Ep. 596: An Alaska Native on Hunting Sea Otters and Honoring Her Culture

Steven Rinella talks with Heather Douville and Seth Morris.

Topics discussed: How to pronounce Tlingit; setting halibut hooks in competitive pairs of two; drying fish over spruce sticks; putting good energy into what you’re doing; “do the best you can, your friend is coming to fight you”; salmon as a part of a way of life; only take what you need even if the law says you can take more; wearing seal; the sea otter fur trade; Heather’s small business, Coastal Fur and Leather; how sea otters eat 25% of their body weight in seafood a day; how there’s more hair on one square inch of a sea otter than there is on an entire German shepherd; soft gold; shooting off hand out of the boat; supporting the cause; restrictions under the Marine Mammal Protection Act; how kids are sacred; get Heather's handmade fur items here; and more.

Outro song: "The World To Me" by Jared Hicks 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:08):
If this is the Meat Eater Podcast coming at you, shirtless, severely,
bug bitten, and in my case, underwear listeningcast, you can't
predict anything. The Meat Eater Podcast is brought to you
by First Light. Whether you're checking trail cams, hanging deer stands,
or scouting for ELK. First Light has performance apparel to

(00:28):
support every hunter in every environment. Check it out at
first light dot com. F I R S T L
I T E dot com. Okay, join today by Heather
du Ville Holy col Thanks for coming over.

Speaker 2 (00:42):
Thank you, happy to be here, beautiful.

Speaker 1 (00:47):
You live in Craig, Alaska.

Speaker 2 (00:48):
I do. I'm born and raising Craig, born and.

Speaker 1 (00:51):
Raising Craig on the outside. But we what we here
at the inside of the island called the outside of
the island. Wait say it again, we call that the outside.

Speaker 2 (01:01):
Of the Prince Wales Island.

Speaker 1 (01:03):
Yeah, like the west side of the island, the outside
of the island. Yeah, okay, And you were born and
raised there, and uh, I gotta plug something and then
I'm then I'm gonna ask you a bunch of questions.
But I'm gonna plug it by asking you a question. Okay,
we're launching a new thing called me Eater Radio Live,
and it's gonna be a show where we get it's

(01:25):
it's live now, Media to live. Media Radio Live is
live now and it's a show where we get call
and reports from people from around the country about what's
going on. And you need to I'm gonna pitch you
on being a correspondent.

Speaker 2 (01:36):
Oh I love it.

Speaker 1 (01:37):
Where you'll call in. We'll be like, what the hell
are you doing right now?

Speaker 2 (01:41):
Oh that would be amazing.

Speaker 1 (01:43):
Please, Yeah, you'll be our You'll be our correspondent from
the outside of Prince Wales's Islands. So folks can check
out me Eat a Radio Live. It goes live. It's
live on Thursdays and then lives everywhere you get your
podcast lives on YouTube. So you we will meet you
now in great detail and then we will check in
with you on that. If this is cool with.

Speaker 2 (02:03):
You, oh I love it, Thank you, and yeah, I'm
honored to be here.

Speaker 1 (02:06):
Okay, let's start with this. Your cling it, I'm explain
that to me. Explain that to me like I'm five
years old.

Speaker 2 (02:15):
Okay. So it's pronounced like cling it thhl sling it,
cling it, but a lot of people say clink it
because you know, when settlers came, it was easier for
them to say that, but my great grandma would say
sling it. So a lot of our traditional words and

(02:40):
traditional language is now difficult to pronounce for many folks.
But yeah, I'm clinkt. My ancestry is from here. These
are our traditional homelands. My great grandma came from a
goon where's that. It's in a little village north of

(03:03):
here in southeast Alaska, but traveled down here when the
cannery opened in Klook. Okay, Yeah, it was the first
cannery in Alaska.

Speaker 1 (03:14):
So that's what brought your mom to this island.

Speaker 2 (03:17):
My great grandma, great great to this island. Yeah, And
so then my grandma lived here, and my dad was
born in Craig and I was born and raised here too.
So yeah, these are our traditional homelands. And I'm really
honored to be able to carry out the traditions of

(03:37):
our people and practice our culture today still. And i
just feel like I'm standing on the shoulders of giants,
and I'm really proud to be here and be able
to share my culture with you.

Speaker 1 (03:53):
Yeah, that's the funny thing, because I'll catch like ill
now and then get the feeling all like, man, we've
been coming here for seventeen years. Don't tell me about dad.
I've been fishing here for seventeen years. I can't even like.
That's the thing it is hard to imagine, is for me,

(04:16):
is it's hard to picture being in a place where
it's not that your grandparents came there, your grand great
grandparents came there from some foreign land. But it's hard
to picture what it would feel like to be in

(04:36):
a place where your people have been there for thousands
of years, right because in my culture, like in my experience,
it's so uprooted, you know. I know, some people came

(04:58):
from Italy in the early nineteen hundreds and I don't know,
like at this point, we don't even know where the
hell they came from, you know. I mean it's like
it's so like for us to get a sense of
having been here, you know, like sixteen years feels like
a good run, you know, And I can't That's what
It's got to be amazing to have that, probably, I'm sure,

(05:21):
I mean you can tell me, but I'm sure it's
painful in some ways because change, But in some ways
it's gonna be disinvigorating. Yeah, to have that long of
a history.

Speaker 2 (05:30):
You're right, it's you know, and our history has been
passed down through storytelling. You know, we didn't have it documented.
There was no paper pens, people weren't writing it down.
So our culture has stayed alive for over ten thousand years,
and our cultural traditions that we practiced today are you know,

(05:54):
still a part of our lives today because of you know,
the people that came before us, and they had a
responsibility to carry that on and pass that down, and
a lot of that is done through storytelling. So my
great grandma would say, you know that her you know,

(06:15):
grandparents came from upriver, so like up the Yukon area
is right, and then made so they're inland clinkets and
then made their way down to Angoon. And Yeah, despite
all of the attempts for Indigenous people to not be

(06:36):
here anymore, we are still very much here in practicing
our culture and carrying that on. And I feel like
I have a responsibility to pass that on to the
next generation, you know, to honor the people that came
before me. And that's just a part of who we are.
And you're right, sometimes it is pain focused. So much
has been lost, you know, through colonization, and what we

(07:01):
can just really do today is really practice it and
revitalize it and honor who we are and share it.
And I'm really glad to be here today and share
this with you, and me being able to tell my
story and share with you about my culture is part
of that storytelling and and I hope you know that

(07:21):
you go and share that with other people. And that's
just how it stays alive and has for ten thousand years.

Speaker 1 (07:28):
When I go to say the word like you're talking
about pronunciation, I'll hear people say, like people who not
familiar with the language. You know what, let me let
me do this before I say what I say. No,
I'll say what I was gonna say. Then I'm gonna
ask you another question. I hear cling it and cling
it right is one of those closer.

Speaker 2 (07:51):
No, it's cling it?

Speaker 1 (07:53):
Oh be your hat. That's like people aren't gonna fell
do that.

Speaker 2 (07:55):
Yeah. People say clink it, clink.

Speaker 1 (07:57):
It, yeah, And that sounds cool. That sounds close to
right for you, I'm saying for me.

Speaker 3 (08:04):
And when you hear people say that, are you just like.

Speaker 1 (08:07):
Take a stab you say it once? Clink it Okay,
it's good.

Speaker 2 (08:12):
I think it's clink Yeah.

Speaker 1 (08:14):
No, good, it's good. Do you do it once? Fling it,
cling it, fling it. It's like a like a th
h fling it. I can't. I'm not gonna run around.

Speaker 3 (08:24):
Clink and it's good.

Speaker 2 (08:26):
My dad would say, your great grandma would say it
like this, you do that. That's how he like that.

Speaker 1 (08:31):
Okay, what does your dad say?

Speaker 2 (08:33):
Same?

Speaker 1 (08:34):
Yeah, give me a since we haven't established how I
can say it. Yeah, you can cling it, cling it,
fling it can get trying to up? Uh? Is that
do you guys like from Okay, for me, like coming
from from my influences and stuff. We would look and

(08:56):
we'd be like, it's an Athabaskan culture. Is that like
a is that the thing you guys talk about? No,
like a family, a language family, like the Athabaskan language family.

Speaker 2 (09:09):
No, I don't think we look at it that way.
You always say like, this is how we were taught.
This is how my great grandma would say it, instead
of like categorizing us into a certain you know what
I mean language? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (09:23):
Yeah, And then you say a handful of things just.

Speaker 2 (09:29):
For different areas.

Speaker 1 (09:31):
Hit me with a handful of things just to get
a feel for the language.

Speaker 2 (09:34):
Sure, So like thank you in our language is goodness cheese,
And I don't know a lot, so I guess I
should start by saying, you know, like I'm learning, I'm
always going to be learning. A lot of our culture
and language is lost and I hope to be fluent

(09:55):
in my language one day. And so I'm a work
in progress and always will be. So you know, I
hope those who know more than me will forgive me
for if I don't do or say something right, but
know that I'm learning and trying my best. So yeah,

(10:16):
my dad, like when we're cutting fish, he'll say plita
height and that means give me the knife height, and
that's like, give me the knife if you mess up,
typically like your aunties or your grandma, I would say,
that's like no good Like.

Speaker 1 (10:37):
So that sounds that sounds like my kids.

Speaker 3 (10:42):
Humor, and they.

Speaker 2 (10:43):
Like, there's really one of our values. So I think clink.
If people are indigenous people just always incorporate humor into everything,
just a part of I think our healing too. But
my dad jokes or like I've heard people joke about, say, oh,
I thought my traditional name growing up was my traditional

(11:04):
name is Kutink. I'm named after my grandma's best friend.
Her English name is Irene Pradovitch from Klook. I don't
know what my name means, but that's my traditional name.
My clan is sean Quaiti, so it's a really old

(11:26):
clan and if you look at the clan lists of
clan names online, it's not even on there. It's so old.
This is my clan crest. It's tattooed on my hand.
This is permanent regalia. So after like missionaries came here,

(11:50):
the government made it illegal to have permanent regalia tattooed
on on you. Yeah, this is killer whale. So my
clan is Shuanquiti and I'm eagle killer Whale. So then
later you'll see a lot of like jewelry like this
with carved clan crests on them, which is also eagle.

(12:13):
Eagle wolf, killer whale. That's me. This evolved after that
government ban of permanent regalia because it could be removed
when it had to be removed in public.

Speaker 1 (12:30):
Oh you mean like when they banned tattooing, people just
used jewelry instead.

Speaker 2 (12:36):
Yeah, it was it was like a culture ban. You
couldn't practice peak language to have your regalia when.

Speaker 1 (12:44):
They put when they took kids and put them in
school and stuff too.

Speaker 2 (12:47):
My grandma went to boarding school and wrangel and.

Speaker 1 (12:49):
Survived, and they enforced that stuff, but she came back.

Speaker 2 (12:52):
And didn't speak her you know, our language again, so
it was lost. But luckily my dad remembered a lot
of it from his great or from his grandma, be
my great grandma. Yeah, so this is permanent regalia, but
this is my clan crest, and then this is you know, bracelet,
So this is kind of how it evolved. But you

(13:14):
actually take your you follow your mother's lineage. So like
western cultures, you'd take your dad's last name. In our culture,
you follow your mother's lineage. So I would have my
mom's clan crest and my dad would be my opposite.
So a lot of what we do is really try
to achieve balance, whether that's like out you know, we'll

(13:39):
talk about sea otters later and like it's off balance
right now with the population and the shellfish and and so,
like there's two clan crests in our culture, it's ego
and raven and their opposites. So Ego and Ravens can
marry each other and you'll follow your mother's lineage. But

(14:01):
that opposite clan crest coming together like brings balance. Oh really, yeah,
so we treat our opposites really we treat try to
treat everyone really well, especially elders, but we always take
really good care of our opposites. So if Ravens asked
me to do something, I always do it for them,
and it helps keep me grounded and balanced in my

(14:23):
own way.

Speaker 1 (14:25):
Explain your other tattoo on the other hand.

Speaker 2 (14:27):
Yeah, so this, this other one is a wood hook
and in sling it it's called a nah and it's
a sea monster. And this is.

Speaker 1 (14:41):
Can you get one out?

Speaker 3 (14:42):
Said?

Speaker 2 (14:42):
Yeah, this is the only wood hook that we've retired,
and my dad and I loved it so much. It's
caught hundreds of hal of it. So a little over
a year ago we decided to get them tattooed on
our hands.

Speaker 1 (14:55):
And you're holding the actual object.

Speaker 2 (14:57):
Now, yeah, this is this is because.

Speaker 1 (14:59):
People there for sure, this is.

Speaker 2 (15:01):
The enough that we retired. So it's here and you
can see.

Speaker 1 (15:08):
Explain everything about how it's made and how it's set
and how you yeah you bet, and how you encourage it.

Speaker 2 (15:14):
So this this one is it was made in nineteen
ninety six. It's caught hundreds of hell but you can
see the teethmarks here, and each one has eyes so
it can see what it's catching. And this one's a
sea monster, and I brought thirty year old sea monster

(15:37):
and then a new one that hasn't been fished yet,
so you can see the color differences in the wood.
And I also brought an eagle. But this is you
would and this part is yellow cedar, and this is
a post contact hook. So you can see there's some
modern materials incorporated in to this. But traditionally this barb

(16:01):
would be made from a bare bone, like.

Speaker 1 (16:04):
A sliver of shinbone.

Speaker 2 (16:05):
Or something, yeah, like a leg bone. Yeah. And then
to secure that barb, and to also secure the two
pieces of wood together, we would use spruce root. And
then this part here, the line would be made from

(16:26):
cedar bark cordage. And so these are set in pairs
so they can compete against each other underwater. And they're
set on like a long line, like a skate type
of line, and they're set in pairs of two. And

(16:49):
the sinkers we use as a rock with the groove
carved in it and those yeah, yeah, And then traditionally
the float on top of the water would be a
inflated seal stomach that's dried. And then you have a
tattletale booie, which is about you know, this long and

(17:12):
usually they're in the shape of a corner app bird
and so it got a long neck, you know, a
beak and face and then a larger rounded body and
so when you had a halbit, it would tip up.
So I think these would be set and then the
people would go to the beach and like build a
fire and wait.

Speaker 1 (17:32):
If you got it.

Speaker 2 (17:35):
So these are baited with octopus, and you take an
octopus and you kind of shave the tentacles off in
a long strip, so it looks like a lot of bait,
but it's really thin and it stays light because you
don't want to put too heavy have a bait on
here because it'll affect the way these float. And you'd

(17:56):
wrap the octopus tentacles around this part and you tie
it with this string.

Speaker 1 (18:02):
Oh, you secure it on it with.

Speaker 2 (18:04):
Strings and it kind of disguises this a little bit,
but you bait the whole yellow cedar part and then
you lower them down. When you get to where you're
gonna fish, you lower them down, and you have your
rock that goes first, and then about one or two

(18:24):
fathoms six to twelve feet, you'd have your first hook,
and it floats like this far off the bottom.

Speaker 1 (18:33):
And what would be a deep set for you guys, A.

Speaker 2 (18:39):
Deep set, I mean they can go like forty fathoms,
you know, or you know we've caught fishing forty feet
of water or less thirty feet and this yellow theater

(19:00):
part will float level. So you don't want it to
float like this or like this, So the two different
wood woods help it float properly. And then the way
you bait them, so then you set.

Speaker 1 (19:13):
So those have like a real like uh. You have
to be very careful about the size and relative amount
of each kind of wood because I can't picture ever
getting that thing to float how you'd want it to.

Speaker 2 (19:25):
Yeah, the shape, and then my dad measures the distance
by going like this, so it's like the width of
your hand.

Speaker 1 (19:35):
Got it.

Speaker 2 (19:37):
So you had your sinker, your first hook, and then
you have about two more fathoms your second hook, your
second rock sinker, and then your line up to your
float so it's not a big you know, it's not
a long set. And then when you set them, you
kind of like you said, you knock and hit the

(19:57):
rock on the ground and make sure you wake up
the albit. And then when palbot go to eat, they
they can't see very good because they have you know,
eyes on the top of their head. So they go
up to whatever they're eating and they open their mouth
and it creates a vacuum and it'll suck this in
and then if they don't like it, they'll spit it
out and it ejects that barb into their cheek and

(20:20):
they can't get off here. You can't release halbit off
of here either.

Speaker 1 (20:25):
There.

Speaker 2 (20:26):
Yeah, so sometimes you catch a really big one, you
might not want to normally keep one that size, but
these are not for catch and release. But the good
thing is you're setting two hooks, so you know you
can't catch more than two fish, and you don't want
to over harvest. You want to make sure, you know,
like we maintain that balance and don't take more than

(20:46):
what we need.

Speaker 3 (20:48):
What's your ideal size?

Speaker 2 (20:52):
I think anywhere, like you know, like eighty pounds would
be good, or fifty to eighty pounds because we like
to have them filets like this long, because we take
the filet and like leave the skin on the back
of it and then cut like this long strips of

(21:13):
about a quarter inch thick halibit and then dry it
dried fish. We also lightly smoke it in the smokehouse
and then dry it. So typically we fish for halibit
to make dried fish.

Speaker 1 (21:28):
And you brind that dry fish, just put it in
there fresh.

Speaker 2 (21:31):
We brind salmon, but we don't brind halbit. You just
sprinkle a little salt on it and dry. We smoke
it in the smokehouse and dry it in a dry shed.

Speaker 1 (21:43):
I say, when you use dry, you don't mean like
you don't dry it out with fire. You just dry
it out.

Speaker 2 (21:48):
Yeah, right, Yeah, we don't use a dehydrator, just we
use spruce sticks and hang it over the spruce sticks.
They can hold a lot of weight.

Speaker 1 (21:58):
And how do you can control is there a time
of year, like how do you control flies and stuff
when you do that? Or just that salt repels them.

Speaker 2 (22:05):
Yes, we have a fan on them. Yeah, we keep
fan blowing on them. We have a little homemade drying
shed out of wood. And the drying time really does
depend on the time of year, the climate. You know,
if it's hot out, it's going to take less time
to dry, and if it's cold and winter time, you know,
it'll take a little bit longer.

Speaker 1 (22:26):
What's the word you were saying that when you send
a hook down, they're down there to compete. But there's
a word you use to that you basically like to
a last word of encouragement.

Speaker 2 (22:38):
Yeah, so you try to put good energy into what
you're doing and and everything that you do. And so
when we set these, we give them encouraging words and
we you could say jindagot, which is like charge or
like fight, you know, or there's a little bit of

(23:01):
a longer saying too, where it's like do the best
you can. Your friend is coming to fight you, and
you lower them and say that, and then let's see
it's ikan way day agenda. Good ea cow. That's like,
do the best you can, your friend is coming to

(23:21):
fight you. And you're kind of telling both man the
hall of it, like we're coming to compete, So they
compete against each other. It's kind of fun, especially for
my niece and nephew to pick out which ones are
going to be set together.

Speaker 3 (23:36):
And and you said, the eyes are.

Speaker 2 (23:42):
These sea monster hooks have abalony eyes. So and this
is an eagle, you know, it doesn't have abalony eyes,
but it does have eyes so they can see what
they're catching. And you can see all the teethmarks in
that hundreds of fish.

Speaker 3 (23:59):
Yeah, it's cool.

Speaker 1 (24:00):
Oh you mentioned that you mentioned that you dry like
you get hal of it to dry. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (24:07):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (24:09):
Do you would you ever to take a piece of
halbit and fry it up or bake it or grill it?

Speaker 2 (24:16):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (24:17):
Okay, yeah, we do. It's Is that not a favorite fish?

Speaker 2 (24:21):
Yeah? It's so funny because we hear hall of it. Oh,
but we we prefer to dry it and then eat
other fish that you described your favorite fish, king salmon?

Speaker 1 (24:33):
Okay, where do you put cod? We've been catching a
lot of cod. I love them. Cod is great, great,
like gray cod or specific cod.

Speaker 2 (24:41):
Honestly, I don't think I've ever had that.

Speaker 1 (24:44):
Okay, yeah, but you like lin cod?

Speaker 2 (24:46):
My dad says it's pretty good. Yeah, yeah, specific cod,
but it.

Speaker 1 (24:50):
Wasn't morning time. I'd fry alaham.

Speaker 2 (24:54):
Sandwich. So yeah, prefer king salmon.

Speaker 1 (24:58):
You like king salmon? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (25:00):
What?

Speaker 1 (25:01):
Uh? I know the State of Alaska's are. You know,
they're kind of duking this issue out. But what would
it mean if king salmon were listed as under the
Endangered Species Act? Would you guys have an exemption? Would
would Native Alaskans have some kind of exemption to the closures.

Speaker 2 (25:24):
It doesn't sound like it, no, but it doesn't There
be an exemption for native not the way that I've
not from what I've learned, But yeah, it would be devastating.

Speaker 1 (25:35):
That would be a real life. So if that's your
favorite fish and your father doesn't your father your father
is a king sam a fisherman, is he doesn't he patrol? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (25:42):
And my brother they're commercial trollers. But you know trolling
is one of the oldest fisheries. Yeah, sustainable hook and line.

Speaker 1 (25:53):
Very very selective.

Speaker 2 (25:55):
Yeah, And you know, we've been here for thousands of
years and salmon has always been a part of our
way of life, which is hakku stay. It means you're
our way of life. And I can't even imagine a

(26:16):
life without being able to put up our traditional foods.
And you think about subsistence use, which I try not
to use that word because we try to say traditional harvest. Yeah,
to me, subsistence implies like that you're scraping by.

Speaker 1 (26:34):
Or you know, well, it's also like a it's also
it's also a management term. Right in Alaska. It's like
you don't realize, but in Alaska there's like a there's
like subsistence regulations. Right. You don't see like a traditional use.

Speaker 2 (26:48):
Regulation, right, And if you look up the word subsistence,
it really doesn't encompass who we are and what we do.
But traditional harvest or subsistence, if you will, is the
least takes the least amount from a resource. Resources also
a management term, because we believe we're steward. You know,

(27:09):
we're stewards of this land. So resource to me implies
that you're taking from something. But when you live here,
you try to live, you know, and be a good steward.
So if you take your you give back, or you
don't take more than what you need. And you need

(27:30):
fish to get fish, so you're not gonna go to
a river and just because you have a limit to
take and you see it's depressed, you don't fish. So
you might get five deer tags, but your household of one.
You might take one deer and then get one for
an elder. But you just don't take the maximum because

(27:53):
the law says you can no. And it's just about
taking what you need and then using what you take
for you know, to sustain you for that year, and
then you go harvest the next year, or if you
have some leftover from the year before, you don't need

(28:15):
to harvest that much the next season. So yeah, making
sure you respect yourself. It's called kaya ane, which is
like having respect for yourself and all things. So if
you have that self respect to do those things, like,

(28:36):
you'll have respect for other people and land, air, water
and all all the things that live around you.

Speaker 1 (28:44):
Uh, your father and your brother are trollers, king salmon trollers.
What is there? What is the time of year that
they are actively fishing? And why didn't you go into
that line of work?

Speaker 2 (28:59):
Yeah, so the king Salmon troll opening is on July
first every year. And I'm sure you've heard, like because
of the essays and just there's been a lot of
pressure surrounding king salmon and commercial fishing. And but over

(29:21):
the years I've heard my dad talk about how like
you know, it's become less and less and like obviously
more people moved to Alaska. There's a sport fishing industry.
There's commercial fishing and more people here, and everyone's taking
a piece of the pie. Well the pie isn't getting bigger,

(29:43):
you know, it's getting smaller. So the reason why I
didn't go into that line of work, I think is
just because my brother and I are a year and
a half apart. He's a year and a half older,
so he was always going with my dad and crewing
for him. Yeah, and my dad is always like, you

(30:06):
need to go to school, you need to go get
your education. Which I did go for two years when
I came back, and he after I moved back, he said,
you know you need to go. You need to go
get finished and get your degree. And finally I looked
at him and I said, I am, I am in school.

(30:26):
You know, we're out in the boat and I'm learning
how to do all these things. And I said, I am,
I'm into school. I want to be in and he
he got it.

Speaker 1 (30:37):
He quit beating you up.

Speaker 2 (30:38):
And ever since then and before then, I've just been
trying to learn everything I can from him. And these
are the things that I really want to learn and
practice so I can pass them on, and that this
is something I can't learn in school. I'm not against school.

Speaker 1 (30:57):
But where did you Where did you try to go
when you went?

Speaker 2 (31:00):
I went actually went to Santa Barbara City College. I
played basketball there.

Speaker 1 (31:05):
Did you play basketball growing up?

Speaker 3 (31:09):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (31:09):
I was telling the floatplane pilot who dropped me off here,
that's how nice. He's so nice. That's how we traveled
for all of our games floatplanes in Southeast with charter planes,
and and we would leave from Hollis often and oftentimes

(31:31):
and go fly and we'd stay the weekend in other
towns and we'd have to stay with the opponents families,
so like we'd go home and like sleep on their
bedroom floor after we played them. It'll be all mad
whoever won or lost, you know. But we made a

(31:52):
lot of great friends like that throughout Southeast.

Speaker 1 (31:54):
And so you went down, you went down to Santa
Barbara and you go to school.

Speaker 2 (31:58):
Yeah, yeah, it was good, and it was it's good
to to go and get that experience and you know
that perspective a different place, so busy.

Speaker 1 (32:08):
You enjoyed it?

Speaker 2 (32:10):
Oh yeah, for sure. I mean it's the sun and
sand and getting.

Speaker 1 (32:12):
All that oil on your feet at the beach. It's good.

Speaker 2 (32:16):
Oh yeah, I forgot about that I think it's important
to do that, and then you come back you really appreciate,
you know, mm hmm, what you have and and the
people in your life.

Speaker 1 (32:29):
So so what do you, uh, what do you call
your business and describe? I'm sure I know you do
handful of things, but your your business of fur products,
for sure.

Speaker 2 (32:43):
So I started this little business and the main goal
of that was to try to recoup the costs of hunting, processing,
and sewing sea otter for you know, I work some

(33:06):
I work with some seal skins because we do harvest
seals to eat. We make oil and eat seal meat,
but we only get about two a year, so I
mainly work with seotter for But I started the business
to try to sell items to recoup the costs of

(33:27):
for hunting. So in this region, you know, Southeast Alaska
spans a distance of thirteen states, so it's enormous. You know,
if you look at it on a map, doesn't look
that big, but it's it's a humongous region. And a
recent aerial survey show that there's like twenty two to

(33:48):
twenty five thousand sea otter in this region. And I'm
not sure, well, I guess I should ask, do you
want the lengthy answer to that question?

Speaker 1 (34:01):
Yeah, okay, I want the big, lengthy answer, and I
want you to explain who can hunt seatters and who can't.

Speaker 2 (34:07):
I'll cover it all. So now today there's like twenty
five thousand seatter in the region. Historically, you know, there
was the commercial fur trade. You know, for about one
hundred and fifty years, Russians enslaved Alaska natives hunt and

(34:32):
they would sell the first commercially, primarily to China. So
for about one hundred and fifty years there was a
commercial fur trade in Alaska and over a million sea
otters were taken. And then in nineteen eleven there was
a Seal Furst Seal Treaty signed, which put a stop

(34:54):
to that commercial fur trade, which also put a halt
to the harvest of sea otters. They're almost extinct, so
there's zero seaatters left in southeast Alaska, or nearly zero.
And then so that was in nineteen eleven, and then
there was am Chica Island in the Lutians is the

(35:18):
largest nuclear test site in the US, and so they
were planning the government was planning to have some nuclear
tests in the late sixties nineteen sixties at m Chicut,
and they were concerned about how that would affect the

(35:38):
sea otter population. So in the late sixties they actually
captured four hundred around four hundred sea otters and put
them in these metal canals with water in them, and

(36:00):
flew them to southeast Alaska and relocated about four hundred
of them to seven different areas.

Speaker 1 (36:07):
Oh so it was like a reintroduction. I didn't know that.

Speaker 2 (36:10):
Yeah, So I believe one of the areas is now
it's called Seatter Sound, you know, Prince Wales. So so
they were reintroduced here in the late sixties. And then
there was that massive nuclear test in nineteen seventy one
in m Chitcot. It was like hundreds of times larger

(36:34):
than the bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima, and it
was like a mile down underground and it created such
a huge explosion that it actually wiped out I think
over nine hundred seatters, so a lot more than they
thought would die. Now I'm going off on a tandy here,

(36:59):
but that's why green Peace was formed. There was a
group of people from Canada nineteen seventy one who are
protesting that nuclear test in the name of the boat
that they tried to travel to protest. That test was
called green peace, and so they tried to make it
all the way uptown Chitka to stop the bomb.

Speaker 1 (37:22):
Was the genesis of green Peace.

Speaker 2 (37:26):
So then the Marine Mammal Protection Act was put in place,
I believe in nineteen seventy two, which part of that
the Marine Mammal Protection Act states that you must be
a certain blood quantum of coastal and Alaska native blood

(37:48):
quantum it's twenty five percent in order to hunt the otter.
And today you know, there aren't that many people who
are qualified to hunt through the eligibility rules of the
Marine Mammal Protection Yeah, do.

Speaker 1 (38:08):
You have any idea how many, like just to take
on Prince Wales Island, Do you have any idea how
many how many people are twenty five percent costal Native?

Speaker 2 (38:17):
I don't know how many meet the eligibility, but I
do know like it's illegal for me to teach my
niece and nephew how to work with furs. They can't
make seal oil, they can't cook the meat, they cannot
help skin one. So there's it's like criminalizing our cultural

(38:43):
passed down Hakustai, our way of life because we want
to be able to you know, our culture has survived
this long despite all the attempts to make it not survive,
and it really deserves to be passed down for that
much longer. And I don't know how many people qualify,

(39:03):
but I do know. I don't know, but I do
know there's only about thirty five hunters in the region.
So there's very little incentive to hunt because another part
of the Marine Mammal Protection Acts states that you must
convert the pelts into a sellable item to try to

(39:28):
recoup the costs of the cell it. You have to
significantly alter the pelts so you can't make them whole again,
So you cannot sell whole pelts.

Speaker 1 (39:39):
I you can't just shoot a sea otter, flash it,
stretch it, dry it, and send it to a.

Speaker 2 (39:45):
Firm market right, or send it off to get it
tanned and then sell a whole tanned pelt. I brought
some pelts to show you too. But so by the
time you know how to hunt and then go harvest
sea otter skin, flesh, salt, get it tanned, get it home,

(40:10):
learn how to sew, or have had somebody teach you
how convert the you know, cut it so it make
your pattern, get it right, and then have it the
quality that somebody wants to buy and then market those items.
It really I don't think you're ever going to make
your money back. But so a long answer to your

(40:31):
question is, I started this business. It's called Coastal Fur
and Leather, and it's just to sell the items that
I make to try to recoup some of those costs.
Because there's so many seaotter in this region now and
so few hunters that are traditional food security is at risk.

(40:53):
So you know, for ten thousand years we've harvested shellfish
from our intertitle zones here, which are now there's so
many sea otter in the area and they eat twenty
five percent of their body weight in shell fish a day.
So the average sea otter, let's say it weighs, you know,

(41:15):
seventy eighty pounds, could be eating anywhere from fifteen to
twenty pounds of seafood a day every day.

Speaker 1 (41:25):
And can you pull out with that big ass hide
just to show for sure? I was when you pulled
that out earlier, I was quite surprised.

Speaker 2 (41:33):
Oh for sure, Yeah, so they do.

Speaker 1 (41:36):
That one of those could get that big, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (41:39):
They get up to one hundred pounds.

Speaker 3 (41:43):
I had a couple of years ago salt like thirty
of them altogether, and like, I didn't know that they
ate that much. Yeah, just thinking about like how much
seafood that thirty of those things can eating in the day.
It's crazy. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (41:58):
So in where we used to harvest sea urchins and avaloni,
last year we were able to get a few, well
about ten seotter moved in there and there's none left.
So just ten otter in a small area can really
do some damage and then you know, it takes years,
fifty years before it'll recover, you know. But here's here's

(42:23):
the pelt man.

Speaker 1 (42:24):
Look at it.

Speaker 2 (42:25):
Think it's like a bear's I measure it's fifty eight
inches long.

Speaker 1 (42:33):
Tell folks about some of the qualities of the hair.

Speaker 2 (42:36):
Oh yeah, so they do have guard hair, but it's
not like you know, like a beaver, where it's like
long hairs. They're really close. The guard hair is really
close and linked to their undercoat, and they have about
a million hairs per square inch. So there's more hair

(42:57):
in one square inch of a sea otter than there
is on an entire German shepherd. Just to kind of
put in for the perspective, and seattter don't have a
fat layer like seals, so they actually have a really
high metabolism that they rely on, you know, for warmth.
And then also this undercoat it stays dry, and they're

(43:21):
always grooming themselves to make sure they're fur is staying
the way it needs to be to be able to
trap that air and and keep them warm. So their
guard hair gets wet, but this underlayer stays dry, and
you know, unless they're diving down and then the pressure
will push you know, water back into there and so
they'll they'll come up and you'll see them grooming a lot.

(43:44):
So they do have really unique fur. I learned that
in the fur trade era it was referred to as
soft gold. And yeah, they have different so they have
different like textures and colors, so each one is very unique.

(44:10):
And you know, I brought a couple here and you
can see, like this one's curly, you can actually see that.
But they are incredibly soft and just.

Speaker 1 (44:28):
Wild.

Speaker 3 (44:29):
You were saying these things.

Speaker 2 (44:33):
Three feet Yeah, so they can dive up to three
hundred feet, but I think they they don't prefer to
do that. So you'll find them in a lot in
the shallow intertidal areas where we're also trying to harvest
shellfish from those areas. You know, they're hanging out there
because it's easier to dive, food's more accessible, it's easier
to get. And yeah, you may see a raft of

(44:57):
thirty or three hundred a lot of times in males.
Bigger males will be like loaners. You see singles kind
of floating here and there. Typically those tend to be
like a male, big male. But I learned that hunters
have the ability to collect the most data on these

(45:21):
because we're the ones, you know, skinning them. And yep,
I think a lot of biologists they can't harvest, so
they can observe to collect data. So I really I
was worried about traditional food security and started to up
my game as far as hunting goes. So my dad
and I we hunted like over one hundred and seventy

(45:45):
this winter, which is.

Speaker 3 (45:48):
A lot of and there's no yeah, there's no limit
for you guys.

Speaker 2 (45:52):
Right right and at the rest that's the hell.

Speaker 1 (45:54):
But you got so when you send one hundred and
seventy in to start making all your hats and other products, Yeah,
they're about Well, we talked on the phone one time
you mentioned what A what.

Speaker 2 (46:03):
A There are one hundred dollars each to tan.

Speaker 1 (46:06):
Yes, you got a big out of pocket expenditure. And
normal normal like fur trap or whatever. It's like. You
get it, you put it up, it's out the door.
You don't need to invest more money, right, yeah, into
like tanning it, you.

Speaker 2 (46:21):
Know, gratefully. Like I know how to sew, so my
auntie taught me how to make moccasins when I was twelve,
But I actually learned to sew with leather when my
parents had regalia made for me when I was in
second grade. They had a deer skin dress made for
me and I took the scraps and I made matching
regalia for my barbie. And that's what was my first

(46:46):
experience working with leather, and I always liked it. And
then I learned how to make moains when I was twelve.
But you know, the items I sell, they they are
like higher price, but they actually don't sell for as
much as what they would be appraised for because of
the value is a lot higher than what the items

(47:10):
sell for, but they last forever. So my mockasins that
I made when I was twelve. They stretched as my
foot grew and they just wore through. So they lasted
almost twenty five years.

Speaker 1 (47:22):
Wow, yeah, I'm doing the math.

Speaker 2 (47:26):
Well, I'm thirty eight. They were out last year and
I have avoided making myself a new pair until this year.
I wore them with a big hole in them. So yeah,
So it was about eighteen thousand to tan those pelts.
Plus it's to send out thirty to thirty five salted

(47:49):
dried pelts. It's about six hundred dollars in shipping one way,
and that's about half that to ship them back.

Speaker 1 (47:57):
What I thought was funny is like we send stuff
off every year just to do things, you know, product
we just have stuff made, like yeah, it'sat that like
big beaver blankets, you know, but we use that oil.

Speaker 2 (48:10):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (48:10):
And when I asked you where you sent them to
and you said oil, I thought that was fine.

Speaker 2 (48:14):
Yeah, I was telling you. So you get a discount
if you sell or if you send like a certain amount.
So I think it's twenty one pelts too. You know,
I'm gonna get this wrong, but there's like a range
where it's.

Speaker 1 (48:32):
It's like zero to ten, ten to twenty twenty or whatever.

Speaker 2 (48:35):
There's also a break if you send like over a hundred,
so I try to send a whole lot and you
get a little bit of a price break, which if
you're sending that many, it's definitely worth it.

Speaker 3 (48:47):
It makes a difference.

Speaker 2 (48:48):
And there's not not every tannery can tan Marine Mammal
for so, there's only about five tanneries on the list
right now that can tan sea otters. Oil Mink is
one of them, and they do a tremendous job. You know,
if you look at the back.

Speaker 1 (49:06):
It's a classy outfit man there, but just just like
interacting with it online and stuff, it's a classy outfit.
And the customer service is good.

Speaker 2 (49:15):
Yeah, I mean they actually don't do online for sea otters,
but they are great. And you know, you put so
much into these, Like when I send them off and
I'm like, oh gosh, you know, please make it down
there and please let them come back to.

Speaker 1 (49:34):
You. Alos want to fly them down yourself.

Speaker 2 (49:37):
When they come back. They're beautiful, like this is nice
cream colored, it's really soft. You know, see ours smell
really bad, So you want to make sure sending them
to a good tanner so they don't come back stinky.
I've seen some got where they come back and they smell, So.

Speaker 1 (49:58):
I need to see that curly one again.

Speaker 2 (50:00):
Yeah, this, this one's pretty unique. And I actually got
like five out of the batch that we're curly, which
you don't really find that often.

Speaker 1 (50:09):
Then, how much time are you spending? Like, how are
you when are you doing your sewing? That is wild man?

Speaker 2 (50:16):
Yeah, So it's typically a winter activity, you know, where
the day light hours are shorter and our heart our
food harvest seasons over. So after I get my deer,
you know, in the fall, I start sewing and hunting

(50:37):
because you're trying to replenish your materials for next, you know,
the next sewing season. But I hunt, you know, to
preserve you know, our traditional foods security and also to
be able to continue to practice my culture and pass
that down.

Speaker 3 (50:56):
How do you go about hunting these?

Speaker 1 (50:58):
Yeah, there's your strategy.

Speaker 2 (51:00):
I was thinking about this, so I was thinking about
showing you this, but it looks so funny because I
went insided in my my gun a couple of days ago.
I was practicing my boat stance for hunting sarter and
shooting at the gong to make sure I would be

(51:21):
able to get one. So it's a lot easier if
you have a driver. The driver has to be eligible
to hunt.

Speaker 1 (51:31):
They do so quantum.

Speaker 2 (51:36):
Yeah, so my dad and I usually go together, but
I have gone alone. It's definitely a lot harder. So
when you get one, you're like woo, you know, like
I did good. But so you typically shoot from the boat.
Sometimes you can get off on a rock, but it's
really not common because they're smart and they adapt. So

(52:01):
sea otters that have been hunted before they know what's
going on and they get out of there real fast.
So if you're cruising by, you know, if you're going
sport fishing or just cruising on step on your boat,
they'll just look. But if you slow down, they know,
especially the one you know, the ones that have been

(52:21):
hunted before. You can tell when one hasn't.

Speaker 1 (52:23):
We hunt an animal? Uh? You probably for prong horn
or antelope? Right, And it's funny, man, you could like
cars could drive by a sixty miles an hour all day.
Someone just slowed down there. They know what's up.

Speaker 2 (52:37):
It's totally different. Yeah, my dad's like, we need to
get a recording of a boat going you know on
step and play it as you're idling up. But okay,
so you I was shooting with up until Christmas. My

(52:59):
dad got me an ar for Christmas, but until then
I had a pre sixty four twenty two hornet is
re chambered to a two twenty two. It's real heavy. Yeah,
has like a one and a half pound trigger pull.
So you know you think about shooting and it's going
to shoot because.

Speaker 1 (53:17):
You got it. You're shutting off the rail of the boat,
which is not stable.

Speaker 2 (53:20):
Well no, not the rail, yeah, just off hand.

Speaker 1 (53:25):
Oh so you're in the boat off hand, Yeah, because.

Speaker 2 (53:28):
You don't want to rest on the boat because the
boat's moving. So the stance is that.

Speaker 1 (53:34):
See how that's that's good. No, I mean I'm not
going to put put it to use, but I would
have pictured like shooting off a boat. I would have
pictured you would use the rail and somehow like touch
the trigger at that's not what you're doing, well.

Speaker 2 (53:47):
Not off a rest, but you do time it so
your driver or you if you're driving, you want to
go around the seatters, so where you're lined up to
go with the chop, not against it. So you want
to kind of make sure you know where the CHOP's
going and get on that side. And then you're going

(54:12):
with the chops with less less bouncy, and then you
stand up and you bend your knees. Stand okay, this
bench just kind of so you stand up and you
bend your knees and you kind of get on your
tippy toes, and then you're going to aim, you know, offhand.
So when yeah, you can't see me, but then when

(54:35):
you're going with the chop and they're moving and your
moverybody's moving, yeah, they're moving, well, they're trying to get away,
and they're moving in the swell you're going with the
chop and idling, and so you want to be able
to like use your tippy toes and your knees to
balance you so you're kind of like right on them.

(54:58):
And then it's when you're cross here, cross their head that's.

Speaker 1 (55:02):
When you want to shoot. What distance are you normally
getting to them?

Speaker 2 (55:05):
You want to get as close as possible, but give
maybe fifty yards.

Speaker 3 (55:10):
So getting a deer to you is probably a cake walk.

Speaker 1 (55:14):
The shot.

Speaker 3 (55:15):
The shot, yeah.

Speaker 2 (55:18):
I mean compared to this, if they're honestly hard to
get they are. Some days you you might get nine
and then some days you might get one. It just
depends on especially if you're out of practice, you know,
if you haven't shot while we'll see.

Speaker 1 (55:33):
What you're saying is another thing I hadn't thought, just
like I would have thought, you shoot off the rail. Okay, yeah,
like I didn't know that. But the other thing you're
saying that I hadn't thought about is you picture that
that that thing's riding a wave and you're riding a
different wave or different sequencing.

Speaker 2 (55:47):
And you're moving and there they might be moving this way,
but they might be in a pod like you mentioned.
Usually it's pods of over one hundred. You know, you
might shoot a single, but you're you're also looking because
we don't want to shoot any that have pups, so
and we shoot them in the head make sure they

(56:09):
don't suffer. So you're looking and you're going, okay, that's
a double, there's a single. Then you're selecting them where
I am. I don't shoot any with pups.

Speaker 1 (56:22):
And they're buoyant, like you hit them. You don't got
a hustle over.

Speaker 2 (56:27):
Yeah, so they they do float. And my dad got
me an ar for Christmas, so it's a it has
a bull barrel. It's heavy and what kind of r
it's a rock river, it's got a heavy barrel. It's
got a bull barrel, Sarah.

Speaker 1 (56:46):
Because the salt water. No, it's just a rusty mask.

Speaker 2 (56:50):
No, I mean it's new. But yeah, so because sometimes
you can get a second shot before they dive. Once
they start diving, they're getting out of there and they're
harder to get. So when you're going up to them
and they kind of go, is where you shoot and

(57:12):
you could get another shot off if you miss.

Speaker 1 (57:14):
So you wait that little moment when they check out
what's up.

Speaker 2 (57:17):
Yeah, they're like whoo. And then when they go down,
it's like, oh, now we've got to go try to
get them, go after them. So then you're you're playing
the game of where's it swimming? Which way is it going?
How far is it going? How long can it hold
its breadth?

Speaker 1 (57:35):
Oh?

Speaker 3 (57:36):
Oh, So you're trying to keep up with it. So
when it pops up, you're.

Speaker 2 (57:40):
Yeah, shooting. So you kind of want to get them
right when you get there. Yeah, So you gotta be
ready with the chop, ready, ready to aim, in your stance.

Speaker 1 (57:51):
Ready to go and do you So when you get one,
you go over and hauled up in the boat and
you skin on the boat or do you take them
all home.

Speaker 2 (58:01):
It depends when it's best to skin them on the
boat just easier. But you want to skin them right
away because of their fur density. Even when it's cold out,
you know, twenty degrees out, they will hold their body
heat so well that they'll get a green belly within

(58:23):
the night. Like if you were to leave them the
next day, they'll get spoiled. Yeah, so you want to
skin them right away. And then I actually put them
in the freezer and then wait till I get the
lot where I can get the tanning break, you know
cost break, and I'll flash like thirty at a time,
or I'm sorry, thirty in a day. So I might

(58:46):
flesh sixty in a weekend. But I use a pressure
washer to flesh them. It has a I know you
say to her against that, but.

Speaker 1 (58:55):
No, no, no, let me explain myself. I see you
have the perfect setup because like I've never done it
by you know, it's like a debate in the fur
handling thing, the pressure washer thing. And so a buddy
mine that puts up hundreds of beavers every year. I
called him and he brought up two details I hadn't
considered before, I said, I text him whatever the hell was?
I was like, what's up with the do you do

(59:16):
the pressure washer deal? And he raised two very good points.
He lives in northern Minnesota, so it's like oftentimes sub
zero okay, so you know you have a frozen mass.
And he also says, I don't like some quote like
I don't like blasting half of a beaver all over
my yard where you can go down to the.

Speaker 2 (59:36):
Tideline, right like right down here, you.

Speaker 1 (59:39):
Can go down to the tideline and just like we
have to just blast into the tideline and everything just
comes up and eats it and it washes out, and
it's like you don't have a like you're cleanup is
just you know, you don't have all that clean up. Yeah,
you're right, and I've seen you do it. It's a
clean job. Yeah, it's I mean like I mean the
finished product is, oh for sure.

Speaker 3 (01:00:00):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:00:01):
And I don't I'm not too aggressive because you know,
I don't want to blast holes in in this.

Speaker 1 (01:00:07):
But have you ever done one with a draw knife?

Speaker 3 (01:00:11):
No?

Speaker 1 (01:00:12):
Did your dad grew up doing them with a draw knife?

Speaker 2 (01:00:15):
Yeah? Or he no, we skin him real close, so
you wouldn't have to. Yeah, if you're doing if you're
trying to do this and recoup costs, you want to
be as efficient as possible, and that is the most
efficient way, because you're already putting so much time into
like converting these discellable items that it just doesn't make

(01:00:38):
sense to flesh, you know, over a hundred of them
by hand. My dad says that the pressure washer seems
like it works best for like heavier hides like seat
or seal, maybe bear, but he hasn't used it on
beaver pelts. He said, it's just as fast to do
a beaver by hand, then it would be got to

(01:00:59):
do it with a pressure washer, but we use an
oscillating nozzle and then have a I had a piece
of aluminum which worked great, but it blew into the
water when I was doing it or so I lost it.
So now I use plywood. Until like as big as
a sheet of plywood, but it blew away, crushed me.

Speaker 1 (01:01:22):
I gotta take you out to my drunk yard. I
gotta take you out to my drunk yard, which is
about ten feet that way. It's not that big, but
I got a hun here.

Speaker 2 (01:01:32):
I know, I'm like still like real hurt about my aluminum.

Speaker 1 (01:01:35):
Being I don't have a sheet, but I got a
hunk of aluminum. It's probably do any good.

Speaker 2 (01:01:40):
So I rest the plywood now on a like a
saw horse, you know, a construction saw horse, and I
use the woodworking clamps then you know a clamp it's
like halfway down, you know, and this will hangover and
then you could just start and make a line and
blast all that off, turn it around and you can

(01:02:02):
blast the pelt like this size flesh it in about
four minutes and then the bigger ones like this will
take maybe twice that long. Becau they're a little thicker,
they're actually harder to flesh.

Speaker 3 (01:02:13):
So but still fleshing that thing in eight minutes is yeah, dude, yeah,
drawn knife. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:02:23):
And you know it's been really nice and like makes
me feel good is people really want to help. And
so there's a guy in Craig who own he like
runs his seafood like they buy all the fish from

(01:02:44):
the trollers and they have I guess like a seafood
processing business. Yeah, so he donates salt to me, So
like five hundred pounds of salt a winter he'll give
me like a big pallet of salt. He's like, I'm
supporting the cause. And people want to buy me ammo
or because they want to get shellfish and they know

(01:03:06):
that seattle are wiping them out and they want to
help in any way they can. So I've had people
bring me coffee when I'm out there fleshing in the
freezing play and people will come up with like a
hot coffee because they know I'm out there. They can
see this spray on my beach, and I'm like, thank
you so much. You know, it's like hailing and horrible,
but it's all really worth it.

Speaker 1 (01:03:31):
And now, what are some of the things you make?

Speaker 3 (01:03:33):
Liked?

Speaker 1 (01:03:34):
Do you wholesale? Do you sell it all yourself? Do you?
How do you work?

Speaker 2 (01:03:37):
Yeah? So you can't. I think another part of the
marine mammal protection next is you can't like commercially sell items.
So it's just like handicraft and small scale. But I
make I actually hand sewed everything until this year. I
got a first sewing machine and.

Speaker 1 (01:03:59):
I you got a backup something you said, I on
our stand. You can't commercially sell like.

Speaker 2 (01:04:05):
So you mean like mass produced.

Speaker 1 (01:04:06):
Okay, so you couldn't go to like you couldn't go
to like what's what's the store that's open nowadays? It's
not closed. I was gonna say, like Sears, But.

Speaker 2 (01:04:15):
Yeah, I think I have said that something.

Speaker 1 (01:04:19):
Yeah, I'm thinking like fancy Maze, fancy. You can't go
to may SE's and they can't be like we want
one hundred thousand seatter scarves.

Speaker 2 (01:04:27):
I wouldn't be able to do that, and we.

Speaker 1 (01:04:29):
Want a thousand seat scarves. That's that's too.

Speaker 2 (01:04:34):
Yeah, I can't, it, says mass produce.

Speaker 1 (01:04:37):
So you could hand but you could make it though,
like I could buy could I buy ten? Okay, but
you couldn't.

Speaker 3 (01:04:44):
You probably couldn't have like a bunch of employees just
sitting there all day long sewing for you.

Speaker 1 (01:04:49):
You probably can't send it to like a sow shop overseas.

Speaker 2 (01:04:52):
Maybe no, you definitely can't send it overseas. You cannot
send out of the country.

Speaker 1 (01:04:57):
Are you personally sewing everything?

Speaker 2 (01:04:59):
Yes? And I make my own patterns. So I brought
this hat. Oh, this is like one of the things
I make. This is a aviator hat or they call
it a bomber hat.

Speaker 1 (01:05:09):
Yeah, that's that's called what that's called the perfect hat. Yeah,
there's one modification I need to tell you about, but oh.

Speaker 2 (01:05:16):
I need to know. This is moose leather, moose suede,
and sea otter. And I actually lined the cat portion
with fleece because.

Speaker 1 (01:05:27):
Is so warm.

Speaker 2 (01:05:29):
Huh. Yeah, you will overheat unless you're unless you're in
like sixty below. So I put a cord lock on
here because it's kind of pain to tie this when
you have gloves on or or just in general, and
then you can wear it with the flaps up and
just use that cord lock. But so this is one

(01:05:53):
one of the items that I make, and I made
this pattern so it takes like five or six tries
to make it fit ice.

Speaker 1 (01:06:01):
But you want to do you have people send their
head sides with when they want to.

Speaker 2 (01:06:04):
Do custom Yeah, I can do. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:06:08):
Now that people ask why I don't wear a helmet
on my snow meal because I'm too busy wearing one
of these you know what that's I mean not the style.

Speaker 2 (01:06:16):
And it covers your ears. It actually makes good your protection.

Speaker 3 (01:06:21):
Oh yeah, yeah, I can't hear.

Speaker 1 (01:06:23):
A thing about ice fishing. My kids are yelling me
out here.

Speaker 2 (01:06:26):
Anything well that looks good. You have to trade in
trade in whatever hat you're wearing for sea otter.

Speaker 1 (01:06:37):
But that's gonna be.

Speaker 2 (01:06:40):
H.

Speaker 1 (01:06:41):
What's sad is put my thing back on. What to
be sad is giving up on the you know, my
own my own beaver cat. But here's the deal. See
you guys, you live in the cloud. You live in
the Cloudy's place on the planet right down. I had

(01:07:03):
one made with muskrat instead of having this. It's got
a little leather bill, which is a lifesaver out ice
fishing and the bright ass sun for sure. Yeah, you
need like a little something and that.

Speaker 2 (01:07:15):
Really, I've seen people wear that over their hat.

Speaker 1 (01:07:18):
Yep. That's my buddy Travis. He had one and I
was telling him about that and he says he pulls
it on over his baseball.

Speaker 3 (01:07:26):
You.

Speaker 2 (01:07:27):
Yep, it'd be nice to have.

Speaker 1 (01:07:29):
That's a beautiful hat.

Speaker 2 (01:07:30):
Well I'm going to try that then and call it
the Steve Ranella.

Speaker 1 (01:07:37):
Yeah, so I don't know, I don't know Steve Reno. Yeah, yeah,
a little leather bill, it's beautiful. Can we see the scarf?
Oh yeah, of course you don't mind saying it. So
what do you got it? What do you get for that?
What do what do you sell that hat for someone
wants someone on my website.

Speaker 2 (01:07:58):
Those are seven hundred dollars. This is a double sided
seatter scarf. It has a magnet to hold it in
place because one of my friends bought one for his
wife and she was hiking and lost it and so
she was like in tears. So I made a magnetic
closure so wouldn't fall off.

Speaker 1 (01:08:18):
Some other person got hike down that trail. Can I
tell you a funny story about So I had a
muskrat hat, and uh, there's used to be the spot
I would trap every year this marsh. And there's like
the spot where I would pull over and trap muskrats
in his marsh. And I lost my muskrat hat in

(01:08:41):
the winter trapping and didn't know where I lost it.
And then me and this in the spring, meet this
dude named barefoot or driving up to this place called
Cisco buy you, and I see what I think is
I'm not kidding you. I see a road kill at
the marsh. I see a road killed muskrat in the bank.

Speaker 2 (01:09:00):
Oh my gosh.

Speaker 1 (01:09:01):
I'm like, oh my god. So I go to grab
the road to kill moskrat. It's my hat, melt, it's
my hat melting out of the snow bank like a
snowplowd truck, a snowplowd truck and pushed it up into
the bank on the side of the road. Was likes
my hat. Then that lost again, that's gone.

Speaker 2 (01:09:17):
I feel like it will find its way back to you.

Speaker 1 (01:09:19):
Yeah, it's been a while a while, but that was
funny when you said someone was out hiking. But man,
this is like my wife.

Speaker 2 (01:09:29):
Actually brought that. Always give stuff to give to your.

Speaker 1 (01:09:33):
Yeah, she'll actually like this, like I'll get stuff. Me
and Seth found a weird rock and I had an
ear ring bade out of that weird rock and she said,
she feels it. It looks like something from Lord of
the Rings. This no, she's gonna like that's no, No,

(01:09:55):
that's her style. And I had her a big red
fox scarf made. But it really says hello before you do,
because it's like huge, but that's like subtle. Yeah, it's
actually beautiful.

Speaker 2 (01:10:06):
I have other scarves. They're shorter and you can actually
put a scarf in it, so they're interchangeable, so you
can wear it as a headband and then when you
go inside wear it as a scarf and you can
swap out the insert to match any outfit. But yeah,
I can make like hats, blankets, moccasins, scarves, purses, I

(01:10:29):
make sealskin purses and wallets, and what's.

Speaker 1 (01:10:31):
A seal skin? What do you gotta get for a
seal skin purse?

Speaker 2 (01:10:35):
I sell them for six hundred. I haven't sold a
wallet yet. I actually make Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:10:41):
I make Dude, this stuff is so cool, man.

Speaker 2 (01:10:44):
I make these and then I test them to make
sure that they're the best quality before posting it for sale.

Speaker 1 (01:10:51):
So so you put a little money there, go buy
something this is make sure it works good. So that's
a Harbor seal wallet.

Speaker 2 (01:10:59):
So I want to make sure they're quality because they're
an investment, so so I'm testing it out.

Speaker 1 (01:11:04):
Gorgeous. Do you have good lack? I mean, are you
able to sell as much as you can make?

Speaker 2 (01:11:09):
So far I have been able to recoup my costs.
I don't think you'll know.

Speaker 1 (01:11:12):
I mean, like, do you have are you able to
like are you able to find a market? You know
what I mean? Or do you have are you backlog?
Do you have a lot of fur that you haven't
been able to get sales on?

Speaker 2 (01:11:25):
I think what limits me is my time because I
work full time, you know, at a regular job. And
then this is my what my dad calls it, my hobby,
which is becoming you know a little side.

Speaker 1 (01:11:36):
So you can sell. You can sell it as fast
as you can make it. The bottleneck is making it.

Speaker 2 (01:11:40):
Yeah, and there's not a lot of fur sewers. That's incredible,
you know who work with sea Otter who are selling items,
So I think they're harder to find.

Speaker 3 (01:11:49):
Yeah, and.

Speaker 1 (01:11:51):
Dude, you know what this here, you know what for
single people out there, get single guys out there. You
get one of these and you give it to the lady.
She likes it, then you know, you gotta keep her.
She don't, you know, want nothing to do with her. Man.
That's how That's how I would use this. I'd be like, oh,
do you think about something like that? And she's like
I'd be like, that is get out of my house.

(01:12:14):
Get out of my house.

Speaker 3 (01:12:17):
Yep.

Speaker 2 (01:12:18):
There's a word the cling. The Lingott word for that
is joke. It means go away. I remember going out
with my friends, you know in college, guys would hit
off and we'd be like, oh, joke because they wouldn't
know what that meant.

Speaker 1 (01:12:34):
But we did. Let me see the other thing.

Speaker 2 (01:12:38):
Oh this is my test purse seal skin.

Speaker 1 (01:12:42):
Oh my goodness. So you're really like you're good though,
Like you're really talent. I mean, is you really like something?

Speaker 3 (01:12:49):
You just go like it like something you like? You
buy that purse out of store.

Speaker 1 (01:12:54):
Thank you, very well done. Got a great sense of style.
Now I got I'm gonna complim that sandwich you. I mean,
they're gonna give you an insult. Okay, I don't think
the strap is like I'm underwhelmed by the strap. How
could you put that strap on this bag?

Speaker 2 (01:13:11):
Let me show you that.

Speaker 1 (01:13:15):
Bag something different.

Speaker 2 (01:13:16):
Okay, it does.

Speaker 1 (01:13:17):
That bag deserves a better strap.

Speaker 2 (01:13:19):
Does deserve a better strap. But this is a prototype.
So it's like you can do an over the shoulder,
you can do a cross body or all those like
what my daughter call it a fanny pack. It is
a sling bag. I called it a fanny packs. I'm

(01:13:41):
a nineties kid. You can wear it as a fanny
pack or like you know how the sling bags everyone's
wearing them like this.

Speaker 1 (01:13:48):
That's my daughter, I called her Bandolier's.

Speaker 2 (01:13:53):
I want it to be versatile and.

Speaker 1 (01:13:54):
Like that's a great. Yeah, that's her style. It's a
little little Rother style.

Speaker 2 (01:14:00):
Maybe needs I don't know, something different.

Speaker 1 (01:14:01):
I'm just underwhelmed by it. But the because the bag
is so cool.

Speaker 2 (01:14:05):
Okay, well my hat to need a bill.

Speaker 1 (01:14:07):
No no, no, no, that's a specialty item. That's a one
off specialty item. That's the win. You have the winning design.
I'm just telling you, I'm okay, here's I want to
I want my my feedback to be I want to
make you understand my feedback. The bill is a one
off especially, no one want to say I want that.
I understanding understand. Your bag is so cool. I feel

(01:14:29):
like the when that that just its like he needs
a strap. This is cool as the bag, that's all. Yeah,
I mean because you have a really you have a
cool like uh yeah, it's just got like a style.
I'll put it this way because I'm having a hard time.
I'm not being very articulate. I have found like when

(01:14:50):
you look at fur sewing today, there's a lot of
fur sewing today that's it's just real gaudy, like it's
it's not sleek, you know what I mean. It's not
like it's like it's it's it's overstated. There's a las
stuff that's really overstated bougie. Yeah, like just huge, you know,
like huge, big whatever. But your stuff is it's like

(01:15:13):
it's it's it's it's more subtle. It's kind of more elegant,
do you know what I mean? Than than things that
are than things that are just you know, you picture
like a red fox vest, right, a big red red
fox vest. It's just from across the parking lot. You'd
be like, there's a lady with a red fox vest,
for sure. But with this stuff, it's like, you know,

(01:15:33):
you could be sitting there ten minutes and saying, be like,
holy shit, is that seal? Yeah? Right, yeah, it has
that feeling to it like it's it's subtle.

Speaker 2 (01:15:40):
Thank you. I try and make them functional. I want
people to wear these. I don't want these to be
on display. I want this is moose. It's a little heavier,
you know than deer leather, but it's not so stiff
that it's gonna be uncomfortable to wear. And I want
you to be able to like put this in your
punting bag, you know, and pull it out and like
shake and put it on and it not be bulky,

(01:16:02):
and you can fold this up and this can get
soaking wet and still keep your head warm, and then
you just dry it and shake it and it fluffs
right back up. So I try to think about stuff
like that when making items, because people are gonna invest
in you and your work and you know, believe in
me and buy something online without having felt it, Like

(01:16:24):
you guys know what it feels like now and you
can see the fur is tremendous. But a lot of
people buy things without knowing what seat ter furs like
and then they get it and they're like, whoa, because
it is incredible and incredibly warm.

Speaker 1 (01:16:42):
For the for the listeners, I'll share with you that
prior to when we when we started recording how there
was showing my two younger kids her seatter stuff, and
my daughter observed, all of our friends right now are
out in our boat's fishing, and my daughter observed that
they shouldn't have gone out on the boats so that

(01:17:03):
they could have heard about this.

Speaker 2 (01:17:06):
I know, And I got an order for a sea
otter or Teddy bear and a hat, and I'm super
excited to make your kids some things. They deserve it.

Speaker 5 (01:17:25):
Kids are sacred and yells tell everyone, tell everyone what
you were telling my kids about the importance of kids.

Speaker 2 (01:17:37):
Oh yeah, I mean kids are sacred, you know. They
I just feel like they they deserve so much and
so much more recognition than they get oftentimes. And we

(01:17:57):
believe that they're sacred. They're they're the ones who are
gonna learn all of this knowledge that we have that
we carry and pass it down to the next generation.

Speaker 1 (01:18:09):
And so.

Speaker 2 (01:18:13):
Yeah, just that that they are really special and they
have a special place, and just having them present when
you're doing things, like when I said, like, it really
hurts when I know that it's illegal for me to
teach them how to work with some of our traditional
foods and materials, because it shouldn't be that way. And

(01:18:35):
they're just little sacred beings and they deserve to learn
and be there and not have those limitations on them
when it comes to you know, them learning and practicing
their culture. And they're really the the vehicles, you know,
they're going to be the ones who pass that on.

(01:18:55):
So as much as I can invest in youth, you know,
my niece and nephew, but not just them, any in
all youth, so they know that they are valued, they
have a purpose. It's really important to know that you
have a purpose in life, and like my culture is

(01:19:19):
a big part of you know, my purpose. And then
you know that you're important and and you have a
responsibility to you know, carry that on. It kind of
helps give you some direction too in your life.

Speaker 3 (01:19:36):
And and and like.

Speaker 2 (01:19:40):
You learn what you know that your cultural values are
through practicing your culture and like being around elders or
you know, your aunties and uncles. And it's not something
where someone would blatantly say, like we value respect or
you know what I mean. You just learn it by
being a part of the process, not wasting fish, only

(01:20:03):
taking what you're going to use, using all parts of it,
you know, smoking the heads of a fish, the collars,
the backbones, really minimizing waste. That's just all like learning
your values by practicing, and that's really important. And kids
do that without knowing you know what's happening, and it's

(01:20:26):
really special to watch and and see and watch them
like live their purpose. Be proud of that.

Speaker 1 (01:20:36):
That's great advice. I practice it half the time, and
half the time I'm freaking out on them because like
last night I come in and there's granola bar crumbs
my beds somehow wet, like the hell's going to do.
I forget, I forget all the stuff you just said.
Then I wake up in the morning, I recommit myself

(01:20:57):
to being a good dad, I think, and.

Speaker 2 (01:21:00):
There there you have the balance, right, It's all about balance.
So you're not going to be one hundred percent every
time every day. But you know, if you live by
your values and you do what you can to align
yourself and practice those you know, that's all you can
really do. And you're not going to be one hundred

(01:21:22):
percent every day.

Speaker 1 (01:21:23):
So that's okay.

Speaker 2 (01:21:25):
Your kids are great. You know. I got to spend
a little time with them and I wanted them to
sit next to me during this podcast. I think they're
so great.

Speaker 1 (01:21:33):
So oh, thank you, Yeah, thanks for coming on the show. Yeah, goodness,
Heather Duville. And I know on Instagram you're ak moosey
so ak m o O s I E. And your
fur and your product.

Speaker 2 (01:21:48):
Page is what Coastal Fur and leather.

Speaker 1 (01:21:52):
Man. I think you're gonna I have a feeling you're
going to get a few people checking out the stuff
because it's just thank you so and thanks for bringing
some of your your traditional hooks and things.

Speaker 2 (01:22:03):
Yeah, I appreciate your Yeah, you being able to share
my culture with you, and you're sharing your stories with me,
and I would love to be able to have you
guys join us in Fish with the Nah one day,
so you have an invite and welcome.

Speaker 1 (01:22:22):
Yeah, thanks for sharing all your all your knowledge. Even
just before we recorded, you told me a lot of
things about the fish and stuff that I hadn't known.
So I appreciate all your everything you've picked up over
your life and your family and and uh, that's great.
Been great to visit with you. Thank you, And you're
going to take that You're going to do the gig
as the correspondent.

Speaker 2 (01:22:42):
Oh yeah, I can't wait. I better be doing something though.

Speaker 3 (01:22:48):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:22:49):
Better in the winter, I'll be sewing.

Speaker 1 (01:22:51):
Yeah, we'll warn you ahead of time. We'll find out
what a good time is.

Speaker 2 (01:22:56):
That's awesome. Does that work? So do we talk about talk.

Speaker 1 (01:23:00):
About that later?

Speaker 3 (01:23:00):
All? Right?

Speaker 1 (01:23:01):
About later that you met Krin? Mm hmm, Cren will
deal with that, sweet man. What's this one called sea monster?

Speaker 2 (01:23:11):
No?

Speaker 1 (01:23:11):
No, no, no, you had old faithful? What is his name?
The veterans? All right, thanks Cronin Heather. I appreciate it.

Speaker 4 (01:23:25):
That got me thirty out six kicks like a Muller's
like a son of a bitch.

Speaker 1 (01:23:31):
Budd it's butt a cup of deer on the wall
that had a booty brown up.

Speaker 4 (01:23:38):
It ain't nothing fancy, just a savage wanting Walmart specially
had a guy from a friend who was getting divorced
and neat cash about his gune.

Speaker 1 (01:23:50):
And there's no red force.

Speaker 4 (01:23:52):
Sitting in my drive.

Speaker 3 (01:23:54):
You just keep on racking up the miuse. It used
to be my day.

Speaker 4 (01:24:00):
Now he's gone. It's got spocking knife and the ashtreek
s been there ever since the day I got the
keys attruck from my mom.

Speaker 1 (01:24:17):
I'm a stuff.

Speaker 6 (01:24:18):
Thank god's got some kind of story tail nerfe be
a bunch of men. Most of it wouldn't mean much anybody.

Speaker 5 (01:24:36):
It on mean word means.

Speaker 4 (01:24:46):
There's a glass man of traps sitting on my desk
yard next just sumpliers. My uncle Jo getting to my
kids one day that made him think of his own
pats and the stuff hard of one one not from
mile while the next day we made our first born child.

(01:25:06):
We still laugh about it every now and then.

Speaker 6 (01:25:13):
Host every Thank God, it's got something kind of story.

Speaker 4 (01:25:17):
Tale and they're felled with a bunch man.

Speaker 1 (01:25:25):
Most of it.

Speaker 6 (01:25:26):
It wouldn't mean us Anybody.

Speaker 3 (01:25:31):
Get all mean word to me.

Speaker 1 (01:25:45):
I could say, I could sell lead out getting lest cash.

Speaker 6 (01:25:52):
It wouldn't be long now. We want it all back,
most of everything God's got some guy's.

Speaker 4 (01:26:02):
Story till it's billed with bunch men.

Speaker 6 (01:26:13):
Most of it wouldn't mean much anybody.

Speaker 4 (01:26:18):
It all means word means, it all means word me