EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the first of a two-part series on the thoughts of some Makah tribal members 10 years after a successful gray whale hunt in 1999.
NEAH BAY — A decade after Makah tribal whalers made tribal history by harpooning a 32-ton gray whale from a cedar canoe, disappointment reigns over the lack of another legal whale hunt for the tribe.
No celebration is planned to commemorate the 10th anniversary today of the May 17, 1999, hunt.
Tribal members have been waiting so long to legally whale again — the issue has been tied up in court battles and environmental studies for most of the last 10 years — there is nothing to celebrate, they said in numerous interviews here last week.
“I thought we’d have 20 whales on the beach by now,” said Wayne Johnson,
Johnson was captain of the whaling crew that in 1999 took the Makah’s first whale in 70 years.
He also led four other Makah who illegally harpooned and shot dead a gray whale east of Neah Bay in September 2007 — which netted him five months in prison.
Johnson said one of the reasons there is no anniversary celebration today is because the tribal council is still upset about the rogue hunt two years ago.
Johnson, 56, sat in the Warm House restaurant in Neah Bay last week.
It is on the site of the old Makah Maiden restaurant where he and other whalers 10 years ago gathered in the early morning darkness, linking hands in a prayer circle before embarking on their hunts.
“We’re worse off than we were 10 years ago,” he said.
“It seems like we’ve lost ground.”
A beach near the restaurant is where the whale was dragged ashore — to the victoriously raised arms of adults and delighted squeals of children.
The whale was harpooned from the hand-hewn wooden canoe, which was named the Hummingbird, then finished off with bullets from an elephant gun fired from a motorized chase boat.
Days later, this reservation town of 1,800 and hundreds of guests feasted on whale meat and blubber.
The kill came after months of unsuccessful tries and paddling the Hummingbird through a flotilla of protest boats.
Paul Watson of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society condemned the whale hunt as illegal and immoral. He charged that it was not a spiritual quest, and that it would open the door to worldwide whaling.
Tribal members interviewed last week said they remain immensely proud of the whalers’ success in 1999 — but feel disappointed, frustrated, and sometimes bitter over being unable to legally whale again because of court delays instigated by opponents of what, for them, is a sacred tradition.
The events of May 17, 1999, transformed them.
“It changed all of us in different ways,” Johnson said.
“For me, mostly, it just kind of woke my eyes up on how much Native Americans are still fighting for their treaties in court over fish, halibut, whaling, always for food.
“The next thing will be our clams.
“It might take even longer than 10 years to figure how it changed us, but it changed us all.”
Anniversary gathering
Johnson and his 1999 crew planned to gather privately at the Warm House restaurant at 7 a.m. today to mark the anniversary – about the same time in 1999 when the gray whale was struck with the first of three harpoons by harpooner Theron Parker.
No visible signs of praise or accolades adorn this reservation town in far western Clallam County.
Johnson said one reason the tribe is not celebrating the whaling crew’s halcyon accomplishment in 1999 is because of the Makah Tribal Council.
Johnson said “bad blood” exists between him and the council over his actions and those of the four other whalers in the illegal hunt on Sept. 8, 2007.
That hunt claimed a whale that marine biologists had named CRC-175.
The whalers shot it at least 16 times from a motorboat and sank at least four harpoons into its flesh.
The animal bled for some 12 hours before dying and sinking to the bottom. It was never recovered.
Unlike the migrating female gray killed in 1999, CRC-175 was a “resident gray whale,” which lived mostly in the Strait of Juan de Fuca off Neah Bay.
In addition to five months in prison for Johnson, tribal member Andy Noel got 90 days.
Three other Makah men — Theron Parker, the 1999 harpooner, Frankie Gonzales and William Secor — pleaded guilty to one misdemeanor count each of violating the federal Marine Mammal Protection Act and were placed on two years’ probation.
(Attempts to interview Parker for this story were unsuccessful.)
The illegal hunt came as the tribe has been trying to get permission from the federal government to legally hunt gray whales again under its 1855 treaty with the U.S.
Some wildlife and animal-rights groups demanded that the tribe be forever banned from whaling because of the rogue hunt.
But federal officials continued their review of the tribe’s request for an exemption to the Marine Mammal Protection Act.
Acting on several lawsuits, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in 2002 that the Makah — despite being the only U.S. tribe with a treaty right to whale — must obtain a waiver under the act before it could hunt whales again.
‘I did nothing wrong’
The tribal council hasn’t forgotten the 2007 rogue hunt, Johnson said.
“The reason there wasn’t a dinner [is because] they are making the community suffer for what five people did,” he said.
“With the way I was raised, I did nothing wrong.”
But others interviewed indicated other tribal members also are still upset over the illegal hunt.
Tribal member Holly McCarty, a cousin of Micah McCarty’s — the present vice chairman of the tribal council who was its chairman at the time of the illegal hunt — said the hunt was wrong, that it divided the tribe and “put a damper” on an anniversary celebration,
“It set us back,” she said.
Responded Johnson: “I’m a hero to some people, and I’m not to others.”
Johnson said that other tribes were behind him.
“This is the only council I know of that is not 100 percent behind us.”
McCarty, 38, said the tribal council would not comment on Johnson’s assertions.
McCarty gave the 10-year anniversary a cultural context.
“It quickened the heartbeat of a culture,” he said, sitting in the tribal council chambers in Neah Bay.
Still, “there’s nothing really to celebrate,” said Johnson, whose family, along with McCarty’s, is among many whaling families in Neah Bay.
Hereditary chief Arnie Hunter, 68, said whale meat would be an excellent source of protein for tribal residents.
“I never expected to see [the hunt] happen in my lifetime,” he said.
But the hunt has receded so far in the past that he hadn’t thought about the anniversary.
“It’s been a big letdown waiting,” he said.
Hummingbird in a shed
The 13-man Hummingbird, fashioned from a single cedar tree, sits today hidden inside a wooden shed 75 yards from where the whale was dragged ashore after being towed in by a chase boat.
The 1855 Treaty of Neah Bay secured the Makah’s right to hunt whales. The tribe’s whaling tradition dates back at least 1,500 years.
Whaling provided food, oil, blubber and other products for the tribe, some of which were traded to other tribes and early Europeans.
Whaling was also seen as central to tribal culture.
Tribal members voluntarily stopped hunting whales in 1926 when they became endangered.
When the animals came off the endangered species list in 1994, the tribe sought to again exercise its right to whale — and received permission from the federal government and a quota from the International Whaling Commission.
In May 2007, the International Whaling Commission granted the Makah a new harvest quota of up to 20 whales over five years, with no more than five in one year.
But the Makah still must receive a federal waiver from the Marine Mammal Protection Act.
In February 2005, the tribe submitted a proposal to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries for a limited waiver from the act that limits the hunt to migratory gray whales in the tribe’s traditional hunting grounds between Dec. 1 and May 31.
A federal 900-page draft environmental impact statement was released in May 2008. It is available at NOAA’s regional Web site, www.nwr.noaa.gov.
NOAA Fisheries is reviewing public comment as it prepares a final draft.
“We’re still treading water on their application,” Brian Gorman, spokesman for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said Friday.
“It would be folly to anticipate when this is going to finally come to closure.
“It is highly likely that given the history of all this that we would be sued immediately if we grant a waiver.”
Keith Johnson, chairman of the tribal whaling commission, sat with Wayne Johnson at the Warm House restaurant.
Whaling opponents, he said, “are choking us off as a people.”
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Monday: The man who was tribal chairman on May 17, 1999, tells how the events of that day changed his life, while Cape Flattery School District is on the verge of making inroads in educating school children statewide about tribal sovereignty.
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Staff writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-417-3536 or at paul.gottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com
