Before there was an Island highway connecting the west coast to the rest of Canada and long before there was a food store bringing in fresh supplies, coastal First Nations hunted and ate seal for subsistence.
To bring back this forgotten tradition, young Indigenous men from the Nuu-chah-nulth Youth Warriors Family harvested four harbour seals in October – two from Sarita Bay in Huu-ay-aht First Nations (HFN) modern treaty territory and two from unceded Tla-o-qui-aht First Nations (TFN) territory.
For most of the Warriors, the whole experience of harbour seal hunting, or kuukuḥw̓isa ʔuʔuʔiiḥ as they say in Nuu-chah-nulth language, was a first.
“There were a lot of emotions and tears of joy and pride in bringing this back and revitalizing this knowledge that’s asleep that existed up and down the coast,” said Spencer Greening (La’goot).
Greening, an Indigenous scholar from the Ts’myen (Tsimshian) People of the Pacific northwest, was trained by his elders in how to hunt seal. He was invited by the Warriors Family to mentor the team and show them how to harvest, gut and butcher the marine mammal as his ancestors did.
“It was a total privilege to be in this territory and mentor like they mentored me,” said Greening.
Sporting a wetsuit for the mission, Nookemis says they ventured into a shallow estuary in their little tin boat and saw seals scooting around everywhere.
“Fifteen or 20 popped up. It was a pick which one you want kind of deal,” said Nookemis. “I got to shoot it and had to dive through all his blood. I was snorkeling around trying to find it. It was my first big-game kill.”
“If you make a clean shot on a seal, often they’ll float because of their blubber content and because of the salt. Sometimes they do sink,” Greening noted.
Upon returning to shore, the rest of the Warriors team were called up to help with the butchering.
“We cut open one of the guts and there was a whole spring salmon in there. It just fell right out,” Nookemis shared, adding that the bone was really easy to butcher. “It was way softer than a deer.”
As you take apart a seal, Greening explained, the hide comes off first then the blubber is separated from the hide, cleaned and cubed for rendering into oil. After the blubber, the seal meat is butchered into cuts for jarring and cuts for cooking.
“We used everything we could,” said Greening.
The Warriors will learn how to tan the hides, or pelt, at a future workshop.
Traditionally, seal pelts were used for all sorts of regalia like boots, gloves, earrings and coats. In a 1969 Fisheries and Research Board of Canada report on the harbour seal in B.C., author Michael Bigg wrote that: “Since 1962 this seal has been hunted for its commercially valued pelt. Seal hunters generally receive between $5 and $35 for a prime raw pelt and up to $50 when the demand is high.”
The ecological benefits of hunting seal
In his 1969 report, Bigg states that the harbour seal “gained notoriety from the fishing industry and sports fishermen as a predator on commercially valuable fish species.”
To reduce predation, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans put a bounty on the seal from 1914 to 1964, Bigg reports.
The commercial seal hunt ended in 1967 and the Pacific harbour seal population in B.C. has since increased to around 100,000, according to a Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) species bulletin from 2019.
Greening currently a Ph.D. student at Simon Fraser University investigating how using Indigenous knowledge and language in stewardship can create more sustainable Canadian land management practices. He says the plight of wild salmon is another reason why modern day coastal First Nations are keen on reviving seal hunting practices.
“Salmon stocks and salmon numbers are some of the worst they’ve ever been within memory. Seal and sea lions play a big part of that,” said Greening. “Becoming seal hunters again, we’re introducing ourselves back into the ecosystem as Indigenous people; an ecosystem where we were able to influence and sustain amazing fish populations for millennia. This is just one tool to help salmon populations.”
Community feast
Everything harvested was feasted with community and gifted out.
Rachel Dickens-Greening, a diabetes dietician and Ph.D. candidate at UBC studying land and food systems, spent two days teaching the Warriors how to process and cook the seal for a community feast.
“The act of hunting the seal was just as important as cooking it and gifting it. We fed over 30 people in Opitsaht and there was jarred meat for people to take home,” said Dickens-Greening, a new mother to baby girl Maaya’ol, which means ‘berry of the bears’ in the Ts’msyen language.
Seal meat is very dark, notes Greening, who is Rachel’s husband, and it’s like gelatin when you butcher it.
“But it firms right up once you cook it,” said Dickens-Greening. “Often we are cooking it on a low and slow temperature to get it tender.”
Seal dishes served included ribs, burgers, tacos, seal and gravy, crispy fried heart, liver and onions and a sweet and salty recipe based off a Vietnamese caramelized pork recipe – a favourite amongst the Warriors.
“The plates were empty,” said Nookemis, noting that he thought the seal meat tasted a lot like roast beef. “It was really good.”
One elder shared at the community feast that he hadn’t eaten seal since the 1940s.
The flipper, a delicacy that was traditionally served to chiefs, matriarchs and the highest elder, was scorched and boiled like pigs’ feet.
Seal harvesting rights in B.C.
Status-Indians don’t need a licence and have the right to hunt seal and sea lion in their territory for food, social and ceremonial purposes, according the 2017 Legal Services Society publication ‘A Guide to Aboriginal Harvesting Rights’.
Greening relays that back home in Ts’msyen territory “it’s no questions asked, it’s totally fine, as long as you have status and you’re in your traditional territory.”
As a modern treaty Nation, Huu-ay-aht was required to submit a Wildlife Harvest Plan to DFO and undergo a year-long permissions process to harvest seal, whereas Tla-o-qui-aht went internally for permissions with knowledge holders and the First Nation.
For non-status Indians, Legal Aid says the regulations in B.C. do not recognize your right to hunt, trap, or freshwater fish without a licence, and when it comes to hunting seals, it’s illegal in the province unless you are a status-Indian.
In Eastern Canada however, seal hunters in Quebec, Newfoundland and Labrador, Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick can seek a personal licence to harvest up to six harp and/or grey seals, according to a recent announcement from DFO.
“Previously, DFO's Commercial Fisheries Licensing Policy for Eastern Canada only allowed harvesters in Quebec and Newfoundland and Labrador to apply for personal-use seal licences,” reads the DFO announcement. “In addition to expanding the personal-use seal harvest into new provinces, amendments to the policy have also incorporated the long-standing practice of requiring harvesters to participate in humane harvesting information sessions.”
DFO went on to say they will work with provinces on options to further expand access to the personal use seal harvest next year.
Nookemis is already looking forward to harvesting his next seal. He says he wants to get a pelt for his grandparents and thinks seal meat could one day be distributed in community just like food fish.
