Max Jr, Naomi, Phil + Deserea

NOAA Tape T016F, T017F, T018F Max Jr, Naomi, Phil + Deserea Page 1 of 17 Interviewer, Interviewer, Max Jr, Naomi, Phil, Deserea

Interviewer: How is the seal important to you, and how do you feel the seal is important to the way of life on St. George Island, anybody? Is the seal important?

Male Interviewee: It is. The seal is important. I think, in terms of subsistence, the value of it is very important in our community. Some of the community members depend upon the seal every year, on a yearly basis, not only for food, as a food source, but as also an alternative to, you know, buying at the grocery store. And so I think that plays a role in how important the fur seal is on St. George, and –

Interviewer: Do you think it’s part of your culture in a sense the way it’s always been, that we just feel that the seal is part of our heritage, or is it just for as a food item because it’s free food?

Male Interviewee: Well, the importance of the fur seal, I think, now is probably a little less important as it has been for my father and my grandfather, because they were more dependent on the fur seal for economic reasons. They were paid to go out and commercially harvest fur seals, so that was their livelihood. Not only did they kill them commercially for income, but it was also a food source. So I think those two factors played a real good role, and just the livelihood of the seals coming to St. George every summer, so the economic and the subsistence value played a real big role, you know, back in the earlier days, more so than I think present time. It is, to some extent, an economic resources for arts and crafts, subsistence being another one, and also for, you know, other aspects of the economy, such as tourism. We have fur seal retreats here, and people come here to see the fur seals every year. And with, you know, the current population the way it is, you know the down trend, are we going to have fur seals here, you know, 20 years from now? So, you know, if we don’t have fur seals here, then why would people want to come to the ______if we didn’t have fur seals? So I think the economics, subsistence of those two play a very big role on St. George.

Interviewer: So if there was no fur seals here, do you think you wouldn’t want to live here? You think anybody would want to live here without the fur seals? And if so, what would drive you to stay here?

Female Interviewee: I feel that, traditionally and culturally, they’re very important. Our children need to know who they are and where they came from. And today, if the seals weren’t around, there’s a lot of people that depend on it. There’s a lot of people that put seals in their freezer. There’s a lot of people with no jobs. Personally, I have seals in my freezer. I cook it, and I showed my children how to cook it, and if

www.escriptionist.com Page 1 of 17 NOAA Tape T016F, T017F, T018F Max Jr, Naomi, Phil + Deserea Page 2 of 17 Interviewer, Interviewer, Max Jr, Naomi, Phil, Deserea

they don’t know where they’ve come from, then it’s – I don’t know the word, that – I feel that they need to know where their home is, and if they don’t know about seals, then they pretty much don’t know where their home is.

Interviewer: Right. Anybody else want to add to that? So on St. George, it does have a restricted economy. How – I don’t know how to say this. Is it important to you to be able to raise a family on St. George? What value does St. George have for rearing a family, in your opinion?

Female Interviewee: I’m originally from the Yukon, and I’ve been here for 12 years, and I’ve been married to Phil, and his parents were born and raised here. And being here in the past 12 years, I’ve learnt a lot, and how people live out here and their cultures, and it’s just amazing. These people are really amazing, and I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else.

Interviewer: So does the isolation of living on St. George bother you, or do you like the closeness and being – basically, is it great knowing everybody?

Female Interviewee: For me, it’s a comfort zone. I’ve been living here for 25 years, and I’m 25-years-old, and I wouldn’t think about – I mean, thinking about moving, for me, is – it’s a scary thought because I’m an island girl, and I love it here. I have family here. The religion is a great big part of my life also, besides the history of seals. It’s like – I have a daughter now. She’s six-years-old, and it’s like the community is like a whole big family for watching out for your kids, and it’s like a really big family here, and it’s moving out to the city is – it’s –

Interviewer: So yeah, if you could just, you know, talk about that again.

Female Interviewee: (Laughter)

Interviewer: I mean, just sort of the latter about how important community is and how this is a family for you, and what it would be like moving to the city, you know.

Interviewer: Ready?

Interviewer: Yeah, ready.

Interviewer: Okay.

Interviewer: Living on St. George is important because –

Female Interviewee: Living here on St. George, it’s a community. It’s a real big family to me. Moving off the island is – to me, is a scary thought because I’m so comfortable here. I have a lot of family and friends here, and I’m raising a daughter here. I think it’s best to – what a lot of families think here that it’s a really good place for children to be raised as of having other families, just not only yourself, your family, but you have friends and family to watch out for your kids, and they’re safe here. Living out in the city, for me, it’s too fast- paced, and it’s – there’s a lot of noise, and it’s – I really have a hard time adjusting to that thought, and I just feel safe here, and I know that my daughter is safe, so it’s really important.

Interviewer: And you, Philip?

Phil: I’m a little – you know, I think that the isolation among the island is a major factor, but I don’t think there is – I don’t think it goes pro or con either way. I mean, you know, the isolation is kind of middle ground for me. You know, as other people have stated already, you know, it’s a great place to raise your family. You know, you’ve got a close tight-knit community. Everyone’s looking out for each other, and it’s just – it’s an easy place to raise a family, and I think that’s definitely one of the things that keeps me here. We’ve toyed with the idea of leaving the island, and we always come back to, you know, just a few things that always remain the same. You know, it’s – there’s a feeling of being safe here.

Max Jr: All right, you brought up the isolation of St. George, but I think in the past, the isolation was more so than it is now, especially with technology, so it’s not that bad. I mean, we have, you know, every major, I mean, I don’t want to say commodity like super marts or you know, big malls and what not, but you know, we have internet access. And you know, we have television, just like everyone else, but you know, if you’re talking about close-knit family and family ties, each one of us here has had, you know – Phil and I, we actually ran across some 1914 census, and we saw some of our great grandparents that had, you know, lived here and you know, back in the 1914’s on St. George Island. Imagining, you know, what life would have been like for them is a lot more hard. I mean, it must have been a lot harder back in, you know, the 1910’s than it is now in 2006, so –

Interviewer: In what way do you think it would have been harder?

Male Interviewee: Well, I think just fossil fuels, they were probably burning coal, and (laughter) I think some things stay the same, such as family and religion. We’re still dependent upon those today. I mean, that’s something that has never changed on St. George. Close-knit family ties, and religion, and the fur seal. I mean, those are three things that have never changed and that probably will never change on St. George.

Interviewer: So church attendance seems to be down compared to what it was, what I’m told anyway. Do you think that there’s a loss of faith, or church, as you say, and if you can express it? They ______on St. Paul as well, but churches are still really important, despite people aren’t going, but they’re still part of their culture and being. How do you feel about the importance of church? And what is the church that you worship in here? What’s the name of your religion is it? You can just say that, basically, ______.

Male Interviewee: Well, the Russian Orthodox religion is – I think is very – it goes hand-in-hand with our cultural heritage, and my grandfather – where am I going with this? (Laughter) I think – what is it – I used to go to church more often back then than I do now?

Interviewer: Does it bind the community? Is there a central – is it a place you go and seek help or –

Male Interviewee: Well, I think it –

Interviewer: -- companionship, or –

Male Interviewee: I think it all ties into Americanization, because back when, you know – you know, I think we first got TVs back in, you know, the early 80s. So before then, there was no television, and I think the telephone service was just starting up then. So kids are starting to get Americanized, and you know, they have better things to do than go to church, and I think their parents, in a sense, have become Americanized, whereas you know, my great – or my grandfather, he was – he never went on the internet. You know, he watched TV, but he was always – he was at church every Sunday, when he could be, and I think it was just because that was a place where he thought he needed to be. It was – the church, to him, the Russian Orthodox religion, was there before television was there. It was there before the telephone service was here. So I mean, without any other recreational activities besides subsistence ______, they went to church. The community went to church, and it was a place of gathering.

Interviewer: So I’ll take – if Father Deacon departs, there is no one else to run the church, and it just basically gets boarded up, do you think that would be a loss to the community?

Female Interviewee: I don’t think the community would let that happen.

Interviewer: You just kind of say, “I don’t think the community would let that happen.”

Female Interviewee: Oh, I don’t think the community will allow the church to be boarded up. My family, we go to church often. I used to be Catholic, and I converted to Russian Orthodox, not – because I feel it’s an interesting – you know, it’s – everything is just interesting, the church, and I really enjoy, you know – enjoy this like, everything about St. George, and not many people get married in the Russian Orthodox Church. I think we’ve have one wedding in the last six years. And my children are Russian Orthodox, and when I did convert over to Russian Orthodox from Catholic, it meant a lot to me because Max and Crystal asked me to be their crusna for their son. And so we got baptized at the same time, the baby, and then myself, so it was kind of a sense of belonging.

Male Interviewee: You mentioned a little bit about the attendance of the church being down. I think you’ll find that a lot of the people that live out here are very spiritual and I tend to think that a lot of people find that while church is important, it’s – sorry, I – it doesn’t seem that it’s a determining factor in a lot of things. I mean, the church is important. I’m pretty religious, but I don’t always make it, and I don’t think that’s a bad thing, but you know, it’s –

Female Interviewee: A lot of the time, you get pressured, and then a lot of the time, there’s – there’s times you keep getting reminded, you know, like, “I didn’t see you in church,” you know, and it’s kind of –

Max Jr: Right, I mean, we all know when the holidays are, and we get reminded to go to church.

Female Interviewee: Yeah.

Max Jr: But sometimes, we have other obligations, in the way of kids that are sick, and sometimes we can’t make, or we make up our own excuses not to go. But I think, you know, everyone’s in church during Easter. If a priest comes, I think we’re all in church, so I think church is important. It was, back when – Phil and I, when we were both kids, we were – you know, we were forced to go to

church every Sunday, and I think we were both altar boys at one point in time and it’s just that –

Phil: Yeah, definitely.

Max Jr: – that’s that, you know, that factor that, you know, church has always played a big role in our lives. I think, as kids growing up, I don’t know if we were forced to go, but I mean, you saw the same people in church every Sunday, so you felt like if you didn’t go to church, you’d be kind of – “I didn’t see you in church. Where were you?” And it’s, you know – so you get – it was almost a sense of belonging, going to church, and that’s kind of nice to have that.

Interviewer: Yeah, great. Great discussion. Now, we’ve talked about church and the community a little bit. What about the government? How do you feel that the – does the government play an important role for the community out here? Should it continue to somehow bring itself to bear and do grants and other types of funding? Are they important for this community, or would you rather that the government just went away? And I don’t mean totally away; I mean, there’s certain things that you’ll always have to follow, but I mean in terms of probably the government’s fairly in these islands for funding for harbors, airports, whatever, building, construction projects.

Male Interviewee: So the government in terms of the fur seal, or –

Interviewer: Well, it could be whatever you want to say, but you know, where – is NOAH important, for example, out here, or is just the government in general. Is the government an important part of the mainstay of – the survival of St. George without the government, we would not be able to exist, or yeah, we could still exist without the government. We’re fine as the way we are.

Male Interviewee: Well, without the government, I don’t think we’d know was the next day. (Laughter)

Interviewer: I didn’t mean the government just disappearing. I mean, as a contributor to the maintenance of your –

Male Interviewee: I understand.

Male Interviewee: I think the government plays a large role in the community. I mean, obviously they hold the purse strings, and well, that’s not

the only factor. I mean, there are number of government agencies operating on St. George at any given time.

Male Interviewee: ______the fish and wildlife, there is.

Male Interviewee: National ______Fishing Service.

Max Jr: Right.

Phil: Both Max and myself work under an EPA funded program.

Max Jr: Right.

Phil: You know, I –

Max Jr: Well, they actually have three. There’s one for the United States’ Environmental Protection Agency. There’s a tribal wildlife grant from U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and there’s a grant from the National Marine Fishery Service ______Island Sentinel Program. So I think, you know, with other governments, you know it’s – and I think we, you know, we rely upon the government just as any other community in Alaska or any other county or state in America, and so –

Interviewer: Naomi, do you have anything to offer?

Naomi: No, I don’t.

Interviewer: No comment.

Naomi: No comment on the government.

Interviewer: (Laughter) Okay, that’s fine.

Female Interviewee: I think the cost of living, it’s not, for myself and my family, we both work, and we get by, but it’s just the cost of getting freight out here, the cost of getting plane ticket out of here. You know, it’s pretty spendy. The isolation with not getting food out here when the plane is canceled, that’s pretty scary, but otherwise, I can’t really think the worst part of being out here.

Male Interviewee: Right, I think one of the bad parts was a couple of years ago, when it was during the summer, and it was like really foggy, and we didn’t get a plane into St. George for about a month. And I think, you know, the stores started running out of bread and like, you know, without potatoes and what not, so that’s – I think that factor.

Like, during the summer, when there is a lot of fog here, so that’s probably – it’s pretty tough, and you can’t get mail in, you know. You can’t get your credit card statements, and it’s – (Laughter)

Interviewer: Well, how did you do without a water supply for a while? Is that kind of frightening, or just had to work hard?

Male Interviewee: Actually, I wasn’t here when that happened.

Female Interviewee: It was really frustrating, not having any water, going to – there was days where the city would give water to your part of the community, which was the upper part of the town, and then we have the new housing and the downtown area. They would switch the water source to downtown and part of uptown for maybe one date. And then, they would announce to the community that we’re going to shut off your water, maybe a couple of hours from now, so it would be a good time for you to put some – store some water away for yourself. So we would have our water – our tub filled up with water for, you know, the toilet and we would have to, you know, do our laundry when, you know – when we had the water, and but it was harder. I mean, it was more work, and if you didn’t have any water, or you ran out of water, you would have to find somebody else or another family member to help you. Get some water.

Female Interviewee: The last time, with it being frustrating, I wasn’t here, but my family was here, but the same thing happened, like four or five years ago. I can remember the tank freezing up or something like that, and –

Male Interviewee: Right.

Female Interviewee: And the most frustrating part was no one was prepared, and you’d think they would have learnt four or five years ago, when it happened, that eventually it’s going to happen again.

Male Interviewee: So I think one of the down sides of living on St. George might be the cost of living, but I don’t think you can directly contribute that to any one of the entities here, whether it be the city of St. George, the St. George _____ Corporation, or the St. George Regional Council. The cost of living is, I think, has gone up. The past five years, after the opilio Crab went down, it just crashed, and so – and that’s when crab rationalization came about. And when there was an influx of crab coming in, there was like a trickle effect within the community itself. Boats were coming into the harbor. They were buying fuel, and that lowered the fuel prices, because they

were selling in bulk fuel. It had a trickle effect in the community. We had barges coming in and delivery groceries to the store, which lowered food prices, and there was money coming in. There was raw fish tax given to the city of St. George. The Tanaq Corporation, they had crab pot storage, and they were also selling fuel, so think, within the past five years, people have been moving off the island because of lack of jobs and because of the cost of living. So a quick fix to that problem probably would be a processing fund of some sort on St. George. Back in 1984, you know, when the cessation of the fur seal, commercial fur seal harvest happened, we had to switch from one industry to another industry, and we’ve been trying, for about 20 years, to get something like that started. And I think we’ve had some floating processing funds come to St. George, and that has helped out, but I think we need something a little more permanent, something on- shore, something that’s not going to go away, in order to sustain a community of 120 plus people.

Interviewer: Along those lines, I think it was Tanaq put in for a grant to consider revitalizing the sealing plant. So what you have on this island is basically the only sealing plant left in the world. How important do you think – and again, you say too, on St. Paul, just about every building associated with the sealing industry has been torn down or will be torn down this summer. How important do you think the sealing infrastructure, the sealing plant, if you will, which is all the building associated with commercial harvesting, is to the vitality of this town, to the heritage of this town, and for the future of this town? Would you rather just see it knocked down?

Max Jr: No, not at all, I think that’s a –

Interviewer: Could you just like repeat –

Max Jr: Right.

Interviewer: The sealing plant’s important to this town.

Max Jr: Yeah, the sealing plant is very important to our community. It’s one of the only existing fur seal plants, or sealing plants, I think, in the North Pacific or even the world. It has strong cultural ties to all of our families here. I think Philip’s grandparents worked there. My grandparents worked there. Naomi’s grandparents worked there. And you know, we also hear weird stories of our grandparents working there. My grandfather said, you know, they used to have competitions of how many pelts they can do – how many fur seal pelts they can blubber in an hour or in a minute, you

know. So I think they did like a record was 27 or 30 in an hour, (laughter) and that’s pretty – that’s a lot of fur seal skins in an hour. I tried doing it last summer, and I think I did one, and it took me like an hour and a half, and I was beat. I was tired. I couldn’t do it. (Laughter) So I mean, these guys are tough, and just you hear those kinds of stories, you know, and to go in the same building that they worked in, you know, blood and guts. That’s what it took, and that’s what they got paid for, you know, so I think when you hear stories like that and to see the building where my grandparent – my grandfather and my father worked in, you remember the stories. And you remember what it was like to live back in the commercial fur seal harvest days, so I think that’s really reminiscent. You see it everyday, and to not have it there would just – you know, you’d lose a lot of history.

Interviewer: Along those lines, I mean, have any of you heard that, from your parents or grandparents, or great grandparents, that they actually miss those days, and they wish those days were still here, or are they glad to be out of those days?

Max Jr: I think I heard my grandfather just say, at one point in time, you know, they were almost treated like slaves, because initially, when he was a kid, you know, working age – I forget how old he was when he started blubbering fur seal skins, but they used to get paid per pelt, not by the hour. It was before, I guess, any laws were in effect up here, so to hear stories like that is kind of disheartening, you know. It was almost like slave labor. If you were getting paid per pelt, so the more pelts you – and the more pelts you blubbered, the more credit you would get at the store to buy food. I don’t even think they were paid in dollars. I think they were paid in credit to buy food, so – and my grandfather, he had a lot of children in his house, so he wasn’t able to blubber enough skins. They had to live off the land, you know, so some hard times, especially in the winter, you know.

Interviewer: Naomi, you’re shaking your head, yeah. ______that too?

Naomi: Yes, just hearing what Max had to say about the slave part, it – the same, too, my grandpa talked about it is – and you could see the hard times, and his hands – the way his hands look now, from doing all that hard labor just for – just like what Max was talking about, getting credit for at the store to buy food. He also talked about getting less than – maybe less than $.25 a pellet, just for one, and working with all those men. All his family and his friends, side by side, doing all that hard labor, I think is what kept them as a family and kept them going, because they knew that they needed

each other to get through those days. And which, during winter time, they would have to live off the subsistence as the sealing and the birds, and it was – those days were really really hard.

Interviewer: So do all those experiences, do they attribute to the way you – I don’t know how to say this. Did you feel like they make you a stronger person, based on the experiences that your grandparents went through, just knowing that they had a harder time? Does that make you feel like you are not going to do that kind of thing, that you are going to do whatever it takes to make a go of it? I don’t know if I can express that well enough but –

Max Jr: To see what my, you know, my grandfather and my dad went through in order to make a living off the commercial fur seal harvest, and that was the only opportunity they had to make money on St. George. You know, they couldn’t open up their own – you know, they couldn’t be entrepreneurs and say, “Hey, I want to open up my own, you know, store here, and I want to do this or that, or open up my own burger shop.” You know, they had to – I mean, that was the only thing that they had here on St. George. And you know, to hear, you know, my father and my grandfather’s stories about how hard they worked and down at the wash house, it’s sad. It’s sad, you know, it’s sad in a way, but it frustrates me a little bit, just the history of, you know, what they went through, in order to make a living. And you know, it’s just a – yeah, it’s pretty sad.

Female Interviewee: If they didn’t do what they did with – if they didn’t do what they were told and didn’t show up, they wouldn’t have no way of feeding their family anymore. That was the only thing that they did and they had. That was the only job that they had, so –

Interviewer: So, are they – I’m sorry.

Female Interviewee: So that’s what I was trying to – also wanted to make a point out of, was what Max said. That was the only job that they had.

Max Jr: Yeah, I mean, we’re – you know, the – maybe not the third generation, but you know, we’re probably fourth or fifth generation, maybe even more, but the third generation that I can remember stories from, from my grandfather, and the stories that he told me. I’m really glad that we don’t have to experience that. I mean, we have other opportunities now. You know, we have – you know, Phil, he’s an entrepreneur. He opened his own business, and that’s something that he could not have done, you know, 20 or 30 years ago on St. George Island. You know, that

was, “What are you, crazy? What are you going to do, man? You’re going to” – (Laughter) You know, and so just I think the fact of, you know, being Americanized and growing up on St. George, and listening to these stories makes you want to succeed in life and to understand, you know, the hardships that, you know, that we went through. You know, it just makes you – it give you that – it gives me that push to try to do better in life, you know. You have a lot of encouragement, you know, that people want to see you succeed. They want to see you go off and go to school, but then again, they want you to come back here to the community to, you know, try to help out a little bit with the economy or whatever, build capacity in a sense.

Interviewer: Since it’s important to you, how is it going to be conveyed to your children?

Phil: I think personally, myself, I’d like to my children sort of follow in our own footsteps. I mean, you know, you push for the modernization, the Americanization, so to speak, get them educated, but you want them to also have the understanding that, you know, your from a community. You’re from a place that’s endured a lot, and that what’s gone on in the past helps determine who you are today. I think they need a sense of that history, and a large portion of that history comes from the sealing plant, you know, and how things were back in the days. You know, my dad would tell me stories about how when some guy is – you know, if they didn’t perform well, they got pushed out of jobs that didn’t pay as well. You know, some people couldn’t afford what was necessary for their families at the time. I mean, you know, simple everyday items, and I’d heard stories from my grandmother on my mom’s side of how families couldn’t – they couldn’t provide for their entire family, and people were off and allowing other people in the community to adopt their children. And stories like that, I mean, it would have to be a pretty extreme thing for that to happen today. I mean, we’ve always got family looking out for each other, and you know, if you can’t provide for your family, your direct family, somebody in your immediate family will help you. And I think that’s important, and I don’t think you could get that sense of family and well-being if you lived in a bigger city, where every thing’s all spread out, unless you have really close-knit family ties.

Interviewer: Okay, a good observation. Naomi, how would you pass on the heritage of your grandparents or parents to your children, or in what ways do you think you would do that or could do that, or will you do that?

Naomi: My grandpa and my grandpa, they’re – my grandpa is the Father Deacon of the church, along with the grandma is the martishka, and they’ve given me a lot of knowledge and a lot of – told me a lot about where I come from and who I am. And I will pass that on to my daughter, or to any of my other kids, about the hardships they went through during those, what they call, “slave of the harvest” days, and their religion is a really big part of my life. I didn’t even have to read the Bible. I just listened to what they had to say, and they taught me a lot about the Russian Orthodox ways, and that is something that will never be forgotten. The church will always be there, no matter if you’re there or not. That’s – I know, with the elders, they are taking a lot of knowledge with them, about our Aleut ways, about our religious ways, and a lot of it is dying because they are taking it with them.

A long time ago, we couldn’t even speak our own language in school or – because we weren’t allowed to. They would get punished if they – speak our own language. We, as of right now, I understand it, but I can’t really speak it and write it like they can, so it was lost through them to their daughters and to their daughters’ daughters. But what you have is what you have to hang onto and pass it down to your own children, just so they have a sense of knowing where they come from. It’ll never be forgotten, and it will always be passed on from generation to generation. It is very important.

Interviewer: Very good, great. I just went on a completely different path. Talked about the seals, since ______, I’m thinking about seals, too. But what about the birds? How valuable and important do you think the birds are to the life of this island? What do they mean to you? Just anything, or it’s nice to see them, but they don’t really mean anything, or –

Phil: I think they’re pretty important. You know, they’re not as large a part of subsistence role as the seals are, and I don’t know what the cause for that is. I mean, you know, you just don’t see them being eaten as much anymore. And working with Max, we come across that newsletter – or not the newsletter, but that article with Fish and Wildlife Service talking about the decline of the red-legged kittiwake and number of chicks that are fledged each year. And the numbers are – it’s just crazy. You know, what were the numbers?

Max Jr: Oh, geez, I don’t know. Out of – it was in regards to several of their nesting plots in St. Paul. They had some red-legged kittiwake

plots. I think out of 50 plots they had in 2005, they were doing productivity counts.

Phil: And they had what, like five eggs?

Max Jr: Yeah.

Phil: And none of them fledged.

Max Jr: Five – yeah, out of the 50 plots, there were five eggs, and they had one chick, one out of 50 kittiwake plots. So I mean, that’s pretty – well, St. George and kittiwakes, I think we have, you know, over 200,000 kittiwakes.

Phil: We’re the largest nesting ground in all this Northern Hemisphere for the kittiwakes.

Max Jr: Yeah, we are. Over 80% of the world’s population nest on St. George, so you know, that’s a pretty big number. I mean, you can just throw it out there and say, “What does that mean,” you know? You know, you can start to hear the kittiwakes arriving to St. George, so you know it’s spring when you hear the kittiwakes arrive, so I think there’s a – there’s that sense. And as far as hunting for them, I think people ask me, “Hey, do you still hunt for red-legged kittiwakes?” I said, “No, not really. I used to hunt for them for my grandfather, you know, but I’ve kind of slowed down since he had passed away.” But –

Phil: I don’t think I’ve gotten any in the last two years.

Interviewer: And a lot of the ______– the kids were talking to us today about still knocking them out of the sky and having a good time. (Laughter)

Max Jr: Right, that was big when we were kids. I think we all used to go ______hunting. They’d get about ten or 15 of us guys sitting up at the top of the hill, and we’d all throw sticks up in the air to see how many we could nail, and it was pretty fun. It was a pretty good sport, you know. It was –

Female Interviewee: The girls did it, too.

Max Jr: Yeah, there were. We had girls doing it, too.

Female Interviewee: I was up there, too. (Laughing)

Max Jr: Yeah, we were throwing sticks, so it’s not – we weren’t using like 28-gauge shotguns, you know. I mean, we weren’t doing any Dick Cheney events up in the hills. (Laughing) But yeah, you know, it’s fun, you know. I think, you know, my grandparents – I think the first time I went chutchkey hunting, I think I was six or seven, where I had enough strength to throw a stick up in the air high enough to hit some out of the air. (Laughing) And I actually took my son out chutchkey hunting last year. He had just turned six, and I said, “Okay, well you got to hover down. You got to hunker down, okay. You’ve got some birds coming up, and if you stand up, the birds are going to see you, and they’re going to fly away.” He’s like, “All right, dad, I got it.” But I said, “Okay, so what’s the goal? You’re goal is we’re going to try to get 20 chutchkeys.” He says – that’s being optimistic, because this was his first time. So we went up to the top of the hill, and we’re (laughing) – I said, “Okay, well you’ve got to stay down. Stay down,” and we threw our sticks at – I threw my stick up in the air, and I didn’t hit anything. I said, “Whoa, man, you got to stay down. The birds are seeing you, and they’re flying away.” So by the time it was all said and done, I think we walked away with two chutchkeys, and you can’t really do much with that. That’s – I think they weigh about an ounce a piece, and that’s not a lot of meat. (Laughing)

Interviewer: I remember hearing somebody in the past saying something about cooking chutchkeys and you know, you need – you know, like probably a good 20-25 chutchkeys to get full.

Max Jr: That’s right. (Laughing) Or for a pot of soup, you know.

Interviewer: Yeah, yeah, you can just imagine a chutchkey out of a roasting pan, and you know, sticking the whole thing in your mouth and pulling it out.

Max Jr: That’s right, yeah.

Interviewer: Sucking all of the meat off of it.

Max Jr: Yeah, Will had gripes about carrying the chutchkeys, too. I really didn’t want to carry them. He’s like, “Dad, why do I got to be the bird carrier?” And he’s walking along. (Laughter) So he was a little grossed out about having to carry the dead birds.

Interviewer: I was ______today that fox used to be a really valuable commodity on these islands, not so much on St. Paul, but that they were getting $30.00 to $40.00 a pelt back in the early 1900’s and 1800’s. And that they would take the seal carcasses and bury them

in the ground and pull them out in the winter time, just to keep the fox population alive. I asked the kids what they thought about foxes today, but I’m going to ask you the same. See if you come up with the same answers as the children. (Laughing) How do you feel about the foxes on the island today?

Phil: Foxes are the ______island equivalent of New York City sewer rats.

Max Jr: That’s exactly what they are.

Female Interviewee: They’re just a nuisance now.

Max Jr: Yeah, you don’t see them in the summertime, because they’re out, you know, and doing their own thing, you know, killing birds and stuff. But once it gets cold and the – in the winter, you know, they’re kind of like rats. They’ll like kind of ______focal point in the community ______food source.

Deserea: Last year, they got so hungry, Naomi and I got chased down the hill.

Naomi: Yeah –

Deserea: ______.

Naomi: Smell like food, you know, and it’s like after you’d like ______salmon or something. You can’t get it off your hands or wherever you’re at, you know, they smell it, and they’ll just go right for you.

Max Jr: That’s right. It’s like Cujo or something, you know. (Laughing)

Naomi: And they also get into our – if we don’t take of our trash right, too, and you’re not closed or like a little trash gets spilt out, you know, they’ll get in our trash bins and they’ll just wreck it all up.

Max Jr: They’ll crap all over your porch.

Naomi: Yeah, and they’re just awful. I don’t really care for them.

Max Jr: So what did the kids have to say about the foxes?

Interviewer: Yeah, kind of what you said. (Laughing) Yeah, I remember my first winter out here; they came in and attacked my bag. I had to

put it in the back of the pickup truck, waiting to go to Penn Air, and they were in it, peeing on it.

Max Jr: Oh, no.

Interviewer: Taking the food out of it. (Laughing)

Interviewer: Oh –

[End of Audio]

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