For The Wild - K’ASHEECHTLAA - LOUISE BRADY on Restoring the Sacred [ENCORE] ⧸288

00:00:00.000 Hello, and welcome to For the Wild podcast. I'm Ayanna Young. Today, I'm speaking with

00:00:08.040 Louise Brady.

00:00:09.380 That relationship with money is so fleeting. I mean, it's not even a real thing. Whereas

00:00:18.180 our environment, the herring, the ocean, the whales, the eagles, the ravens, the land,

00:00:27.720 that's what's real

00:00:29.720 Louise Brady is a woman

00:00:32.720 of the Tlingit Nation in Sheikla

00:00:34.900 an island off the coast

00:00:36.720 of southeast Alaska 0.98

00:00:37.820 she is raven frog or

00:00:40.140 Kiksadi clan 0.99

00:00:41.340 Kiksadi women are known as the herring ladies 1.00

00:00:44.520 and have original instructions 0.97

00:00:46.400 that connect them spiritually

00:00:48.020 culturally and historically to herring

00:00:50.520 she is the founder of

00:00:52.360 Herring Protectors

00:00:53.420 a grassroots movement of people

00:00:56.020 that share concerns

00:00:57.360 that the herring population in Shikla and the culture tied to it are under threat.

00:01:03.580 Over the last three years, herring protectors have helped put on to honor the herring kuik

00:01:08.440 that honored the sacred relationship the Tlingit people have with the herring

00:01:12.960 and the role they play in our way of life.

00:01:17.940 Well, Luis, thank you so much for joining us.

00:01:22.020 I feel so indebted to your homelands and it's a great honor to be speaking with you

00:01:29.660 about this place that is so powerful and important so I am very honored and very excited to

00:01:38.500 be having this time with you. Thank you very much for allowing me to be here today.

00:01:46.680 we're getting really close to what we're going to talk about hearing time so it's just really

00:01:53.480 beautiful here today and we've had some snow and as one of my granddaughters would say it's like

00:01:59.700 a winter wonderland it sounds so beautiful well i'm wondering to begin if you'd like to introduce

00:02:08.800 yourself to our listeners.

00:02:23.280 My chlingit name is Kashichtla.

00:02:27.060 I am Kiksadi.

00:02:29.260 We use the frog as our crest. 0.93

00:02:32.560 I am a grandchild of the kawantan, which is the wolf clan. 0.95

00:02:38.800 and we kick-study women are known as the herring ladies.

00:02:45.560 Thank you so much for grounding us in that introduction.

00:02:50.620 So, Luis, many of us think of the Pacific Northwest as a place of abundance.

00:02:57.120 However, for those who are not intimately acquainted with the ecosystem,

00:03:02.020 they might not intuitively think of herring as such foundational kin that feed everything from chinook, seals, birds, and whales, including the endangered southern resident whales.

00:03:16.400 So to preface herring protectors, I wonder if you can speak to the extent that herring nourish North Pacific marine ecosystems and how many will go hungry should they continue to be overfished by industry?

00:03:32.480 the herring are the foundation of our ecosystem here we live right on the edge of the pacific

00:03:43.860 ocean on an island so we eat a lot of salmon a lot of seafood halibut we originally had a food

00:03:53.880 economy, which was basically based on the harvest season. And the food that we eat,

00:04:02.840 as you mentioned, the salmon, the halibut, the seals, the whales, all depend on a healthy

00:04:14.180 herring population. And one of the things that I noticed is that in other places around Southeast

00:04:22.320 Alaska, where the herring populations have crashed, they have very small salmon,

00:04:30.540 comparatively speaking. So if we lose this herring population, and so many other places

00:04:39.460 in Southeast Alaska and British Columbia, the populations have crashed over the years,

00:04:45.120 And I would say probably for the last 100 years that the herring have been fished near, I would say, extinction.

00:04:54.520 Of course, others may not agree with it.

00:04:56.180 So it would be a matter of we would not just lose the herring.

00:05:00.940 We would lose so much of all of the other foods that we depend upon.

00:05:05.780 and the herring eggs for us are very important spiritually culturally and physically well i want

00:05:20.640 to emphasize the respect and gratitude that has always been given to herring throughout southeast

00:05:26.100 alaska outside of commercial fishing and i think one of the ways this is done so beautifully

00:05:32.840 is how herring eggs have been traditionally harvested

00:05:36.540 through the placement of hemlock and cedar bows in the water

00:05:40.180 versus the violent and wasteful way

00:05:43.520 that commercial industry collects eggs.

00:05:46.380 So can you explain these two different approaches

00:05:48.660 as an example of how industry is unable to be in relationship?

00:05:55.160 I think people were taught to have respect.

00:06:00.640 And in fact, when I went to one of our grandmothers, I was in my early 20s.

00:06:06.420 I really wanted to know what our culture was about.

00:06:09.300 And I thought she was going to sit me down and teach me everything.

00:06:13.180 And she said, if there's one word, it's respect.

00:06:16.320 And there's a phrase in Tlingit, it's ya'atwune, which is respect for all things.

00:06:21.780 and it's not just for what we would consider moving things

00:06:29.840 but just everything and everyone we encounter

00:06:33.400 so when our harvesters go out to gather the herring eggs

00:06:40.440 they have to go in to the forest and cut down a hemlock tree

00:06:48.220 some people cut down the branches or cut the branches but some cut down trees and we give

00:06:55.000 thanks to the tree for giving its life for our life so that we can live and we go out and set

00:07:04.720 the branches and and just tie a rock to them and then the herring will come and lay their eggs on

00:07:11.880 the branches so we're not killing any herring at all so there's respect involved and then we bring

00:07:19.680 um the branches in and we share with family and it's a really um communal time it's it's a time

00:07:30.300 where celebrating other and you know the return of a spring and the abundance of the herring

00:07:36.060 the abundance of this land and this water that we were so blessed to be born on and born into

00:07:44.780 this culture and we realized that you know we can't take any more than we need

00:07:52.420 but with the fish industry it's completely different it's actually really

00:08:00.720 it is really violent the sakura is considered a delicacy in the japanese culture and so

00:08:08.900 the saners which is a type of fishing have been coming here for herring

00:08:15.700 i would say at least for since the 70s and being the herring overseas the sakura overseas

00:08:27.200 when they fish for the herring or the back row they don't they don't use the herring

00:08:33.680 and nowadays because we believe because of the other fishing sometimes it takes days for them

00:08:41.900 to get their quota there's a set quota by a lot of the department of fishing game and they have to

00:08:47.000 be a certain size and a certain weight and if they don't get that and when let's say they get

00:08:55.580 a ton of herring in one set but they're not the correct size they will catch them in the net and

00:09:01.940 then it's not the right size and they release them well i was talking to one of our tribal

00:09:06.940 biologists and he said when they do that if you were to have a camera under the water you could

00:09:12.620 see their scales floating down to the ocean floor and just like with us and our skin our skin

00:09:21.480 protects those hair scales protect them and so that makes the herring

00:09:25.720 assistable to infection and to illness also when they do a set and again if it's if they're not

00:09:37.380 if they don't meet the size requirements and they pull the net up out of the air

00:09:41.720 and you have all of these herring and you're crushing some of the herring

00:09:47.960 and suffocate some of them

00:09:50.360 and then they'll let them go.

00:09:53.440 And even when they do find

00:09:55.920 the ones the right size,

00:09:58.480 they take the macro out

00:10:00.300 and then they grind the herring up

00:10:02.600 for dog food

00:10:04.120 or to feed farmed salmon.

00:10:09.720 It's such an incredible waste.

00:10:13.680 And yes, it is violent.

00:10:17.960 Thank you so much for sharing those details.

00:10:23.100 Yeah, just as industry encroached over Southeast Alaska, a dozen official herring management sites were developed to provide commercial harvest, as well as subsistence herring egg harvest.

00:10:35.800 And I understand that currently 11 of these have been overfished to near extinction, with the Sitka sack row fishery being the last site to provide any sort of noticeable hardivist.

00:10:48.540 So how have these fisheries been chronically mismanaged, and why has the state of Alaska allowed this to happen continuously across so many different historical herring fisheries?

00:11:02.760 That's a really good question.

00:11:04.520 i first testified before the board of fish so the board of fish state of alaska oversees fisheries

00:11:12.780 and the board of fish the board of fisheries is a board of nine people that

00:11:21.840 uh i guess sit and listen to testimony from the public about the fisheries

00:11:30.720 And the Sitka Tribe of Alaska has been going before the board at least for 25 years, I would say, more like 30 to 35 years.

00:11:49.900 and a lot of the people who testify are basically the fishermen the people who have

00:12:01.380 the permits to fish the herring and the state border fish listens to their biologists

00:12:12.000 and the state biologists have a specific formula that they use to calculate the number of herring

00:12:24.400 that are in the area one of the things that has we believe has happened is that the baseline

00:12:32.640 that's being used is already a depleted baseline the baseline only goes back to the 70s

00:12:40.900 Whereas our oral histories go back at least hundreds of years.

00:12:52.720 So with this inaccurate baseline that started, we believe, with an already depleted population,

00:13:03.560 the Department of Fishing game came in and said, okay, you know,

00:13:07.200 they set a 20% limit for the fishermen.

00:13:12.420 This year, the guideline harvest level is 33,000 tons.

00:13:19.300 And what we've been seeing happening here, as I remember back in,

00:13:24.800 probably going back to the 80s and the 90s, there were 50, maybe 51,

00:13:30.900 52, somewhere around there, fishermen who would come in.

00:13:33.560 And the Department of Fish and Game would come in and they would open the fishery.

00:13:41.980 And sometimes the fishermen would get their quota in an hour.

00:13:48.840 Now, sometimes it takes weeks.

00:13:51.920 and it's because the fishery is depleted and the state comes back with well no herring move around

00:14:03.860 in fact i mean there's always there's always a reason to move forward with a fishery this is

00:14:11.180 the bottom one um two years ago there was a fishery and i believe that the fleet got maybe

00:14:20.840 one third of the located tonnage and last year there wasn't even a fishery and i will tell you

00:14:31.180 just it you know last year was the first time in many many years so many of us noticed we could

00:14:37.000 just after two years we could smell the herring in town because the herring have gone offshore

00:14:43.000 the island I talked about to cruise off and it was so nice and we saw it's like the whole

00:14:53.040 sound used to turn this beautiful beautiful turquoise blue we'll call it metering blue

00:14:58.340 there were so many herring here but it's just I think so much of it is that

00:15:05.820 depleted baseline and the science that is really I think inaccurate

00:15:12.480 yeah it's such an important point to talk about shifting baselines and

00:15:21.920 when the baseline is from the 70s you know and then management is based off a time after

00:15:30.140 colonization, after commercial resource extraction had already started, it's not accurate. And how

00:15:38.220 could it be? And then all of the impacts it has when you're managing a fishery or a land based

00:15:48.400 off an incorrect baseline or a problematic baseline. So I really appreciate you sharing

00:15:56.060 that because I think that's a nuance and a particularity that many of us probably don't

00:16:03.480 even consider. And so when we're questioning extinction crises, it's really important to

00:16:09.940 take in all this information. So thank you. Yes. And I don't know if you went to the

00:16:17.600 National Historical Park when you were here. I did. Yeah. Oh, one of the elders who has since

00:16:25.160 past he would say you know the flats the beach flats go really far out and he when the herring

00:16:32.520 were in when he was a child he said that you could just stick a paddle in the water and it would

00:16:38.620 stand up by itself the herring eggs were so thick and friends of mine in the 70s they said you know

00:16:44.480 they wouldn't even have to go fishing to catch herring they would just take a bucket down to

00:16:49.020 the um each ponds or you know down to the the footbridge and just a bucket in the water and

00:16:57.160 pull it out and be full of herring so it's it's happening quickly i would say

00:17:03.200 life givers swimming upstream life givers swimming upstream oh life givers

00:17:18.980 Swimming upstream

00:17:21.020 I see you thriving

00:17:24.820 Life givers

00:17:28.860 Swimming upstream

00:17:31.200 Life givers

00:17:34.140 Swimming upstream

00:17:36.220 Oh life givers

00:17:39.220 Swimming upstream

00:17:41.240 I see you thriving

00:17:44.980 I can see the wall

00:17:48.040 holding your blood back turn to waterfalls down it comes crashing i can see the land

00:17:58.200 bring back the peoples who always belonged here 0.60

00:18:04.420 yeah now this is less of a question and more of an observation but one of our greatest problems

00:18:18.520 with globalization seems to be the loss of reverence that takes place as something

00:18:23.220 becomes more and more accessible and i think i was referencing this a bit earlier with the

00:18:30.020 abundance of choices we now have versus the actual abundance of place because herring is

00:18:36.540 currently used in so many different ways. Like you were mentioning a while ago, it's in pet food

00:18:42.660 and fertilizer. It's used in fish meal for aquariums and salmon farms. And it's also sold

00:18:50.620 as a delicacy in Japan because Japan has already depleted their own herring source. And yeah, 0.68

00:18:58.620 So I just wonder if you could speak to the absurdity of herring being murdered in mass to ultimately feed farm salmon when many ecosystems across the Pacific Northwest are severely struggling because wild salmon and whales don't even have enough to eat.

00:19:17.960 or perhaps just personally, what comes up for you thinking about this global disrespect that's

00:19:24.400 taking place and the sort of spiritual ramification of it? I really believe that that's at the point

00:19:34.600 of this because Tlingit culture in many, well, I'll just speak to Tlingit culture because that's

00:19:42.340 what i come from is based on relationships and as i said that phrase is respect for all things

00:19:54.600 that means for each other and for everything you know for the herring and we as a community

00:20:01.140 have been going to the board of fish and trying to explain this what i believe trying to explain

00:20:09.360 how important herring are to us before the board of fish and when i testified in 1997

00:20:17.720 it's a very sterile environment um you know there's nine people sitting at tables with

00:20:27.600 microphones and papers and staff and everybody's you know behind the line and you can't go past

00:20:35.200 that line to talk to the any of the board members unless you have permission and you have to sign

00:20:41.440 up to testify and when you do testify you get three minutes and we are orders

00:20:52.580 and in order for us to speak in public in our own culture we need to introduce ourselves

00:21:02.520 and tell people how we're related to them because that tells them that we know them and

00:21:10.000 you know the first time I saw the board I was very upset because we had asked elders

00:21:17.480 to go and testify and they were barely through with their introductions and their time's up and

00:21:25.180 you know the board chairman is like okay I'm sorry your time is up your time is up and they

00:21:30.100 wouldn't give them any more time and we have been doing that for 25 years

00:21:36.080 and when i thought about that i had been working with some friends on another project

00:21:43.620 and we decided we wanted to do some work locally basically grassroots work and so we decided to

00:21:51.060 work on herring and i had this idea that because i introduced myself as a herring lady

00:22:00.100 We have a very old, old story, probably a story about the herring rock here in Sitka.

00:22:11.380 And there was a young lady who, this time of year, in March, some days it's really, really beautiful.

00:22:20.680 But most people in March in the old days would be getting ready to go out hunting, to go out fishing,

00:22:26.640 to just getting ready to be outside because the weather was going to get so much better.

00:22:33.700 There was this one young lady, though, she wasn't helping anybody.

00:22:37.420 She would just go down to the beach and the village and sit there. 0.96

00:22:41.120 And a lot of the people from the village thought that she was just being lazy,

00:22:44.680 that she didn't want to help anyone.

00:22:46.740 And so, you know, they were getting really upset with her.

00:22:49.640 But what she had been doing is she was going down to the specific rock channel by the village.

00:22:55.640 and she was singing to the heron and one day it was a nice beautiful glorious sunny day

00:23:06.460 you could see out to the pacific ocean and you could see the mount edge come

00:23:11.660 in the distance and the islands and the ocean was just blue and it was nice and warm and she fell

00:23:20.120 asleep it was low tide this woman fell asleep on that rock and the tide was coming down she was

00:23:28.160 sleeping and when she woke up the tide was high and the herring had been laid eggs in her hair

00:23:35.860 and that's because they acknowledged her invitation to come back to shika and so that's when

00:23:44.540 the story of the herring rock was born and so it said in all of southeast alaska

00:23:52.480 that is where the herring turned to first is the herring rock

00:23:57.580 and you know some people may think of those as the story our legend i prefer to call them our

00:24:09.220 original instruction from creator, from whatever you want to call that higher being that connects

00:24:18.960 us all. And as I was thinking of that, I thought we should have a ceremony to honor the pairing.

00:24:28.880 And it really hadn't been done. And I talked to our elders, I talked to our clan leader,

00:24:35.560 I talked to some other local owners and told them that this was what I wanted to do.

00:24:40.400 And they said, yes, that would be really good.

00:24:43.380 And so we had our first herring cookie.

00:24:45.840 And as we were moving through it, preparing for the ceremony, we make a lot of gifts.

00:24:55.160 There was weaving, and there was crocheting, and there was drum making, and some people made paddles to give to our guests.

00:25:05.040 our invited guests and it was a really powerful way to cement those relationships with each other

00:25:15.720 to come together and to make things because also in our culture i'm also a raven's tail weaver

00:25:23.720 and my mentor terry rafkar always would tell me whatever is in your heart comes out in your hands

00:25:32.280 so we always really need to be careful how we approach whatever it is we're making whatever

00:25:38.900 it is we're saying um we always need to have a good heart and we opened the ceremony to the

00:25:48.820 entire town of Sitka and here we have maybe 16 maybe 20 percent Alaska Native

00:26:00.400 Tlingit. And I think that was the first time the ceremony was opened up. And for me, it was really

00:26:08.760 beautiful. Some of those same elders who spoke for that three minutes at the Board of Fish

00:26:17.580 were able to get up at the ceremony and talk about their relationship, our relationship

00:26:23.840 as a Tlingit people to the herring and could talk about, you know,

00:26:29.780 would go out here when I was a young person and the herring was plentiful

00:26:33.640 and we'd go out here and the herring was plentiful.

00:26:36.680 And we had four members of the fish come on.

00:26:41.360 People just, you know, talked and were able to come together

00:26:47.820 and celebrate our relationship with the herring.

00:26:52.560 and it is spiritual you know spiritual historical cultural emotional it's like every part of our

00:27:02.400 being and when we tell these stories or our history western science the fishermen they say

00:27:16.500 yeah but those are just stories where's your dad and i was in a meeting with one of the permit

00:27:25.100 holders and my friend of mine had done research and he was talking about how plentiful the herring

00:27:32.820 were and he had some really good information and this permit holder got up and said yeah but

00:27:38.240 how are we going to pay our rent how are we going to make money and my response was

00:27:43.020 that's what you don't understand it has nothing to do with money for

00:27:49.140 and i really believe that a lot of people have

00:27:56.700 gotten how to

00:28:00.380 have any kind of relationship much less healthy relationship with the environment

00:28:10.380 and with each other. 1.00

00:28:13.920 And I really hope that we can make a change with the herring, 0.94

00:28:21.340 but I do know that we've made a change with each other 1.00

00:28:24.500 because there are so many more people working together.

00:28:33.720 And for me, that's what needs to happen.

00:28:36.320 done that's what i believe is that we need to figure out what it is we love and then work together

00:28:46.520 because

00:28:48.240 that relationship with money is so fleeting i mean it's not even that's not even a real thing

00:28:58.380 Whereas our environment, the herring, the ocean, the whales, the eagles, the ravens, the land, that's what's real.

00:29:13.160 And I have to say, you know, so far it's been an amazing journey working together.

00:29:21.840 And I am continuing to learn so much about myself.

00:29:26.100 and i have to say i'm just so grateful for everyone who's coming along on this journey

00:29:33.640 because it's pretty incredible wow that is so moving yeah i'm just catching my my heart

00:29:46.480 for a moment but in the herring protectors film ya'atwane you talk about the joy of the harvest

00:29:56.180 and how climate change and extractive industry are stripping away at placed based joy and we

00:30:04.620 often hear folks talk about how we're living in this critical time where we need to be experiencing

00:30:11.740 joy as part of our activism. But so often that joy and pleasure is outsourced behaviors that

00:30:18.540 are threatening the earth. So I'd like to bring in this topic of joy and context to

00:30:24.300 herring protectors. And I wonder if you could share what this means for you.

00:30:29.760 i have to say so um in my personal life i really there's still a lot of segregation that goes on

00:30:42.200 in this community and i would imagine in a lot of communities and the people that i

00:30:47.460 ended up working with are probably people that i really not have worked with previously

00:30:55.400 And that's just because, you know, I am Tlingit. I'm from here. I have a dance group. My almost entire family lives here, which is 30 to 40 of us, nieces, nephews, sisters, grandchildren.

00:31:11.700 and

00:31:14.680 the way that

00:31:17.460 we were working

00:31:22.680 actually we started working on Standing Rock

00:31:24.960 and Standing Rock was going on

00:31:26.520 and the summer

00:31:28.220 people were

00:31:30.840 going around town we should do something for Standing Rock

00:31:32.940 we should do something for Standing Rock

00:31:34.500 everybody kept saying that to each other

00:31:36.480 and so finally I said okay we're going to do

00:31:38.860 something and so we had a gathering

00:31:40.740 to support

00:31:41.700 standing rock and there were probably 150 200 people and we sang some songs and had a couple

00:31:48.000 people who were um that were that spoke and that had been down there and then it was all

00:31:56.880 well and um that people are like somebody we should do a fundraiser we should do a fundraiser

00:32:03.760 i'm like okay we'll do a fundraiser and you know in the native community we would have done something

00:32:08.780 like probably clam chowder sale and fry bread and i had a friend that knew this other group of people

00:32:15.780 and they wanted to do a fundraiser for standing rock and so we met back down in the back door

00:32:21.540 and uh this group wanted to do yoga for and i'm like okay that's interesting i was just kind of

00:32:33.500 laughing to myself i mean i had never done yoga and again this is part of you know not a lot of

00:32:38.760 of people my friends yoga but we went ahead and we did this fund together and it was really good 1.00

00:32:47.420 because you know there were uh indigenous people non-indigenous people everybody had a sense it 0.98

00:32:54.260 was a really tumultuous time of you know wanting to come together and do something good and so we

00:33:00.100 and we raised maybe eight thousand dollars and collected traditional foods so that group we i

00:33:08.500 think became so close and ended up having you know i think really enjoying being together

00:33:16.440 and so we had another meeting and we decided you know we wanted to work together and so we decided

00:33:22.220 to work on the herring and we didn't know what we were going to do and then I suggested to go eat

00:33:31.080 and so we started meeting and having pucks and you know people learn how to weave and

00:33:39.920 you know we brought in elders and culture bearers and

00:33:43.880 and we had a lot of fun and we worked really really hard i mean the coup that we ended up having

00:33:53.900 um the first one we had to move it up by a month and it was like january right after the holidays

00:34:00.860 and so we didn't get the word that it was moved up a month until like just before christmas

00:34:06.920 and so it was a lot of work you know we all had other jobs and we worked on it every evening

00:34:12.140 making gifts and we got it together and they were like that's a big deal because there were like

00:34:16.300 300 people at the ceremony and uh if you if people get a chance to take a look at the film

00:34:26.140 and the ceremony you can just see the joy in everybody's faces and there's the you know the

00:34:34.100 herring protector it's just amazing and again it's like you know what what is activism you know

00:34:44.320 activism is making coffee it's serving elders it's cooking it's you know it's getting to know

00:34:53.040 each other in a very deep way to develop that trust so that we can

00:35:00.780 have that joy and that is part of our culture as well it's like so many times we have these

00:35:10.880 ceremonies and they're around death like we had a ceremony for my mother and my sister who passed

00:35:17.020 away and the first part is always the mourning and we have it anywhere from a year to two or

00:35:26.280 three years however long it takes us to gather the gifts and the first part is always the morning

00:35:31.660 and we sing our morning our cry songs and our culture is structured in such a way that

00:35:42.020 our guests basically are there to wipe our tears ceremonially and when we dance to the cry songs

00:35:52.580 that's our last cry and then we go into the happy part and i think that you know i think that people

00:36:00.440 again um especially difficult during during covid i think we have forgotten forgotten how

00:36:11.400 to do so many things as a community.

00:36:20.120 And that includes, you know, how to celebrate,

00:36:23.160 how to celebrate our successes.

00:36:25.620 And that has to be, that just really has to be a part

00:36:29.000 of what we do if we call ourselves activists

00:36:32.300 or, you know, I just, I don't think I'm an activist.

00:36:38.660 I'm not sure what I am.

00:36:40.260 but joy is absolutely a must it is absolutely a must because why else would

00:36:47.280 now why would creator give such a beautiful beautiful place if not to enjoy it and i feel

00:36:55.600 bad for people who live here and you know can't go out every day and just see the beauty and and

00:37:03.400 celebrate and the magic of of of being here

00:37:07.560 Oh, pine tree occurring in

00:37:26.260 My dream is waiting for the soul

00:37:34.820 By the golden canaries

00:37:40.720 Besighting your

00:37:45.500 Verse is a high noon

00:37:49.900 A thousand years of

00:37:56.560 Refined tune

00:37:59.800 thank you for that reminder that seems so simple but also so challenging in these times and i

00:38:24.460 think we need to keep reminding each other in just holding that gratitude for the magic

00:38:32.240 and finding the beauty and allowing that beauty and that magic to sustain us to keep challenging

00:38:40.100 these dominant systems that we know we need to push out and yeah and I'd like to move into

00:38:48.480 a conversation around whether or not certain institutions will ever be compatible with the

00:38:55.600 sort of respect that is so desperately needed. And in context to Herring, what I'm really thinking

00:39:03.240 about is whether or not an institution like the Alaska Board of Fish is equipped to understand

00:39:11.100 the depth of relationship and connection to Herring. And I think about my time in Alaska and

00:39:16.940 Going up to various public comment meetings related to the Tongass, where people were given just a few minutes to make their statements, and you were talking about this earlier, how those sort of limitations will never allow meaningful conversation.

00:39:33.660 You know, you can't change someone's opinion in three minutes or even really get into any important details in that time. So do you think it's time for folks to really begin thinking about how these regulatory bodies can be ushered out before they allow more permanent damage?

00:39:53.940 definitely and you know i'm not really sure how to do that if there was you know more local control

00:40:01.040 that's like let's take a look at you know how many people come in here to sheet cut or to alaska

00:40:09.000 you know for the oil industry for the mining industry um for forestry and where where all

00:40:15.700 of these you know so-called resources going and you know people if people don't understand

00:40:24.880 our culture and this place right place-based knowledge it's very one-dimensional and that is

00:40:37.620 And for me, I believe the basis of source extraction is that color and really nothing else.

00:40:48.520 And it breaks my heart.

00:40:50.500 I was working on a project down on Prince of Wales Island just south of here.

00:40:55.360 And I was driving all over Prince of Wales with a friend of mine.

00:40:59.520 And it's awful what has been done to that island.

00:41:03.980 There's clear cut after clear cut after clear cut.

00:41:07.620 and i cannot imagine that happening here

00:41:17.060 and i think that it's going to take everyone

00:41:25.060 to invest in this is this is the last temperate rainforest of its size anywhere

00:41:37.520 and

00:41:39.780 I really

00:41:46.060 hope that people

00:41:49.220 can get to know

00:41:50.680 what that means

00:41:53.760 more people

00:41:56.960 I think it's going to take

00:41:59.600 everybody coming together

00:42:01.280 and saying you know this is a treasure

00:42:03.000 this

00:42:04.720 is an incredibly

00:42:07.360 beautiful place

00:42:08.660 to live and work

00:42:11.180 and to visit

00:42:12.300 and

00:42:15.380 you know

00:42:17.680 after those

00:42:19.860 four

00:42:20.380 members

00:42:23.620 came to the

00:42:24.400 entire board except for one

00:42:27.540 voted for all of

00:42:29.800 the proposals that we wanted

00:42:31.720 people to vote against

00:42:33.780 and the one person that

00:42:37.060 voted against it he's from the interior he's athabasca he's indigenous and he's not on the

00:42:42.340 board anymore and i'm not sure how we um get that to be a fair process i think it comes it does come

00:42:51.740 down to uh for me sovereignty uh tribal sovereignty a lot of people might not be

00:42:59.480 familiar with that but you know tribes in the united states have a government-to-government

00:43:05.580 relationship with the federal government because of all of the land and resources were taken and

00:43:14.140 we don't have that with the state and we do have some with the local governments here which is

00:43:22.140 you know still finding our way but unless western institutions in general can come to a point of

00:43:32.780 understanding that indigenous knowledge

00:43:36.940 is valuable and that indigenous people are not the only ones that need to learn western ways of

00:43:49.100 being and western values but that western

00:43:52.740 society need us and need to understand our way of being in a place those changes are going to

00:44:05.140 be really difficult and i do see some places you know like at the university level and you know

00:44:12.540 moving in that direction and i really hope that people you know if people don't understand what

00:44:18.980 sovereignty is please you know read about it and if you if you don't know whose indigenous land

00:44:23.980 you're on find out and reach out reach out to people yeah so important for those of us who

00:44:37.160 aren't involved or aren't knowledgeable to get involved and learn and read and ask questions

00:44:47.300 in a respectful way and engage in the process. We do need all hands on deck. And for us to come

00:44:57.020 together and build relationship, we need to have a foundation of understanding and really the

00:45:02.640 patience and the time commitment to keep showing up in a way that has longevity and that deep

00:45:11.500 commitment so i i appreciate that reminder as well and i'm sure those of us listening in the

00:45:18.700 audience this that call um that calling in for us to hear that is so important i think we also need

00:45:27.620 to continually be calling each other into the work yeah so i really appreciate that and now since

00:45:35.100 2002, the Sitka tribe of Alaska has been appealing to the board of fish with various different

00:45:42.080 proposals to protect the herring population. And I mentioned this because it's been nearly

00:45:47.900 two decades of working to protect the herring. And this timeline brings up a question for me

00:45:53.500 on relationship, especially in a place like Alaska where the communities are small and

00:45:59.540 there is a real necessity of maintaining relationships alongside organizing and

00:46:04.780 campaigning. And I wonder if you can speak to how this work really involves working to instill

00:46:10.940 responsibility and relationship throughout the community through ceremony, like the Herring

00:46:18.180 Kui and the importance of working to build allyship outside of one's own circle.

00:46:24.800 that's one thing that is really good is it is a small community and you know i think our reach

00:46:32.980 can be so impactful opening up the kuih to people i think was sort of a turning point i think that

00:46:42.500 we're having here in shika it's actually it's pretty amazing we have that's one of the things

00:46:48.620 think that we've been able to do is to be very visible around some of these issues and the second

00:46:56.820 year that we had the kui it was again open to people and we actually had a symbolic uh canoe

00:47:05.940 journey from about seven miles north of sit to downtown sitka and then we had a parade and again

00:47:13.900 And everybody was invited.

00:47:15.820 And we actually invited people to come and learn how to do beadwork and how to, you know, carve a paddle and how to make drums and how to weave.

00:47:29.240 And all of those things, I don't think, you know, and we made it, we made regular announcements and we reached out to people.

00:47:36.220 And I think in a lot of ways, that was a first.

00:47:39.060 and the place that we had it was so crowded there were so many people and um those of us

00:47:47.580 who were working there were just like we have never seen this many local people here and for

00:47:52.320 the parade as well and the crew that we had down at the alaska native brotherhood hall which has

00:47:58.900 been mainly for native functions was full and you know people asking what they could we had people

00:48:05.400 asking us what they could do and how they can contribute and it's amazing how many people

00:48:11.840 even the non-indigenous folk had no idea we were still having ceremonies they had no idea how

00:48:21.240 important herring eggs were to us so it's been i think a great learning exchange and so we are

00:48:30.820 working on other issues i think especially with the turmoil that we've had around race we've been

00:48:37.860 able to do something so like we had a statue of uh baronoff who was a run who came here and it

00:48:48.440 was in front of where we hold the city meetings and we had a really pretty large group of

00:48:53.980 of supporters who said, you know, that isn't right, because he was very destructive and violent

00:49:01.260 with Alaska Natives, not only ethnic people, but the UNAM to the north. And so we had a lot of

00:49:07.780 supporters, and starting to get more supporters in, you know, city government, and we support

00:49:13.620 them as well. And again, it's just, it's saying, we want to be inclusive. And for me, a part of it

00:49:21.280 is that you know my I my culture I believe is just so beautiful and that reciprocity and the

00:49:29.580 the healing that happens that comes about when we gather as a community I think is amazing

00:49:37.120 and I think that's how we get to know each other is to you know it's you know everybody I think

00:49:44.220 has had collaborative projects where we sit together at a table and try to decide what to do

00:49:50.880 but it's the difference is that you know it's not a meeting it's coming together to celebrate

00:49:58.160 each other and to give each other the time and the space to do that and I think it has been

00:50:03.660 really impactful and we have had you know more and more people wanting to come to the Kuik and

00:50:11.000 I think because people are hungry to learn people do want to learn there's so many people that are

00:50:18.140 open right now to you know extending that hand or and reaching for that hand and saying you know

00:50:27.320 let's let's do this together let's learn how we can be part of the community

00:50:31.280 that's so beautiful and inspirational and i'm like yes okay we can do this

00:50:40.080 yes you'll come to the next one yes i want to be there i'm i'm thinking about how to make that

00:50:49.260 happen and yeah i i also want to mention um earlier this year the sitka tribe of alaska

00:50:56.920 won another round of its legal fight over the state's mismanagement of herring and i wonder

00:51:03.120 if you could share where you are now and what listeners can do to support especially if listeners

00:51:09.700 are not from Alaska and maybe also what's next? So the Sikha Tribe of Alaska filed a lawsuit.

00:51:18.760 I think it was the end of 2019 after 25 years of going to the Board of Fish. So there are three

00:51:27.380 parts to the lawsuit. And the latest ruling came on November 30th of last year, 2020,

00:51:37.540 where the judge ruled that the Alaska Department of Fish and Game

00:51:42.120 failed to follow regulations requiring it to meaningful consider

00:51:46.380 the quality and quantity of herring spawn on branches

00:51:49.760 when managing the commercial herring fishery in Sitka Sound.

00:51:54.040 So the Alaska Department of Fish and Game under their management

00:51:56.460 is supposed to be able to manage the fishery

00:51:59.540 so that we as indigenous people have the opportunity to go out

00:52:03.880 and get you know um herring eggs good quality herring eggs and you know and i don't even know

00:52:11.880 how to describe it again if you watch the video i mean there was a time when lay the branch out

00:52:17.720 and you can get like an inch thick of herring eggs on that and that's you know the quality

00:52:23.800 that people were used to for a long time and for the last 10 years it's hit or miss so

00:52:29.100 so basically and when we would tell uh the manager that uh there was no response ergo

00:52:37.280 and the board of fish that was why the lawsuit was filed so um that that was the latest win

00:52:43.220 but we don't know how that's going to be enforced so we're just waiting and then in march of last

00:52:52.040 year the judge ruled that adfng had failed to make required determinations regarding whether

00:52:58.620 there is a reasonable opportunity for subsistence harvesters when managing the commercial

00:53:04.240 fishery. And again, that also goes back to, you know, we haven't been able to get the

00:53:09.800 herring eggs that we needed. And so now we are waiting for what could be the final ruling,

00:53:16.480 but we're not sure. From the judge, we had a hearing in, our STA had a hearing in January.

00:53:21.760 and i'm not sure when we'll have a ruling on that but if the judge rules against the tribe

00:53:29.100 then there will be a trial in june and as people know uh second tribe of alaska had to

00:53:36.520 hire a law firm out of anchorage um that has handled what we what is called subsistence

00:53:43.080 cases previously uh and it's really hard to say some of these things without going into an

00:53:50.760 explanation to people of what they are but basically subsistence is traditional harvesting

00:53:56.000 whether it's herring eggs or um red red salmon um you know under alaska state laws people are

00:54:05.720 allowed to do that but specifically for us the subsistence herring eggs are the factor so

00:54:12.140 the way that people can support is um there's more information on our facebook page which is

00:54:19.500 called the herring protectors or you can support the sika tribe of alaska by sending uh funds to

00:54:30.160 help with the lawsuit and you can get that on the the address on the sika tribe of alaska s-i-t-k-a

00:54:43.080 um website or facebook page and you know i think overall too um i'm not sure how it would

00:54:55.560 affect what we're doing but every year there's an opportunity to submit

00:55:01.800 written testimony to the alaska department of fishing game of course that's mainly for

00:55:09.500 Alaska citizens but in general yeah just contact us we invite you to you know you can come to the

00:55:17.500 we're not having we're having a smaller celebration this year next month and I think to really learn

00:55:28.460 more about indigenous people and indigenous rights there is the

00:55:36.940 the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Peoples

00:55:42.340 and a Declaration of Human Rights.

00:55:47.220 And the way that the Alaska Department of Fish and Game has

00:55:50.140 and the state of Alaska have been,

00:55:53.660 just managing the fisheries is in direct violation

00:55:56.920 of many of the clauses in that.

00:56:00.500 And I think as people become more educated,

00:56:03.480 we're more likely to take action.

00:56:05.620 so contact us yeah i agree with that and yes please do and i will keep in touch and find ways

00:56:15.860 that for the wild can support and yeah and also in our show notes and through social media for

00:56:23.960 all of you who are listening we'll put up links on the website and such so you can find all this

00:56:29.560 information easily well Louise thank you so much for this time like I said at the beginning I felt

00:56:36.720 honored then and I feel so blessed to have been able to hear the depth of your yeah I just feel

00:56:51.640 of your heart, of your knowing of this land and of

00:56:55.680 yourself and in what we need to do moving

00:56:59.460 forward. So thank you so much for your time and your

00:57:03.440 devotion.

00:57:07.180 Thank you very much, Ayana.

00:57:11.900 And thank you for everything that you do.

00:57:14.040 thank you for listening to another episode of for the wild podcast the music you heard today

00:57:25.340 was by lake mary the ascent of everest alexandra blakely and fountain son for the wild is created

00:57:32.880 by ayana young erica ekram and francesca glassbell with special research assistance by julia jackson

00:57:44.040 We'll be right back.

For The Wild - May 25, 2022

K’ASHEECHTLAA - LOUISE BRADY on Restoring the Sacred [ENCORE] ⧸288

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