Beached whale provides ‘great big learning experience' for Tla-o-qui-aht

Hamilton Spectator

15-05-2025

Eric Plummer
Tofino, BC - After engaging in a practice that once sustained their ancestors over a century ago, dealing with a whale that washed up on Long Beach has been a massive learning experience for Tla-o-qui-aht members.
'It takes a whole community to get this done,' said Gisele Martin, after her and other members of the First Nation harvested parts of the deceased grey whale, or maaʔak, on May 10. 'I think it's been a great big, amazing learning experience.'
Earlier in the week Gisele was alerted by her father Joe Martin, who heard that a whale was seen floating by Long Beach in Tla-o-qui-aht waters. A master carver, Joe was away in Powell River finishing a canoe with students, so he let his daughter know about the cetacean's loose body. Joe was keen for the First Nation to be the first to take care of the animal.
'I told my daughter, 'That's our whale, it drifts to our beach',' he said.
Gisele went with fellow Tribal Parks Guardian Nate Currie to tie the whale down.
'I did try to tie a rope, rope them when we were on the beach at low tide, but it was really hard to get it secure because the tail was very, very heavy and it was suctioned to the sand,' said Gisele.
When the tide rose at midnight Gisele had an unsettling feeling about the animal remaining secured. She called Currie to revisit the site with her, and found the whale loose and rolling around in the surf.
'The tail was so strong,' she recalled of the struggle to tie the tail down again. 'It was just really humbling. The size of it felt so much larger in the dark. It just seemed like this massive, massive being.'
'It was quite an adventure in the moonlight,' added Gisele.
According to Parks Canada, the grey whale was seen floating in the area since May 6, the day before Gisele and Nate Currie tied the animal's tail to the beach. When it was finally secured the Tla-o-qui-aht Tribal Parks Guardians and Parks Canada drew a line in the sand around the body to restrict access 'both for health and safety reasons, and in respect for the whale,' said the federal department in an email to Ha-Shilth-Sa.
According to Jim Darling, a biologist and Tofino resident who has been studying whales since the 1970s, there's approximately 200 grey whales living off the coast of Vancouver Island, and another 15,000 that migrate offshore from Mexico to the Arctic each year.
Samples were taken from the body to perform a necropsy, the results of which are yet to be reported by Fisheries and Oceans Canada.
But those who cut into the animal observed signs of head trauma.
'Right behind the head there was a lot of blood clot,' said Joe Martin. 'I'm thinking that whale was surfacing when it got hit by a ship. It probably got knocked out or killed immediately. I think it was dead for maybe three or four days before it landed on the beach here.'
'It may not just have been a single thing that caused the death of this whale,' added Gisele. 'We can see that they got some kind of blunt trauma to their head, but why did this whale get blunt trauma to the back of their head? That's also related to them feeling disoriented of being emaciated, too skinny and not floating well, not getting enough food.'
On May 10 the cutting began with Joe taking a section of blubber from behind the head.
'That is the section where our family would take the first cut from the whale,' he said. 'The blubber was not very thick, maybe six inches at the most in some places. Mostly that whale was really skinny.'
The elder has carved into grey whales before, including one that was towed into Ahousaht in March 2000 after it died while entangled in a net being used collect herring eggs on kelp. This was the first whale taken to Ahousaht's shore for consumption since 1963, a rare return to the time-honoured practice that provided Nuu-chah-nulth communities with wealth for countless generations.
Joe Martin also cut into a grey whale that was hunted in May 1999 by the Makah Tribe of Neah Bay, the first they had harvested in nearly 80 years.
'That blubber was about 10 inches thick too. It was healthy,' recalled Joe.
That hunt of 26 years ago occurred with the support of the US government and the International Whaling Commission, but amid public pressure the Makah have lobbied ever since to exercise a right that remains enshrined in the 1855 Treaty of Neah Bay. They hope to resume whaling in July if a permit is granted final approval, setting off a ceremonial and subsistence hunt that would enable the harvest of up to 25 grey whales over 10 years.
As people removed parts from the maaʔak on Long Beach, it became clear that the real work begins once a whale is brought to shore.
'At one point I counted 19 people cutting at once, and a whole other crowd of people watching and helping,' said Gisele. 'There was little kids helping to pull off the blubber.'
This all occurred after a morning ceremony was performed.
'It's the appropriate thing that I figured was necessary for that whale and how our people respected them,' said Joe. 'We have to uphold those responsibilities.'
'I really hope that no more whales suffer and are washed ashore like that,' noted Gisele. 'But at the same time, should they, I feel that I've gotten way more of a concept of what I would do or wouldn't do and the work involved.'
The response of government agencies gave Gisele hope of how relations with her nation have improved.
'A lot of times we've been intercepted and stopped from our cultural life ways by government agencies, and even Parks Canada staff in the past,' she said. 'This feels like the first time that all these different agencies have come together and cohesively just supported Tla-o-qui-aht leadership in what to do with this whale.'
The carcass has since been buried in an undisclosed location. Joe is waiting for 'critters' to eat off the remaining flesh from the jaw bones so he can carve it into an art piece, while others are rendering the whale blubber they removed into oil. Some have even eaten the meat.
'I had some last night,' said Joe. 'It was really good. I'm still full.'
-With files from Nora O'Malley and Denise Titian
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Gisele Martin collects baleen from a grey whale at Long Beach on May 10 for ceremonial use in Tla-o-qui-aht Tribal Parks. (Marcie Callewaert photo)