try to utilize everything on that whale and when those unfortunate things happen yeah we don't want those things to waste if we we can get them in time how was it divided up like something like that happens i mean it's a huge hall of food let's say you get one it's like uber like meg megraphra or you kill one and it's real fresh did you and you in your view does every maca have a right to some of it anyone that wants it has a right to it or is it play out differently yeah i think eventually yeah we'd like to be that i mean there's um harpooner usually has you know can can get what he wants okay but yeah it gets divided amongst uh the uh crew and then that goes to their families so i see yeah what's the most coveted part um there's parts that we do ceremonies with um oh it's the most coveted yeah i got you

but what about just for regular everyday consumption what part is the best my favorites of skin and blubber i absolutely love that yeah tastes tastes like the ocean yeah we i've had some of that i've had some of that from bow heads it's amazing it's yeah it's that's i you can't beat that in my book no these guys might have that's one thing you can imagine like picture like sushi restaurants like high-end sushi restaurants and stuff where people want to try interesting things that item when they you know like cut it with it's like almost like that french fry shape with a little bit of skin on it that item would be the most popular thing in the world if people got turned on to that it was amazing we ate some right here oh nice okay yeah no that's good stuff yeah what about the meat the actual

meat yeah i like the meat too i mean what's it like porpoise It tastes like porpoly. Yeah. No, seal. I mean, it's, it's got its own taste. But I mean, like, put it like with stuff that I'd be familiar with, or can't even draw comparison to it. I can't draw a comparison to it.

It's just different. It's like ocean elk. Yeah. Ocean. It's super lean. The meat itself is super lean. It's super, there's a lot of blood in it. Okay.

But you can. Yeah, it's real dark. You can throw it on a smoker. You can fry it up like a steak. You can do, you could braze it. I mean, there's. What, what parts? like i'm i just imagine it's not like flaying the fish like you're you're what would be like

how do you describe the parts of you know like let's say you're doing an elk you'd be a cave we got the back straps right do you know what i mean you got your grind pile you got your ribs you know i mean like when you're doing a whale is it that there's parts that are good for this parts that are good for that i mean i think you separate naturally separate into blubber you have your blubber and skin and then you have your meat and so you kind of think of it as like um if you've seen some of pictures from 99 or some of the other things are they're butchering in sections. Yep. And you get a, you know, you take the section and, and you kind of have this big blob of meat that has a ton of blubber, it's a ton of meat and, you know, it's enough for, you know,

plenty of your family if you were to cook it up for six, eight, ten people. Yeah. And are our guys freezing it? Like, freezing it up. Yeah. Especially with the, the last kind of ship strike whales that were healthy, they were divided up and passed around the community. And people froze the blubber, people froze some of the meat. And then obviously everybody took advantage of, tasting it, eating it right away, rendering the oil, smoking some of the meat. And it's cool because you see it, you know, shared around the community. Yeah.

And it's just a, it's really cool. Tell me a way, tell me a couple ways one might fix the meat, like cook the meat. Jerky. Oh, like whale jerky is. Jerky. That was the best jerky I've ever had. um really yeah uh a guy that used to be on the whaling commission god rest his soul Gary Ray he he made whale jerky and it it was really it was the best jerk guy ever had huh just

sliced it thin dried it yeah or smoked it i mean smoke yeah he had a you know traditional smoke house and he smoked it up in there hung those strips in there's here he gave me some i tried And I was like, oh, like, I didn't want to throw it out. Yeah, and he also makes the best salmon, candied salmon. Yeah. Also, he knows what's up with making the dry product. He was, he was, like, he was really good at all that stuff. Is there any such thing?

Like, do you guys, do you guys grind, do you guys make grind meat from deer and elk and stuff? Would anybody ever grind up whale meat? I don't think anybody's thought of it. To make, like, a whale burger. It would be like that kind of meat. It's interesting. thing too because of the you know how um you have your your elk towel you have your elk elk fat binds really well yeah um keep your grinder cold you grind your meat add your fat it stays really

well i imagine whale blubber oh would melt be an oil like such a lower temperature yeah and so i mean i imagine your patty would kind of fall apart no i can imagine that because if if everybody was to get like distributed from a whale you'd get about seven pounds of meat and then about one point, just about two pounds of blubber. Oh, you mean if your, if your whole tribe, all the tribal membership shared a whale, it'd be seven pounds apiece. That divides it out pretty good. Hey, there's a version of hunting where you just show up, you sit in a tree stand,

you hope something happens, and then you go home. A lot of people hunt that way. And every once in a while, it'll work out. Then there's the version where you've done the reading before the test. You've got the on-X hunt app with cameras integrated on your map, a tailored deer movement forecast to help you make the most of your days in the woods, and precise weather predictions. So when a buck starts showing up,

you already know where he's coming from and where he's going. Most of us don't have unlimited days in the field. We've got a week, maybe a little more. And every hunt that doesn't produce because you were in the wrong spot, that's a cost you can't get back. Build a real plan before opening day with the on-X hunt app. because hope is not a strategy. Get Bell Pure Fiber Internet with Crave Netflix and Disney Plus from $94 a month.

Price guaranteed for two years on internet with a two-year term and auto pay credit. Visit bell.ca for details and to check availability. Bell, connection is everything. Good Lord, they're finally here at long last. After fighting and yelling and fighting some more, Clay Newcomb and First Light have done it. They have built a pair of work bibs together. Not just any work bibs.

We're talking the bare grease bibs from Clay. Now, I've watched Clay work long enough to know that he wasn't going to put his name on a pair of hunting pants, pretending to be work bibs. And boy, he did not. These are Clay's invention for things like breaking mules, rendering grease, kneeling in the dirt. I'm going to use them all the time, trap and working, fixing stuff. It doesn't matter. If you want good, durable, comfortable bibs, these are your bibs.

These are your bibs made from tough stretch duck cotton. They got briar-proof chaps that run from cuff to thigh. They got pockets damn near everywhere. Again, comfortable and durable. Put them on. You don't need to worry about having anything go bad. If it wasn't so hot right now outside, I'd be wearing them right now. But you can bet your ass I got them in my truck.

And they are up at the meat eater store right now at the meat eater store.com. how is that oil is it stored as a liquid or a solid or how's it stored usually stored as a liquid so usually it's rendered real slow rendered down sometimes some people especially with seal they'll smoke like a cold smoke or they'll smoke at first

but they'll render it down into a oil smoke the oil smoke the yeah like the blubber the blubber and then you get a smoky oil oh really but it you generally now people render that oil down into a, like a mason jar, like the salmon that's out there.

And you can keep it like that for... It's a bit like... Every. Honey and cinnamon that don't really go bad. I got you. Yeah. I got you. You could freeze it. You can freeze the whale oil. Yeah. I spent some time with some chupic Ascomo guys and they would have seal oil.

Oh, yeah. And I remember we would dip fish in it. Just like, where you're eating frozen, raw frozen fish, like little chunks of like actually frozen fish dipped in the seal oil. And when you taste it, man, it would be like

real peppery. Like, I can't even describe it. It's like peppery like olive oil. Do you mean like a, like a, not a burn, but you know what I'm saying? There's like a pepper tool. Yeah, bold. What, what, how do you describe that whale oil? Is it mild?

Is it like, kind of grabs you when you taste it depends on who it is i mean it's pretty normal like it's pretty mild for us yeah kind of everybody's kind of used to it but if you handed it to some kid like uh i don't know like some kid had any kind of that stuff would that kid be like oh that's good would the kid be like man that is some wild taste it's probably tastes like um like omegas okay your fish oil so okay so it's got like it's got that a little bit of it's got that fish oil taste to it. And how are you using it? You're dipping meat in it? Yeah, I mean, you could use it a ton of different ways. I'm sure there's still ways to expand to that, that palette now that,

you know, once we get back into the mix, but I mean, generally, like you said, dipping fish or even bread or different things with, with your dinner. Do you ever oil a pan with it? I haven't, but I mean, there's no reason you couldn't. I don't know what the smoke temp is, to be honest. Because it's rendered really low temperature. I see. It's super low temperature or you'll burn it. I got you. So you'll get a real like dark amber. Like you'll see first timers making like rendering whale oil and it's like real dark and then you kind of get the older folks who are like oh they know how to keep it clean and clear. So it's like whiskey colored or something. So like generally it's like like like olive oil even lighter than that. Oh is that right? It's pretty clear. Oh okay. It's not I mean it's not on the wild picture or being like honey. No it's not like white. It's not like. water but the like the smoked seal oil kind of a little closer to like an olive oil color yeah but generally it's like the clear the better it's like you did a good job rendering it if it's nice and clear is there a um does your community does your community have uh is is there a communal area where where stuff gets done or do people would it be that hundreds of people would go home and

all render oil on their own or do you have a big spot where you just render all the oil collectively and then hand it out well generally when the whale gets you know gets pulled up right you know drop of elk it's there it's in that spot but we pull up the whale and it kind of gets distributed there and that's where the time is you know everybody's hustling to make sure it's taking care of business and then you know wherever you take that your portion you know probably similar to an elk you go home and okay clean it up make sure it's nice and good and then you take your sectioned it apart, and then you plan to do your oil.

Got it. That's your own business in your own area. Like it's cut up in a way where people that want some, get some, but then if you got your chunk of meat, you go home and deal with your chunk of meat. But not to say there can't be, you know, I'm sure, like those are some of the things that are really kind of frustrating to notice

is you see other tribes and other places have these communal ceremonies of like, they're celebrating the, uh, teaching their like kids how to process these different animals and for us to not even let alone not only be not able to wail but not able to even engage in those ceremonies to physically show our younger kids how to do this kind of stuff you know and so the tribe's doing really well at you know hey the process of making paddles never died never will processes of you know making harpoons like we have our cultural and research center that has an incredible display of all of the

technology for whaling and all of those you know there's folks who are well detailed and and you know making your harpoons and and teaching your kids to and family how to do those things but for us to not be able to kind of you know it's kind of like that box at year and you think about being able to have those kind of ceremonies we're like hey macaws coming together like macada but for just us to teach generations how to do this process and to get better at it. How to handle the stuff, yeah. You mentioned porpoise. You guys hunt seal and porpoise.

Yeah. That's less, like, that's just kind of, that's less, like, regulatory stuff involved in that. There's regulations around that. There's, it's incidental take permits that we get issued. and you know we work with uh um nash marine fishery service again and our marine mammal biologists you know if we do any any type of incidental take what does incidental take mean gets caught up in fishing gear through our oh i got you okay so that would be how you'd wind up with one right i got you yeah and then we there's a reporting system that we have to report that

if you have a porpoise what is that porpoise good for would you would you use it exactly how you use a way Pretty similar. Blubber, skin, meat, oil. They actually do have back straps. I've heard it's very good. Yeah, same. Very good tasting. You've heard that.

I've heard that. But you haven't tried it. It's good, Steve. Where it is, where it is, it can be good. Word is, it's great. All right. So I want to get into the time. I want to get back to this timeline more and try to get like where the situation stands right now.

So the injunction goes in. 2000, 2001, what was it? 2002. 2002, the federal government in all its forms, NOAA, US, whatever, all the agencies. It comes down, we don't need to get into the details, but basically it comes down, hey, there's an injunction. The macaw, you're done whaling.

2002. But now, you're talking about whaling again. Like, you're getting ready to go. You want to get everything squared away to go. What happened this time around? So in 2004, we made an application for a waiver to go whaling under the Rememmal Protection Act. And there is no process for it. So we had to work with the government to develop that process as we went.

Oh, like you had to ask them, let's say if a fellow wanted a waiver, what would the waiver need to look like? Right. And you got a legal team. I mean, you got lawyers. We do. Like, just got lawyers getting paid to do this kind of stuff. Yes. Huh. Yes, we do. Yeah. And, and so we've been in that process, you know, since 2004. Since we first put in that notice, we've had to reboot it a few times. So are they just, do they just kind of slow walk yet? Like, yes. They stall it. Yes. But, I mean, for years. For years. Yeah. There's, uh, there's, uh, there's, uh, there's, um, there's, um, there's, um, there's, um, there's, um, there's, um, there's, there's. You know, you're looking at, you know, a lot of the, um, both scientific and the biological information, you know, with, with the whale population. And so in the, you know, in that process, the government, you know, like anybody can sue

the federal government, right? So that's their real concern. It's like they don't want to get sued and lose. So they're, so the slow walking is so that they're thorough on this. they're in. No, I understand. And, and yeah, that's an area. And it can withstand a challenge in court. I got you. Yeah. So that's, that's part of the part of why it's been delayed so long. We think it's unreasonable. Mm-hmm. Um, you know, and now, uh, we went, uh, we were finally issued a waiver, um, in 2018, I believe. Is that the right year?

2024, the waiver for the way. The waiver, or we applied for the waiver. We applied for the waiver. waiver in 18 maybe it was we had the 2400 page environmental impact statement that's what came up yeah so yeah anyway that you guys generated a 2400 page environmental impact statement no no noa did no it did yeah an environmental impact statement about what would happen if you got a whale right yes so once that was done then we would be able to apply for the waiver granted the waiver and then goes to the permit system. Oh, here's where I'm a little bit confused.

Go ahead, but I'll tell you what's confusing me. Okay, so there's a ALJ administrative law judge hearing on this. And, you know, we had to basically go through this court process, bring in,

tell the government how we're going to do the hunt, how we're going to manage it. And bring in our cultural experts and all those, you know, Daniel testified in that. And the judge recommended that we be granted the waiver. Okay.

That's what I was trying to get at earlier. And in that timeline. And then, you know, we're finally granted that waiver in in 2024. And then in March of 2025, we applied for a permit. You know, we're granted the waiver. Now you got to get a permit. For how many whales? So it's for, um,

20 up to 25 whales over a 10 year period okay yeah so okay that's what I was confused about okay is I was like like if you look at just the pop population demographics of whales which I don't understand well but I gather these are long-lived low fecundity creatures but there are thousands of them so in my mind I'm like how could any serious person argue that harvesting a whale a year is going to have a population level impact. When you factor in that you have this mortality happening from cruise ships, you have mortality happening from entanglements, you have mortality happening from strandings. And then someone would say, but if you get one, that's going to tank the gray whale population.

Now, we agree with you 100%. That seems like such a hard. That seems like such a weird. It's like they're dying all over the place. We're talking about, oh, whale. But I guess if you're looking at 2.5 whales a year, if you had said one whale a year, would it have been a different conversation,

or would it have been all the same BS? It probably would have been all the same BS. It wouldn't have changed anything. I don't think it would have changed anything. You know, I think our opponents, our adversaries on this, you know, they're absolutists. They're absolutists. And so we're, um,

The way we propose to do the hunt is, you know, the most we could, most whales we could take in any year under this waiver is two. Okay. You know, because you can't take a half a whale, right? Yeah. So, and it's only one per hunt season. So there's, the hunt season that we're applying for is a summer, fall hunt, starts July 1st, goes through October 31st. So you got like an opening day and everything. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You guys like white people. You got like opening days. And, and if, uh, you know, if we harvest a whale, then that's done that permit for that period is done. Yeah.

And we have to wait. Um, for, we can't go the very next year in that hunt period. We got to wait until the following year. Oh. To, to go. We, we can also apply. for a permit for a separate hunt season, which is a winter spring, goes from December to through May. I got you.

And we could harvest a whale during that as well. But once we harvest that whale, then that hunt period's done. Yeah. So there's, we wouldn't get more than two a year under under how it's structured right now. And right now we're not proposing to go in that, in that winter spring hunt. You know, it's, it's more dangerous. The whales are farther offshore. So it's more ideal to go in the summer, summer fall hunt period.

What kind of ground are these gray whales covering? Like, what's their northern range and southern range? Because when they come by you, they're coming through, right? Right. Yeah, they're coming through. The eastern North Pacifics that we're targeting. You know, they go from Baja, California to the Sokolene Islands, you know, way up. I don't know, Socholine.

It's way up in, you know, the Barrier. Bering Strait, Russia. Oh, really? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's her feeding range. So these seasons is you're, it's, um, it's, it's different swings of a migration. Right.

Like one, I'm just assuming like one is that they're sort of generally moving south and one they're generally moving north. Correct. Yeah. And that summer season, they're generally moving north. Right now they're moving south to go down to the. Baja to have their calves and, you know, breeding. Huh. And then they make their way.

Yeah. So right now they're going past us. They're feeding and, you know, slowly making their way down there. And they have their calves. And then the male whales start making it up and the females make it up after them with their calves slowly. Okay. Oh, when you, if you imagine the idea of whale, is it a male or female? Male.

Can you tell? There is a way. Um, you want to, you want to explain how you, you tell how a female is in the male? Go ahead. So, um, you have to stick your arm in them. And if it goes a certain direction, that's a male or a female. But, yeah, but that's dead checking them. Yeah.

That's, you can't live check them. It's a little harder. Oh, okay. So there's not like, it wouldn't be that, um, we have an observer that, like a specialist, um, a Marine Specialist that identifies if it's a male or a female for us. You know, where we strike it.

Because we can't strike a female. We have to go after males. Oh, okay, that's okay. Yeah. So it would be out of the question to kill a female with a calf. Yeah. That's correct.

That's not going to happen. It's not going to happen. Got it. And you're targeting males. Yeah. I see. And whether we get it or not, those same whales,

we have the shared quota. Basically, so if we don't get them, it goes into their quota, those two wheels that we're not getting for that tribe. Okay. Where are they located? Chakotkin. Chakotkins are Russians. Hold me, your quota goes to the Russians? Okay, yeah.

Seriously? Yeah, during the, when I explained in, we first agreed to be part of this international process. Yeah. federal government wanted us do that we said okay and so we went and did it um there's a there's a a whaling quota you know given globally to whaling wailing nations and that right through this process well there's an already established quota for for these gray whales the eastern north pacifics that was mainly being taken by the chakotkins uh up in russia and so when we first uh started working to get our international quota, what we were asking for.

The Chokans, we were able to build relationships with them. And they supported us and they were willing to give up part of their quota so that we can, so that we can continue our whaling. So it's an agreement that still stands today. So did you have to send some ambassadors up to meet with these guys? Yes. Yes. And talk this out.

And talk it out and spend time with them during their. or whaling activities and huh yeah and you guys were generally well received by them yes yes do they have the same arguments with the russian government not all right okay do they have the same level in negotiating with the russian like what are their treaties like i'm i'm unsure yeah i want i wonder if they have all the layers of government or if they just do their own thing or what that's like dealing with the russian government yeah i haven't been there myself Um, it's pretty remote, more remote than we are. So I imagine they don't have to deal with them quite as much.

Not as much. Yeah. Yeah. Um, we keep getting into the timeline, leaving the timeline, but we're like, what are you waiting on right now? You're not going to wail this summer or you might. Well, it's, it's still possible. This summer.

It's still possible. Yeah. It's still possible. You know, we're at the end of, coming up on the end of July, you know, what there's, the whales are still. present you know that's that's kind of the factor you know the whales got to be there but yeah sure when they decide to leave you know then then they're gone yeah but we're waiting on the Secretary of Commerce to to sign the permit you're waiting on Howard

Lutnik correct to sign the permit yes really he's got to sign it he does or he's got to delegate someone to sign it and what what was he's he's what's he's his thinking. We don't know. We haven't been able to talk to him directly on this issue. We've requested it. We've requested government-to-government consultation on this, which, you know, normally those are honored by the federal government. But these guys don't want to hear you out. Or is it too early to say? Not Howard himself yet, but his, uh, yeah, his deputies. His deputies. We've talked with them. They're super supportive. They've been great. Oh, I got you. All right. So there's no resistance there. No, we don't. And so it's a little puzzling.

for us. Frustrating for sure. Like, you mean, like, the receptive, they're not dismissive, but then there's not the signature yet. Right, right. And I would say it's even more than receptive. I'd say they're supportive. Supportive.

Yeah. Okay. So let's say, I mean, is it, is there a possibility that tomorrow someone emails you over, like a cycle? How does it happen? Like, one day someone signs it? And then there it is? Yes.

So we have a pending permit application. I've actually signed my part of it already for 2025 and 27. Was it a docket sign? No. Was it digital? No, it wasn't. A paper document. There was a paper document, yeah.

And we've, well, our understanding last year was that we were. We're both going to sign this. And it would be effective August 1st of 2025. Okay. And we're preparing for that moment. We're working with our media teams and, you know, going to be prepared for any, whether it's pushback or, you know, people will want to tell the story, right? You know, it's going to get some coverage.

And, yeah, so we were, I mean, we were just weeks away, two weeks away from, what we thought, you know, being issued our first permit under... Last year. Last year. And then nothing happened. And we, yeah, it just went radio silence. And that's under the Trump administration. Yeah, that's what's real puzzling about.

I mean, you know, these types of things is something, you know, hunting and outdoor type stuff and, you know, those things seem right up this administration's alley, right? You know, they seem to be supportive. Yeah, like stripping regulations. Yeah, less regulation, those sort of things. So, yeah, we're not sure what's going on. But this, you might want to not even answer this, and I would probably, I wouldn't, but I'll ask anyway. Just because of what you just said, is it possible to say something like this? Is it possible to say that, that, that who's better friends to the macaw, like generally?

Republicans or Democrats? Or is that not a possible? You can't answer it. No, I've answered that question a number of times. And I think both of them have their, they have their points of. That's what I think. They have their points of where the friendship ends or starts, right? You know, in general, you know, and this is a pure generality, is that, you know,

Democrats will support our treaty right up into the point it starts conflicting with labor and jobs. Oh. You know, Republicans, they'll support. port our treaty right up into the point it starts affecting industry. Oh. So like the age old conflicts. You just like find your own Indian way into the age old conflicts. But here's the thing between Democrats and Republicans.

Yeah. Here's the thing is that our treaty rights should be nonpartisan. Yeah. If it was a well-written treaty, you'd think that it would be. Yeah. That it would be debatable. But I mean. as you know, I mean, documents don't always anticipate every development.

But what's funny about, not what's funny, what's interesting about treat, like, we look at the U.S. Constitution, right? So the founding fathers didn't come in and be like, they didn't make a big passage about AI, right? So then you've got to get down the road and you got to say, well, how would they have looked at this issue? Based on what we know about how they looked at other issues, how might they look at, like, an AI issue, okay? But what's, and you know it way better to mean, but if you look at it, you look at it. at tribal treaties, it literally contemplates hunting, fishing, landmarks, things that

they're really clear about. I agree, yes. I mean, it's like you can't get any more clear. Like, you guys are cool to go hunting and fish and here. Right? So it's not like, you're not contemplating AI. You're contemplating like a very concrete, specific activity so that people find so many things. the debate about it is that you know i understand the complexities but it's just it's different because it's not abstract it's like your father your your your fathers argued this out they did yeah and brought

up like hey we need we eat this is what we eat we need to be able to go get our food here's the deal you know and now you're in this situation where you're like arguing about it which i understand it's complicated especially something like whales well we're not even arguing right now Yeah, we're just waiting. Wait. We're just waiting. Hey, your neighbor, you know that guy, your neighbor? He's been out there all summer.

He's hanging cameras. He's watching the photos roll in. He knows where that buck is bedding, where he's feeding. He's pinpointing where he needs to be on opening day. You've seen the pictures, and you know the deer is there. The question isn't whether that buck gets shot this fall. The question is whether it's your story or his. So tip the odds in your favor with the on-x hunt app,

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at long last after fighting and yelling and fighting some more, Clay Newcomb and First Light have done it. They have built a pair of work bibs together, not just any work bibs. We're talking the bare grease bibs from Clay. Now, I've watched Clay work long enough to know that he wasn't going to put his name on a pair of hunting pants, pretending to be work bibs, and boy, he did not.

These are Clay's invention for things like breaking mules, rendering grease, kneeling in the dirt. I'm going to use them all the time. Trapping, working, fixing stuff. It doesn't matter. If you want good, durable, comfortable bibs, these are your bibs made from tough stretch duck cotton. They got briar-proof chaps that run from cuff to thigh. They got pockets damn near everywhere.

Again, comfortable and durable. Put them on. You don't need to worry about having anything go bad. If it wasn't so hot right now outside, I'd be wearing them right now. But you can bet your ass I got them in my truck. and they are up at the meat eater store right now at the meat eater store.com. If you all of a sudden get the permit, you all of a sudden get the signature, do you got a team, you know, you call it, do you got a crew?

Is there a crew ready to roll? They got the gear straight. They got the plan put together. Yeah, we have, I mean, we got some additional training that will have to be done. Uh-huh. You know, to be able to go tomorrow, you know, that, you know, if we get the permit sign tomorrow there isn't a team that's going to launch tomorrow i see yeah yeah how do you get to be who selects the crew our whaling commission okay so you can't just freelance it no two dudes

can't just be like hell i'm going like that wouldn't fly no it does it oh yeah no it has the it goes through the tribe the whaling commission yes got it and and how do you apply to be like if you want to be on crew what do you got to do Who's out of the crew? Yeah. So the way the whaling commission handles, um, that kind of stuff is essentially the, you know, you're interested in being a captain. Okay.

You're responsible for the crew. So the captain is the one who will apply for the permit. And the council, um, the tribal council's ultimate authority that signs the permit for the, the crew. So if you're going to be a captain, you, you know, you gather your crew, you do everything you need to do, say, you know, like you're doing for a hunt for whatever. You're going to pick your guys and this is what we're going to do. This is plan, train up, whatever. But the captains, you know, selects his crew, make sure they got everything and going. He's going to be the one to take the crew out

and to actually do the, do the hunt. So that captain goes to the commission and gets the okay. What if you had eight captains? Well, so the commission will select the captains. The captains will select their crew. Okay. And the commission will make a recommendation of the council of, of, you know, who should gather the permit based on who's, you know, who's ready. There might be one captain that's ready. There might be eight.

And we've even talked about, um, doing things like, um, you know, having multiple crews and, and, you know, not your first hunts not always successful. Can be, yeah, but it's not always. And so we've talked about having different crews hunting at different times. Yeah. Um, that requires. There's a couple different technicalities, you know, tribal hunt observers, hunting both communication to make sure you're not doubling up.

But there's a lot of different ways that we've discussed internally on how to handle and on how to handle, you know, multiple crews, multiple captains. And got it. And even having the positions of the whalers just kind of trained up in multiple positions so that, you know, people get sick or people get hurt or, you know, you can swap around. and you can move and so what would be the attributes of a captain he's coming out of what is is he is he is probably a commercial fisherman is he probably a fisherman i mean i'll hand that one over to daniel but i imagine he's got to be well versed in the sea and yeah yeah well versed in the sea knowing the history um actually knowing um the whales okay personally spending time you know on the water you know observing whales um knowing position you know you know observing whales um knowing position

in the canoe, how to make the harpoons, battles, all that. Okay. All those things. So they got to be invested in it. That'd be invested in it, yes. And have a reasonable claim to why they should be doing it. Yes. For sure.

Got it. So if someone comes up with like a crackpot idea, they're going to get weeded out. They're going to get weeded out for sure. Yeah. How big is the commission? About 24. Oh, no kids. Are they all tribal?

They're all either heads or descendants of, like traditional heads of families and so that's that's what i wanted to get into a little bit it's like traditionally you're brought up as a whaler captain or leader because it's central to the like said society of the tribe and so it's like it's not hey we're going to go shoot to elk we're going to grab our permit but like it's a lifestyle okay right the training the mindset even just who you are as a person if you're going to be a captain you're you're already set apart i understand and you're you're brought up in a way like you're a leader you're a you know take care of your you know you've like you said spent time in the ocean spent time in the sea you know whales breathing patterns flu

fluke prints like you kind of know i see you know you're going to be yeah but they've been prepared for this their whole life yeah is there a clan system with the macah do you guys are you guys from different clans so the tribe has five traditional villages okay and um the five traditional villages are kind of what make up the reservation now. So we have Ozette, we have Suez, we have Weatch, Dia, and Baheda. So those are the five villages that kind of make up the tribe now. But as far as clans go, everybody kind of, you know where you come from, you know, what family you come from, what village you come from. Okay. And you kind of... People might as sort of, it's like a step down from Macaugh would be that you'd associate by village. Mm-hmm. And family, village and family.

Village and family. You kind of tie your family, you know where your village. village everybody knows who comes from what village for the most part and that's just part of the how the oral history has continued to transpire as everybody understands whose family who comes from who and that kind of gets into our our potlatch system of you know and all and in the whaling commission the different there'd be representation from all the villages yeah and multiple multiple families from multiple people from all villages and they come together it's a heads a it's a family type structures has a family it's a family rather than clan it's you we that's how we associate each village would have um so many heads of family that would be part of that village's governance of i see of their village and and you know they're different number of seats per village and that was up to the village to decide how many i got it how many seats they wanted fill the as heads of family on these wailing decisions and captain selection and and when to when to when to push on it and try to do it and when to not.

Is it, um, is it contentious or do you guys usually hit a consensus? We don't disagree on anything, Steve. No, never. No, it's, it, it can get contentious. There can be, yeah, certainly. Does it, do you settle it? Do you settle by vote or do you hash it out until there's a consensus? Well, I think there's attempt to reach consensus, but, you know, at the end, there is a

voting mechanism. Okay. Yeah. So just any, any sort of issue would be eventually might be resolved by a vote. Yes. Yeah. I got you.

What will happen? Let's say in two years, so you got this relationship with the Commerce Department under Howard Lutnik right now. What's say in two years, it's a new administration. At that point, I'm like,

oh my God, now we got to start all the way over again, or is there a chance that it would be smooth? Well, there definitely be the concern that we got to reboot the waiver process. Yeah. You know, that would, you know, that would be concerning, but, or the permitting process, sorry. You know, we've already been granted the waiver. Yeah.

You know, that can't be walked back. But, you know, we need a permit. So, yeah, I don't know. I don't know what administration change would do. We've been through a lot of them. Yeah, yeah. Who was president when Stevens was negotiating all those treaties? Oh, a Buchanan?

Was it not? You've been through a few administrations. Hey, here's what I wanted to ask. I'm sorry, Lupe, we've been having a lot of conversations. You know, we eat a lot of fish and game. And some of the guys work here fish a lot. And we've been having all these conversations about, like, P-fast chemicals and fish, health warnings and fish.

If you had to rate, like, you know, in our world, it would be that, you know, like, tuna, that's a questionable fish for heavy metals, contamination. Our own state has now advisories about P-FAS chemicals and freshwater fish here is, how much, how much, you know, how much. you see into stuff in whale and whale fat because I mean they're like a mega accumulator you know just for listeners to understand I mean is picture that picture that there's a fish that

a small fish that eats plankton he's not accumulating a bunch of heavy metals but let's say there's a fish that eats fish that eats fish so every fish he eats he's absorbing all the things that not just that they ate but that what they ate,

eight, right? And you get to be where you have these certain fish that are loaded because they're just eating fish. They ate fish. So is a whale, is a whale like a bioaccumulator of environmental toxins? There's not much data on it. I mean,

what I have found was they have done some studies on some whales that, whether they were, you know, ship strikes or beach themselves. And I believe they detected, you know, levels in the blubber. They didn't find, I think there was like maybe 20 whales, but a lot of them were inconclusive and they didn't find any in the liver, it sounded like. Okay. And then like the red meat, there wasn't as much, but I mean, you know, you could see the tribes that have been eaten whale for all these years.

and you know it is medicine and I mean the even the government is getting back to like food is medicine you know yeah yeah turn the triangle upside down now red meats at the top oh yeah and um you know it normalizes glucose metabolism you know whale meat it's been shown to do that you can see that in the and the tribes that are still eating it you know on a daily basis and it's it's their main fat source you know you know and uh you can see in those where the health related diseases are not as large as you know say like a coastal tribe or like a lot of the the tribes you know that that got hit with like you know the commodities you remember you know no no so commodities you know was a oh yeah the food commodity yeah yeah

like Western like Western foods you know introduced them to our diet yeah once we laid down our harpoons, you know, 12 years before anybody else started to, you know, knowing we were going to get back to it, but still, you know, traditionally eating all of our foods and which even there's, we had elders that were, you know, they were probably around when we had our last couple hunts in the 20s and they lived to be in their hundreds. Oh, they were enjoying good long lives on that diet. He could speak more on that as well, but, you know, the, I think it's like with the gray whale on the few of the villages up there, because they get about, I think they have 16,000 people that they get whale distributed to and they get about, I think it's 107 pounds of gray whale meat. 26% of them, I think they said it was their main food.

Like their main fatty food. Oh, is that right? Yeah, I mean, and so even us reintroducing that. Wow, there's like people who's main, like that's their main. Yeah. A main meat would be whale meat. Yeah. And even for us, you know, introducing it back into our diet, which has been missing since the 20s.

Uh-huh. Since we've stopped and you can, you can see the. you know, diabetes and whatever else, you know, the health-related diseases, you know, they're pretty rampant and, you know, and then even with those, you know, those microplastics and everything in the food that I believe it is something that will need to be studied more once, you know, we're, if we're whaling on a regular basis, I'm sure it's something we're going to be able to study, you know, to see if it, if it is higher, because they are eating, fish, eating fish, eating fish, yeah. But then you got the question, too, of, of, like,

relative to, like, let's say they do have some chemical contamination. It's like relative to what? Because then you've got to ask yourself, I don't know, is the other stuff that everybody's eating so great? Yeah. There's a lot of focus on wild fish. You know, I'm like, I don't know, are they checking everything? Like, have you gone to the grocery store and checked all that stuff? Like, is wild fish really worse than all the junk that's in the grocery store?

It's definitely better than farm fish. Yeah, it's like it winds up being like this totally relative thing, but there's all this focus on contaminations and fish. I'd have to see the data on all the junk that normal people here. Well, now it's getting into lab grown. Labgrown meat. Yeah.

But I don't think... No one's making lab grown whale meat. Don't quote me. I don't think our test we did on the mercury for gray whales are... I don't think it was much. That'd be interesting if they're kind of low. Yeah. Because one thing they're not doing is they're not eating big fish.

Right. But like tuna, big tuna, eat small tuna. I mean, they're eating by, like tuna are eating bioaccumulators. And a lot of times, a tuna's eating a fish

that's eating a fish that eats fish. So it's just different, but you can picture with a whale eating a lot of short-lived plankton feeders that maybe they don't get loaded up. Yeah. And if you eat, like, say you eat

whale meat and blubber and then cut out all the process stuff, is the whale meat with, chemicals and toxins better than a diet of processed food with chemicals and toxins that's what I mean

getting that yeah do you got let me ask you question this is just on on the behalf of non non natives you know what thing we always argue about man is whether it's okay to call you guys Indians or not give me your take on this like just for listeners sake

like a dude like here's a dude like me a dude like me and I say you guys are Indians just for people out there who want to do the right thing but they get confused what does that mean to you Steve say quidichchuk

So is it offensive or not offensive? We're not too uptight about that Most of our people You know it's for us We say yeah I can call us Indians Our treaty it's the Indians of Cape Lattery in there right Yeah but you might not like that treaty

I'm not asked us to be cute I'm like, it's like an honest thing. There's not a month goes by. I'm not kidding you. There's not a month goes by that I don't have a conversation with someone. Yeah. About the appropriateness. Sure.

Of Native American, First Nations, Native Alaskan. You know what I mean? Like, like the appropriateness of it. And maybe it's offensive that I'm even asking, but I'm going to ask anyway, because there's people, there's like people that want to do, There's people that want to be respectful, but there's a lot of mixed signals and feelings. I remember asking, earlier I said, Chupac Askimo. I asked a Chupac Ascomo.

I said, man, a lot of people, like in our culture, a lot of people say that they shouldn't say that. And he goes, if I'm not an Eskimo, I don't know what I am. Because he goes, I'm a Chupackema. I don't know what they told you back home, but that's what I am. No, and that's how we are. Any English word is the wrong word. Yeah, yeah. So I that's that's my take on it.

It's like you know you you tried to say quidditch you that's what we call ourselves. Yeah. You know, but any English word is the wrong word. But I don't stress about it. But there's something you learn to live with and learn not to live with. Yeah. I don't want to be it to the ground. It's more in them you know, to me it's it's more how are you saying it?

Right. Yeah. You know, it's how are you saying it? How are you using it? How are you saying it? That's what I would imagine. that's how i kind of have imagined it yeah is is is is in that way but i but maybe am i am i right to say that the best thing like i can't say your word but if i just said he's macaw that's fine

yeah you're not like well i'm not that's what someone else called me yeah i like that's respect that that shows respect if i say that it doesn't show a lack of respect correct it doesn't show a lack of respect Yeah. And if I say Native American, that's cool. That's cool, too. All right. All right. Yeah. You know, like a good example, the Washington Redskins. Yeah. It wasn't the, wasn't the family of the chief of the head that they used on their helmet for that redskins that got rid of it. It was, yeah, those other groups. What do you mean? Like, it wasn't. So that, that picture was actually from a chief in that area. Oh, they didn't have a problem with it. They didn't, no, yeah. huh there's probably a hundred stories like that yeah yeah um our high school mascot is the red devils your high school mascot yes still now still now yeah do you find that that's a problem

no no that's interesting yeah but there's got to be a lot of it a lot of is like you said who where it's coming from it right you know who's saying it where it's coming from yeah i would like to see a mascot that the whalers with our own name yeah with your own name yeah you know in our language yeah there's there's a there's a tribe near us that that did that and uh but finding one that's easy to say in in quidditchia language is is tough you know that so there's a school mascot Chitwins, you know, it's a tribal, tribal community, and, you know, that just means bear. Got it. It's like easy to say, anybody can say it, and it's a great mascot.

Can any of you guys give me a sense of what your language sounds like? Just, I mean, just say something, whatever, I don't know anything that. Just that guy. Wabstowazah, scyubotos, um, Sadaudukh checks, uh, who Shabbats, uh, Sehawahev. here to talk about whaling the whales talking about the whales yeah i got it yeah it's kind of really um ukuklas quiet a plus is my name iachat swatch yehach god's a good sound of language dude so yeah that's a good sound in language man i like that it's uh yeah very glad and then we share our language families in canada so new john uh uh

is where we come from whaling society is all along the canadian uh west coast vancouver island so that's where we come from okay so um If I if like you go up you got like um um um the hyda sim shian would those have been would there have been cultural similarities uh or just very different they're pretty different yeah yeah so we're just just south the hyda we had um it had to say i guess it was our northern northern and Prince Rupert we had ties in with them okay but Ida Gwai kind of got different that's a different people yeah yeah if you guys get this thing signed this paper signed would you ever would you consider photocopy in me a photocopy that sending me that the permit the permit yeah with like

uh all like a permit I just want to frame it hang it in the studio yeah we just a photocopy of your signed permit I'm sure you yeah we're like your whale tag no photocopy of your whale tag. We could do that. Just some kind of, I'd like to have, I'd just like to see a document. We won't make you for you. I'd like to see it. No, I want to just photo copy from you guys.

I don't want it. I don't want to have to go through legal. Yeah, just a document that sort of like is like what, what a whale permit looks like. All right. I don't see a whale permit. They probably don't have like the little date things you notch out and stuff on them. No. No, I'd like to see one.

Man, I wish you guys. I don't know, man. Not, I don't know. I hope you guys permit comes in. Thank you. Yeah. I hope your permit comes in. It's just like, to me, it feels,

to me, it feels like there's not a situation where, there's not a situation one where sort of the general commercial fishing fleet is going to re-engage in whaling, and there's going to be like a resource battle about it. You know what I mean? You guys got a claim to it. It's not a thing that's going to get overblown. there's a limited number of there's a limited number of groups that that have it be that's part of their tradition it's such a small harvest it just seems like it's doing it's doing enormous good it's doing enormous good for your community and it's not doing any harm to other it's not doing any harm to other communities you know what i'm saying yeah no we we agree it's just like it's like it's like it's kind of like it's it's not you know

You know, you say like a win-win. It's like a win-nothing. Like it doesn't mean, like, it doesn't impact my life. Right? It's not, I just feel like it's not my business. I think it's like, if it does you guys good and you want to do it, it's not going to tank the gray whale population if you guys are getting a whale every year. Yeah.

It's like it's, it's just doesn't feel like my business. I think it's, I think it's important to mention also that it's, It's ceremonial and subsistence. It's not for the tribe's pleasure. It's not for anything other than it's who we are as a people. Yeah. And getting back to that. And it's not about going out to do it just because we can.

It's central to the tribe. Yeah. So that's the importance. So when it comes to respect as far as names and what to call everybody, like, as far as respect goes, like, I would like to see people understand and get to know who tribes are. Like you want to know macaw go learn about macaw yeah um you know Joshua reed um Dr. Josh Reid um Dr. Josh Reid has a really great book called the Sea is my country oh really did extensive research not only at Maca but um across other tribes too to get their perspective of maca oh really and it's it's incredible see is my country yeah and so I haven't even heard of that one

man it's yeah it's incredible and so we'll get you copy but it's it's good so if I mean if you want That book, that book resonates with your understanding of stuff. Yes. Yes. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Because sometimes you read books that come from observers. Yeah.

But then the people being observed are like that, like, that's not how we understand it to be. Yeah. No, Josh was a great partner. We really came in on behalf of the tribe and really put together really accurate, you know, was able to tell the story. the way it happened. You know, it's pretty funny is there's this, there's this French dude named Jacques Cartier and he goes over to the,

he lands over on the Canadian coast north of Maine, goes up the St. Lawrence River in the late 1500s. And he meets these, he meets these people called the Staticonans. They're like a St. Lawrence, Iroquois, Urquois. And he's like, he's got this passage in his journal where he's like,

Here's what's up with their religion. You're like, man, I just don't think they would describe their religion that way. That's funny. He's like, they think this, this, and this. And that's it. You know, it'd be like if someone, it'd be like, it's as bad as someone said, hey, I went, you know, I went to America. There's Christians.

They think that when God gets mad, he floods their planet. that's about you know that's about the main bit that's it he's like so there's that explained yeah there's a there's a story in in that book that Josh did that really you know puts it in perspective what the ocean meant to us and and means to us today but Captain Mears when he was you know doing his exploring and trading came into our area and, you know, met with, you know, our head chief, I guess, and to get safe passage through that area. Okay.

Because he was, he was meeting with other tribes coming down Vancouver Island from the north to the south. And they're like, you're going to be entering Macaugh waters. And, you know, they're, you want to make sure you get their permission. So he had a meeting and was trying to get, get permission and, you know, trading some things to. You know, there's like an exchange of, exchange of goods there to get that safe passage. Well, he tried to lowball us, right?

He didn't want to pay what he paid other tribes. Oh, okay. For safe passage. And we knew it. And so we didn't let him pass. And he was looking for furs. You know, that was part of us. He's trying to gather up furs in the northwest.

And so, you know, our, our people, stayed out in their canoes and basically kept his ship from transiting the Strait of Wandafuka entering the Strait of Wandafuka for several weeks. And why that was being done, we sent another contingency to go up the Strait of Wanda Fuka and Puget Sound and buy up all the furs. And then we let him pass. And the price went up when he had to come back and deal with us, right? So there's another, I don't know why Cardier is on my mind, but there's nothing like that with this Cardier dude is he gets to the mouth of St. Lawrence

and he builds this giant cross. And they write like God save the king or something on there. And they pray there and the local, the local Indians come up and they're like, it's going out with the cross, you know, and he explains to him like, everything you see, everything you see is our land. And he punts on it,

He tells them, no, this is just showing people where to cut in. It's a navigational marker. And that's how he explains in his journal. He's like, no, no, you got me all wrong. It just shows you where to turn left. Because he didn't want to get into it with them. Well, man, I appreciate you guys coming on. It means a lot that you'd come out and talk about all this.

Yeah, we're happy to get that education out there. You know, we, we have a part of our culture and part of who we are is we're not able to realize that right now. Yeah. And, you know, there's, we want to be whole, you know. Understood. We want to carry on what we ask for in our treaty. Yeah. Yeah.

And it's important. No. It changes, whaling changes lives in our community for the better. It makes our community better. I can tell it's true. I can tell it's true. Well, the guys, thank you all for doing this. Appreciate it.

And thank you for the gift. Yeah. You bet. These guys brought me some sockeye salmon, jarred up. It's beautiful. Macaw gold. Macaw gold. You don't have to share.

You know, I'm glad you brought that up because I might have felt conflicted later. I might have wanted to slip, fill a innate jar here, man. But I don't know. Thanks a lot. Not doing it. All right. Thanks, guys. Thank you.

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