1. Treaty Rights Ignored: Neocolonialism and the Makah Whale
Hunt
For Indigenous populations around the world, the last few
centuries have been marked by colonization and economic,
political, and cul- tural oppression. A few Indigenous
populations have narrowly escaped subjugation, but these
communities must often fight eco- nomic and political battles to
keep rights to their lands and traditions. For other Indigenous
communities that do not have access to the resources necessary
for economic and cultural survival, it is seem- ingly only a
matter of time before their lands are taken or their tradi- tions
are lost, but this is not the only possible outcome. Some of the
most important ways that Indigenous communities have resisted
colonialism and braved the complexity of neocolonialism are
through the oral tradition and contemporary literary narratives.
It is abso- lutely essential that Indigenous tribal narratives
continue to reflect the significance of cultural traditions, and it
is critical that individuals outside of Indigenous communities
respect these narratives. Many of the current economic,
political, and cultural disputes affecting Indigenous
communities stem from neo colonialist attitudes about economic
resources and cultural traditions. Neocolonialism appears in
different guises, and neocolonialist rhetoric is rampant in
discourse about Indigenous populations and underdeveloped
nations.
Even the relatively recent shift from using "third world" to
"underde- veloped" signifies the manifestation of terminology
that reinforces a certain economic neocolonialism. The rhetoric
of neocolonialism must be exposed to ensure that Indigenous
communities are not sub- jected to new forms of colonization,
which threaten cultural survival. Moreover, individuals should
be sensitive to the persuasive and subtle nature of
neocolonialism because the rhetoric of neocolonialism is

2. rampantly apparent in the media, seriously detrimental to
Indigenous youth, and undermines Indigenous tribal narratives.
While there are numerous examples of neocolonialism in the
world today, the focus of this paper will be an analysis of the
use of neocolonialist rhetoric in discussions about the Makah
Nation. In the last decade, the Makah Nation has been in the
process of revitalizing its whaling traditions, and the discourse
about this revitalization reveals racist attitudes toward
Indigenous peoples and the potential consequences of damaging
neocolonialist rhetoric. One might not expect the state of
Washington or the Pacific Northwest to be places that support
neocolonialism, but the manifestation of neocolonialist rhetoric
in a seemingly progressive part of the United States is a testa-
ment to the ubiquitous nature of neocolonialism. It is my hope
that this discussion will reveal the rhetorical strategies that
individuals employ to criticize the revitalization of the Makah
whale-hunting tra- dition, while also illustrating how this
rhetoric presents dangerous neocolonialist points of view that
undermine tribal sovereignty.
Historical Context of a Whale Hunt
The Pacific Northwest is valued for its natural resources, and
indi- viduals who now reside within these lands often
acknowledge the diverse cultures that were here prior to the
colonization of this region. However, many Pacific Northwest
residents are unaware of the treaty obligations that the United
States has with local tribes and do not acknowledge the
Indigenous tribal narratives of the region. Anyone who resides
within the Pacific Northwest should understand that many
Indigenous communities were forcefully removed from their
lands and relocated to reservations to make way for the
commercial enterprises and agricultural developments that led
to the region's prosperity. The region has dramatically changed
in the name of progress and development, and Indigenous
perspectives and rights cannot be ignored or forgotten. Prior to
European contact, the Pacific Northwest was home to many

3. diverse communities, and these Indigenous societies were inti-
mately familiar with the abundant resources found in the region.
Population estimates suggest that "as many as 200,000 Native
Americans inhabited the Northwest Coast culture area, making
it one of the most densely populated nonagricultural regions of
the world" (Boyd 135). The relatively high population density
reveals the abun- dance in natural resources, but it also
indicates that Indigenous com- munities were able to sustain
themselves by understanding, harvest- ing, and hunting these
resources. European contact first occurred in the late eighteenth
century, bringing numerous explorers to the including James
Cook and George Vancouver, and the nineteenth cen- tury was a
time of rampant commercial growth and development. At the
same time, trade and other interactions with settlers spread
diseases throughout Indigenous communties, diseases that
claimed many lives, and Indigenous communities experienced
significant sociocultural traumas as a result of these deaths. In
addition to cop- ing with the consequences of smallpox and
other diseases, Indigenous peoples also faced a considerable
increase in the competition for nat- ural resources. While
Indigenous societies prior to the nineteenth century had an
impact on local ecosystems, these settlements did not affect the
region as irreversibly as the extensive settlements that began in
the latter half of the nineteenth century. The lands were rich in
natural resources, and many individuals traveled great distances
to become a part of the developing Pacific Northwest. In the
rush to settle the region, Indigenous nations were either
displaced or had to cooperate with settlers and government
officials or risk losing their lands forever. Indigenous
communities were subjected to blatant colonialism within the
legal rhetoric and binding contracts of trea- ties, which is why
the rights of Indigenous nations should be even more respected
today. In the mid-nineteenth century, representatives of the
United States government negotiated numerous treaties with
Indigenous nations in the Pacific Northwest to secure lands for
settlement Governor Isaac Stevens of the Washington Territory

4. negotiated many of these treaties, including the Treaty of Neah
Bay with the Makah in 1855. Governor Stevens had a dramatic
impact on the economic development of the Pacific Northwest,
but his success hinged on the acquisition of lands and resources
used by Indigenous communities. In volume seven of the
Handbook of North American Indians, Cesare Marino provides
one view of Governor Stevens in his discussion of western
Washington history since 1846: "A believer in Manifest Destiny
and a strong proponent of westward expansion Stevens regarded
tribes under his jurisdiction as an impediment to civilization.
White settlement was to be facilitated by extinguishing Indian
title to the land, concentrating tribes on reservations and pro-
moting Indian acculturation" (169). Governor Stevens was not
alone in his views, and the rhetoric of development and
civilization allowed individuals to disregard Indigenous
communities and their rights Indigenous communities in the
region faced severe racism and were often coerced or forced to
sign treaties or remove to reservations ... Governor (Marino
171). After securing lands in the Puget Sound area from 1854 to
1855, Stevens started negotiations with Indigenous communities
along the coast and signed the Treaty of Neah Bay with four
Makah villages (Renker 427). The Makah villages were remote
from areas of commercial development and were able to secure
lands and rights to fishing, whaling, and other resources. These
Makah villages "ceded land in return for education, health care,
and the right to fish in 'usual and accustomed grounds and
stations" (Renker 427). In this treaty, the Makah representatives
were careful to retain rights to fishing and whaling, because
they understood the importance of these traditions to the future
of the Makah Nation. The Makah Nation is located on the
northwest tip of the Olympic Peninsula in the state of
Washington. According to census data gath- ered in 2000, the
Makah Nation comprises 42.7 square miles and wa home to
almost 1400 individuals (DeCordoba). The word Makah is a
Clallam word that has been in use since the 1850s, but Makah
peoples referred and refer to themselves as Qwiqwidicciat, or

5. the "people who live by the rocks and seagulls" (Makah). The
Makah entry in the Handbook of North American Indians
emphasizes that the Makah held "prestigious" occupational
positions for whale and fur seal hunters, and "[bloth
occupations involved knowledge of complex systems of
navigation on the open ocean, the ability to interpret the
activities of the prey prior to the kill, and a reliance on
ritualized activity to secure the success of the hunt" (Renker
423). Whale hunters and whales were held in high regard and
were politically, economically, culturally, and spiritually
significant. However, by 1915, commercial whaling had
dramatically reduced the gray whale population and prompted
the Makah Nation to postpone the hunts with the hope that the
gray whale would return. Moreover, members of the Makah
Nation had been subjected to "Indian policy [that] revolved
around the assimila- tion of Makah people through an
educational system that ignored Makah priorities and prohibited
the use of the language" (Renker 427). Even though the Makah
Nation was dramatically affected by aggressive settlement of
the Pacific Northwest, the Treaty of Neah Bay provides an
important legal foundation for the Makah Nation today, and the
whale-hunting traditions have survived despite legal attempts at
cultural genocide. The last successful whale hunt took place in
the early-twentieth century, but changes within the community
and the drastic reduction in the whale population prompted the
Makah Nation to forgo whale hunts until the gray whale
population improved. In fact, the Makah Nation voluntarily
stopped hunting whales over a decade prior to the United States
government's ban on hunting gray whales that was implemented
in 1937 (Gaard). When the gray whale population recovered and
with resources in place to begin the complex legal pro- cesses
involved in attaining permission to hunt for a gray whale, indi-
viduals within the Makah Nation began the legal procedures in
the 1990s. Many animal rights activists and environmental
organizations attempted to delay the hunt, but the Makah Nation
received permis- sion and carefully conducted a hunt that

6. conformed to the strict rules set in place by the International
Whaling Commission. In 1999, the Makah Nation celebrated the
successful hunt of a gray whale off the coast of Washington
state and revitalized spiritual and cultural prac- tices that had
been carefully passed down for generations. In the years leading
up to the whale hunt in 1999, the Makah Nation demon- strated
respect for national and international legal systems, but the
legal battles were relatively minor when compared to public
reactions to the hunt. The rhetorically violent and legal
backlashes from the 1999 hunt successfully delayed the Makah
Nation from obtaining permission to hunt additional whales,
which eventually led to a reckless and failed attempt at another
hunt in 2007. In September of 2007 and out of frustration for
the political delays, five members of the Makah Nation took the
life of a gray whale without regard for tribal, national, or
international rules. Many individuals viewed this hunt as an act
of civil disobedience, but this unsuccessful hunt jeopardized the
future of Makah whale hunts because it generated a great deal
of public backlash. The five rogue hunters are still in litigation,
and the Makah Nation is attempting to secure permission to hunt
whales in the near future. The conflict surrounding the Makah
whale hunt reveals signifi- cant ethical and moral differences,
but it also uncovers a dangerous form of cultural imperialism
that threatens tribal sovereignty and treaty rights. The Makah
Nation has rights protected by the Treaty of Neah Bay, and any
infringement of these rights indicates a significant political
shift that affects tribal nations across the United States and
Indigenous communities around the world. Individuals with
com- peting interests in natural resources, from animal rights
activists to farmers, express dissatisfaction with the special
treatment that Indigenous communities receive, instead of
honoring the communi- ties that flourished here prior to the
fairly recent "development" of the region and nation. The
Makah Nation must confront pervasive neocolonialism in the
form of political, economic, and cultural pressures in order to
continue practicing its whaling traditions. The rhetoric of

7. neocolo- nialism rejects the tribal narrative of the Makah Nation
as it attempts to coerce the Nation into relinquishing a tradition
at the core of Makah cultural history. These manifestations of
neocolonialism require the Nation to be prepared to challenge
the neocolonialist rbetoric of the most "liberal" of individuals
who ignore or forget the importance of Indigenous literary and
tribal narratives. The ubiquity of neocolonialism exposes a need
for an Indigenous tribal narrative that reinforces the importance
of an ongoing whale-hunting tradi- tion for the Makah people.
A Public Outcry
The whale hunts of 1999 and 2007 generated a great deal of
public discourse, especially in the Seattle metropolitan area.
Headlines and lengthy articles in the local newspapers, the
Seattle Times and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, demonstrated
the significance of these events for individuals who resided
within the Pacific Northwest and beyond. In particular, the
rhetoric of the letters to the editor reveals the public's spectrum
of opinions in the days leading up to the 1999 hunt and after the
disastrous hunt of 2007. Despite the difference in each hunt's
circumstances, the letters to the editor often employ neo-
colonialist rhetoric to argue for an end to the Makah whale-
hunting tradition, blatantly disregarding tribal sovereignty and
treaty rights. After the hunts, many letters to the editor rejected
the validity of the Makah whale-hunting tradition and expressed
abhorrence toward the Makah Nation. In one letter following the
1999 whale hunt, the writer exclaims, "[t] he murder of a whale
by the Makahs has, if any- thing, hastened the demise of this
culture. If they as a people are fool- ish enough to believe that
killing whales will make them great, they are already beyond
saving. I, for one, will not mourn their passing" (Geneva). The
intentional use of the word "murder" to express the death of the
whale is only one small example of rhetoric that employs
neocolonialist strategies. In a strictly legal context, the word
murder describes the premeditated and unlawful killing of one
human being by another, but the use of the word murder to

8. describe the killing of a whale by Makah hunters reveals a shift
in the word's use that uses a form of cultural superiority to
discredit the whale-hunting tradition. Furthermore, the letter
openly expresses the author's disregard for all Makah people by
writing that they "are already beyond saving," and he "will not
mourn their passing" (Geneva). The letter superciliously
emphasizes that Makah people are in need of "saving," which
reveals the author's condescending attitude toward the Makah
Nation, but it also illustrates public sentiments about
Indigenous traditions that conflict with beliefs and views of a
majority culture. The Seattle Times also included letters to the
editor that used evo- lutionary terms to repudiate the 1999
Makah whale hunt and letters that alleged whale-hunting
traditions were no longer necessary. One severe letter to the
editor suggests that the Makah whale hunt is a sign of de-
evolution: "Quite frankly, to re-establish this practice for the
sake of restoring a culture's tradition or heritage reminds me of
the resurgence of racial hatred that seems to be occurring
around the world. It is a sign of de-evolution. That same
movement bodes ill for all ethnic groups, including the
Makahs" (Trybyszewski). The author creates an unfair and
culturally skewed parallel between the resur- gence of racial
hatred and the restoration of cultural traditions in an attempt to
discredit the Makah Nation. In creating this parallel, the author
reinforces cultural imperialism and ignores the pervasive nature
of racial and cultural discrimination that creates conflict in the
world. Furthermore, by suggesting that there has been a
"resurgence" of racial hatred, the author conveniently disregards
the evidence that points to the persistence of racial hatred and
reveals an historical ignorance about racism. The author ends
the letter with the follow ing: "I, for one, will greatly scrutinize
any attempts by any particular groups who seek to re-establish
killing in the name of 'tradition.' The argument that 'people
don't understand the Makah culture' is irrele- ent. Everyone
understands what killing an innocent animal is." The author
emphasizes the word "killing," which reveals one slanted

9. spective on the death of an animal, and dismisses the Makah
culture as "irrelevant." These sentiments impose unwarranted
values and beliefs on the Makah Nation and present views that
endanger Indigenous tribal narratives. Many individuals in the
United States are consumers who accept systems of food
production that disrespect animal life and deplete natural
resources, and very few people have to directly experience
"what killing an innocent animal is," but this is not the case for
the Makah Nation. By targetinga small nation's traditions
instead of confronting national issues of food production and
the degradation of natural resources, this letter successfully
employs neo- colonialist rhetoric to discredit the rights and
cultural narratives of the Makah Nation. Many letters following
the 1999 hunt also used economic pres- sures to discredit the
Makah whale-hunting tradition. One writer wrote, "[t]he real
tragedy is not just the death of one, five or fifty whales. It is
that a native tribe could have evolved into a people who
practice the respect of intelligent life that they preach, but
instead chose to needlessly continue hunting sentient creatures
for tradition's sake" (DeCordoba). According to this writer, the
Makah Nation is "needlessly" practicing its whale-hunting
traditions and has failed to "evolve." The author ends the letter
by declaring that "You'll never see my business at a reservation-
casino or otherwise," a statement that the ignorant assumptions
that many individuals have about Indigenous communities
western Washington across (DeCordoba). For one, this
individual uses economic pressure to express dissatisfaction
with the Makah Nation, assuming that a sig- nificant cultural
tradition has a price and can be purchased, but the letter also
economically condemns all tribal casinos for the actions of one
group. This type of neocolonialist racism presents a significant
threat to all Indigenous communities and tribal nations.
Economic domination is a major issue that will continue to
present obstacles to Indigenous communities, which is why it is
essential to expose these forms of neocolonialism and recognize
the continued significance of Indigenous tribal narratives. In the

10. days following the 1999 Makah whale hunt, Jerry Large, a
veteran columnist for the Seattle Times, wrote about the
hypocrisy embedded within the language used by protestors. His
weekly col- umns often deal with issues that demand multiple
points of view, and this article is no exception. In "Amid
Concern for a Whale, Logic Is Sunk," published three days after
the hunt, Large reflected on the sig- nificance of the hunt:
Monday the Makahs killed their first whale in generations.
Those members of the tribe who wanted to resume the hunt after
a 70-year hiatus saw it as a way to reconnect with their cultural
roots. I sus- pect that what they really wanted to harpoon was
cultural domination. Members of the culture most responsible
for the decline of whales and the demise of untold other species,
not to mention the decima- tion of the Indians, chastised the
Makahs for their incivility. The sight of yelling protesters made
me grind my teeth. (D1) Large points out that individual
members of the majority culture, a culture more responsible for
the decline in the whale population and degradation of the
natural environment than the Makah Nation, are among the first
to "chastise" the Makah Nation for revitalizing a cul- tural
tradition. After publishing this column, Large received hundreds
of negative responses that only served to reinforce his points. In
his response to the letters, Large writes, "There are so many
other issues that I have to wonder why this one so captivates
people. Somehow who we are is being tested. Our different
views of morality, diversity, history, all of those defining bits
of society, of our identities, are at play here and that unleashes
a lot of emotion" (F1). The emotional responses to the hunt and
to Large's column reveal a spectrum of responses, but they also
expose subtle elements of neocolonialism that can easily escape
detection.As Large notes, individuals who argue for the need for
the Makah Nation to relinquish its whale-hunting traditions
often express racist and bigoted views that continue to reinforce
cultural domination. The discourse about the Makah whale hunt
allows a glimpse into public sentiments and offers a possibility
to explore pervasive attitudes about Indigenous traditions and

11. rights. The failed hunt in September of 2007 generated similar
in the forms of letters to the editor. Even though there is not
sufficient time to illustrate the various rhetorical strategies that
writers employed after the 2007 hunt, these letters used
strategies similar to the 1999 hunt to denounce the Makah
whale-hunting tradition. Individuals used cultural, legal, and
economic pressures to argue for the eradica- tion of the whale-
hunting tradition once again. One writer revealed responses that
(i]t is really challenging to understand the benefit (both in eco-
nomic terms and in terms of the Makah sense of identity) of
whal- ing, regardless of which treaties were signed. If you legal
aspects, there is still the issue of whether it is right and reason-
able in the 21st century. Several generations have passed since
whaling was banned. (Johnson) take the The writer admits a
lack of knowledge about the importance of the whale-hunting
tradition to the Makah Nation, but he or she also expresses that
the hunt is not "right" or "reasonable in the 21st cen- tury." The
easy manner in which this writer dismisses the Makah Nation's
treaty rights reveals the significant threat of neocolonialist
rhetoric. Furthermore, the writer does not recognize the
persistence of tribal narratives or their importance to
Indigenous communities, which denotes a point of view that
undermines tribal sovereignty through a disavowal of
Indigenous tribal narratives. To be fair, many letters to the
editor also mentioned the importance of Makah cultural
traditions and treaty rights, but these letters and perspectives
were often lost in the overwhelmingly negative response to the
failed hunt. A brief examination of the public responses to the
Makah whale hunts demonstrates how neocolonialist rhetoric is
used to reinforce arguments against Indigenous cultural
traditions. Many public voices represented in the Seattle Times
reflect ideological beliefs of the larger nation, and individuals
employ neocolonialist rhetoric to dis- regard the rights of the
Makah Nation. Even though these voices rep- resent only a
fraction of the public opinion in regards to the Makah whale-
hunting tradition, these perspectives reveal pervasive and dan-

12. gerous attitudes toward Indigenous communities and their
traditions.
Consequences
Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest practiced traditions
that been dramatically affected by aggressive settlement and the
com- modification of natural resources, and they now must
confront attempts to challenge their traditions and rights
through the use of pervasive neocolonialism. The fact that the
Makah Nation is placed in a position where it has to obtain
permission from local, national, and even international systems
to hunt a whale is an indication of the cur- rent complexities of
maintaining treaty rights and certain cultural traditions. The
often-extreme responses to the Makah whale hunt directly
threaten the Makah Nation's tribal sovereignty, and their treaty
rights are targeted by blatant neocolonialism and anti-
Indigenous sentiments. Indigenous communities have beliefs
and narratives distinct to their own histories and traditions, and
yet they are still held to the standards of other nations and
individuals. In addition to expertly navigating the legal system
in order to maintain certain cultural beliefs and traditions, many
Indigenous communities face added pressures to conform to the
ideological structures of dominant cultures and succumb to
hegemony. In order to continue practicing cultural tradi- tions
that do not resonate with beliefs of dominant cultures,
Indigenous communities are also under pressure to validate
their cul- tures through ongoing Indigenous tribal narratives
that demonstrate the importance of specific traditions and
practices. Indigenous tribal narratives are precious and vital to a
collective understanding of the world and its history, and these
narratives need to be more visible and available to deflect
neocolonialism. While ceremonial knowledge should be
respected, it cannot be respected by individuals who do not
understand its importance. By either ignoring or being unaware
of the value of these narratives, individuals perpetuate the
colonialist agendas of the past and embrace forms of

13. neocolonialism. Neocolonialist rhetoric will continue to
manifest whenever a majority culture does not approve of
Indigenous customs. Yet, indi- viduals who reside within the
United States of America must see themselves as participants in
a global world, now more than ever before. The U.S. and its
citizens have an obligation to the Indigenous peoples within the
United States and its territories who are still expe- riencing the
effects of colonization. Neocolonialism and the use of blatant
neocolonialist rhetoric further reinforce the wounds of colo-
nization and marginalize Indigenous populations through
economic, legal, cultural, and political oppression. It is time
that neocolonialism is exposed so that Indigenous communities
can be freed from colo- nialism in all of its forms, and
Indigenous tribal narratives offer one possible defense against
neocolonialism in all of its forms.
Note
The National Council for Science and the Environment
sponsored a discussion about "Native Americans and the
Environment," which provides a thorough discus- sion of
responses to the 1999 Makah whale hunt. The information can
be accessed as of July 2008 at the following Web address:
http://www.cnie.org/NAE/cases/ makah/index.html.
Ecology and Identity in the Northwoods Finnish American
Poaching Techniques and Narratives
TIM FRANDY
On Christmas Eve 2001, I attended a holiday party with some
friends of mine in the Lake Superior region of the American
Upper Midwest. Ill call them the Koskinens.' Like many Finish
American families of the region, the Koskinens sometimes
discretely poached dee Koskinens invited a neighbor, Harry, to
join them. Harry was a coarse Polish American, recently retired,
who spent most of his time boasting, lying, and poaching. The

14. last time I saw Harry, he asked me if I had fishing luck on the
opening weekend for walleye. He griped how this would be the
last time he started fishing in May. Last year, he said, he had
the bottom of his freezer already lined with walleye before the
season opened. When a few Koskinens started talking about
their good ice-fishing luck earlier that day, Harry blurted out
that he was still fishing when he was at the party. He had
illegally left tip-ups unattended, which he'd check only a couple
times a day, sometimes having to wind up hundreds of feet of
line with the tip-up's tiny hand crank if a hooked fish swam off
across the lake. As people began exchanging gifts, Harry stood
near the television, watching a gunfight in the movie
Romancing the Stone, sizing up the draw times of the different
cast members, muttering loudly to himself, "Pretty good draw
on that fella." Tom Koskinen had bought as gifts for his
brothers million- candlepower spotlights, commonly used for
illegally shining deer at night. With tongue in cheek, Tom
explained their many practical legal uses, like watching tip-ups
at night from inside a house. Harry piped up that he had one
too, except it was two million candlepower and he'd used it just
last week when he was hunting by the state border. When Tom
Koskinen asked him if there was an early T-Zone deer hunt
there this year, Harry blurted, "What or fish. That night, the In
the Lake Superior region, hunting, fishing, and gathering have
always held a deeper significance than mere recreation. Hunting
and fishing are in- extricable from the region's constructed
histories, economies, and ethnici- ties. Deeply integrated into
regional life, these practices serve as functional economic
resources that distinguish the region from the more productive
agricultural lands that lie farther south. Though fewer people
need to hunt and fish to avoid starvation today than in the early
to mid-twentieth century, these traditions have continued partly
because of a belief in self-reliance and in the sustainable
utilization of forests and waters. In other words, for many
longtime inhabitants of the region, it makes more sense to pick
your own blueberries than to buy them in the store. These

15. traditional lifeways are not simply done for fun; rather, they are
treated and discussed as work, and for many people they
represent a valuable subsidy to the terribly low incomes and
high unemployment which still plague the region. Fueled by lo-
cal poverty and recreational-based ecological management, the
small-scale poaching of deer and fish has always been relatively
common in this region. Though poaching is neither ethnically
nor regionally distinct, within the Finnish American community
it has become something of an ethnic symbol. Finnish
Americans have long been regarded as some of the region's most
notorious poachers, and many popular Finnish American
writers, such as Lauri Anderson and Joseph Damrell, have used
poachers as protagonists in their short stories and novels. There
are as many types of poachers as there are reasons for poaching
from Robin Hood to ivory poachers, from wolf-shooting
ranchers in the American West to traditional Sámi fishermen on
the Deatnu River whose indigenous rights were stripped to
promote tourism. However just or un- just the lawbreaking,
poaching is nearly certain to be a form of political dis- sent and
resistance against dominant ecological management. This
dissent is manifested in various forms. Harry's poaching is
boisterous, public, and self-serving, as his antisocial boldness
affirms his lofty station in an individu- alistic world. Part
outlaw, part frontiersman, Harry's poaching is bound to his
sizing-up of movie gunslingers. Both establish agency through
antisocial behavior. The Koskinens' poaching, on the other
hand, barely surfaces in this Christmas Eve episode. Not only
does Tom Koskinen try at great length to conceal the principal
use of the spotlights, but that day's "good fishing luck" also
brought in considerably more northern pike than the legal limit
for that day. Unlike Harry, who calls as much attention as
possible to his illegal ac- tivities, the Koskinens rarely speak
openly about doing anything illegal, and many of the Koskinens'
poaching exploits sound exactly like their hunting or fishing
counterparts. Poaching in Finland was already a well-
established tradition by the mid- nineteenth century, during the

16. beginning of the first large emigrations from Finland. The legal
aspects of hunting and fishing rights became even more
important in the nineteenth century, fueled by a drastic
population increase (390,000 in 1720, 863,300 in 1810,
1,768,800 in 1870) as well as the increase in landlessness and
sharecropping following the wars and famines of the early
eighteenth century (Talve 18, 25).' Under the Swedish model of
fishing rights, employed in Finland since the Middle Ages,
landowners were given the right to fish in communal fishing
waters yet forced the landless to pay fees equal to half their
catch (Talve 79) Following the steep decrease of landownership
in Finland, which had fallen from 81 percent in 1754 to 35.5
percent in 1901 (Talve 26), the steep fees for fishing
contributed to the poaching culture. In Richard Dorson's
Bloodstoppers and Bearwalkers, Finnish immigrant Frank Valin
mentions poaching in Swedish-dominated Ostrobothnia,
remarking, "The lakes were full of fish but we could not fish in
them; neither could we hunt game, except by stealth, for the
land was owned by our 'betters.' Is it a wonder that we left
Finland to anecdote of stock character Jussi the Workman, who
clashes with his master who refuses to allow him fishing rights
because "fishing is the sport of the gentry" (Dorson 130).'
Finally allowed to fish for bream, Jussi plays the sim- pleton
and tricks his master by paying his fee in fish heads and tails.
The rapid gentrification of hunting and fishing rights in
southern and western Finland deviates dramatically from the
tradition of community-based ownership, a reality that is
evident in Valin's commentary on emigration and reflects the
mentality which many Finnish immigrants brought to North
America The Lake Superior region, however, was subject to
exploitative resource management during the late nineteenth and
early twentieth centuries. The rapid clear cutting of the region's
vast forests contributed to the decimation of native fauna,
leaving many species extinct, displaced, or struggling to sur-
vive. It also affected many of the residents who deeply relied on
the woods and waters for food through the 1960s. Even after the

17. ecology began to re- cover, locals faced a new set of challenges
as the region's tourist economny be- gan to emerge. Finnish
American dialect singer "Hap" Puotinen laments the
mismanagement of the wilds in his "Home, Oh How Strange
(The U.P. that Used to Be)," a parody of the idealism of "Home
on the Range." After noting that the woods are too quiet, and
that many animals have died off, Puotinen assesses blame: "Nau
vhere vas ta teers tat ve kaarit for 'ears, / Anta pirtsiis tat
flooing ta koops? /Tey pin manets so vell tey vas aal kaanu
hell." ("Now where were the deer that we carried for years/And
the birdies that flew the coops?/They been managed so well,
they was all going to hell.") (Puotinen 4). The push in the latter
half of the twentieth century to transform the Lake Superior
region into a tourist economy has brought about strain and com-
petition over fishing resources as "downstaters" are encouraged
to go "up north" to fish. The ability to legally sustain a mixed
economy-or an economy in which traditional, sustainable
lifeways significantly supplement a prin- cipal occupation-is
jeopardized when tourism drives land-use policy and
conservation efforts. Unlike Finland's regional approach to
fishing rights, all the waters in the Lake Superior region are
managed by states, and they clearly reflect the state's immediate
interests in promoting different kinds of revenue-generating
tourism, like trophy fishing, which is sustained by im- posing
harsh bag limits and extremely minimum-size requirements on
spe- cific waterways. Such state control, Puotinen alleges,
manages the game to hell, destroying local ecology for the
profit of some faceless few. Concealed among the fish lining the
bottom of Harry's freezer and the rhetorical reticence of
poaching in the Koskinens' public narrative is a com- plex
system of political resistance to these dominant recreational
ecological values. The discourse shaped around this political
issue is not simply two- sided, it is seldom direct, and it
remains inextricable from learned behavior patterns which date
back generations. Like many poachers, the Koskinens have their
own strict harvest ethics. They believe deeply in taking only

18. what one needs, and for them wasting fish or game is considered
deeply shame- ful. They are also perpetually vigilant for signs
of overharvest. This "good poacher" tradition is, in fact, an
international phenomenon. Upper Peninsula memoirist Cully
Gage frequently writes about poacher Lafe Bodine, who had a
reputation for delivering poached deer to the hungry (22). In his
Confes- sions of a Poacher, nineteenth-century English poacher
John Watson insists, "The successful 'moucher' must be an
inborn naturalist-must have much in common with the creatures
of the fields and woods around him" (8).10 Yet if a poacher is a
sort of naturalist, what then is a hunter? The Koskinens'
poaching tradition can perhaps be best understood by looking at
the concept they reject, that of hunting as recreation and a
fascinating treatise on recreational hunting, Beyond Fair Chase:
The Ethic and Tradition of Hunting, Montana biologist and
hunter-conservationist Jim Posewitz offers ethical and moral
instruction for sport hunting: sport. In Fundamental to ethical
hunting is the idea of fair chase. This con- cept addresses the
balance between the hunter and the hunted. It is a balance that
allows hunters to occasionally succeed while animals generally
avoid being taken. This would be a simple concept if it were a
single hunter pursuing an animal in massive wild country....
When the hunter with spear in hand stalked wildlife in the pri-
mal forest, the pursuit was well within the bounds of fair chase.
(57-58) As Posewitz conjures the primeval hunter, he reminds
readers that sport is largely contingent not only on recreation
but on re-creating the ritual staging of human prehistory. Such
staging is entirely ordinary in many Western hunting traditions,
and the increased primeval symbolism of the hunt often
corresponds with decreased importance for the daily role of
hunting, fishing, and gathering in regional folklife. In his book
Forests: The Shadow of Civiliza- tion, Robert Pogue Harrison
explores the English tradition of the royal hunt, a heavily
symbolic hunt which followed the regal assertion of forest own-
ership and the closing of the forests to peasant hunting. "The
hunt ritual- izes and reaffirms the king's ancient nature as

19. civilizer and conqueror of the land, ... [which reenacts] in a
purely symbolic way, the historical conquest of the wilderness,"
Harrison writes (74)." Despite this symbolic return to our
perceived primeval roots, both royal and sporting hunt ritualize
our dis- tinctiveness from these imagined ancestors. Harrison
stresses that the king is not simply a hunter; rather, he is the
bringer of social order, a creator of civilization, through
subversion of the vast and undifferentiated amalgam of wildness
and wilderness. Likewise, Posewitz's emphasis on fair chase re-
minds us that in spite of the technology that distinguishes
human from beast, the greatest distinction is our own ethical
prowess in an uncertain modern world. The benevolence of the
hunter who chooses the "fair chase" rather than the
indiscriminate slaughter is a contrast Posewitz suggests our
ances- tors could not fathom. A ritualized re-creation of
civilization's birth, this hunting embodies the belief that
civilized people no longer need to hunt for food, thus
reinforcing the human-beast dichotomy by returning its sym-
bolic moment of genesis, the subversion of wilderness. Though
Posewitz speaks accurately of the hunter-conservationist ethic,
this transformation from necessity to sport hunting relies upona
strong sense of the wilderness-civilization dichotomy. Whether
a continuation of long- standing Finnish communal ownership
of forest and waters or a result of the Social circumstance of
living in close proximity to forests, the Koskinens, like many
Finnish Americans, downplay the importance of this dichotomy.
Like others in the region, the Koskinens sometimes hunt from
the home. Tom Koskinen describes one such technique: This is
what my brother and I would do when we were younger. We'd
put a hay bale right outside of my bedroom window. Now my
window was directly above a window in our basement. We'd
take out the glass from the basement window and replace it with
a translucent plastic. This would have been December, during
bow-hunting season. The deer would move in to feed on the hay
just after dark. Now I'd be up in my dark bedroom, and my
brother would be down in the basement with a bow. I'd shine a

20. flashlight out the window, onto the deer. He couldn't see the
deer because the plastic was translucent, but he could sce the
bright illumination of the flashlight. So I'd point the flashlight
towards where he should shoot, and he'd shoot at the beam.
Then the next morning, we'd go out and track. 13 Hunting from
the home is an important symbol for Finnish Americans that
suggests how the ecological world might be constructed-without
borders between these two supposedly diametrically opposing
regions, domicile and wilderness. Finnish American writer
Lauri Anderson picks up this theme in his Heikki Heikkinen
collection (27-28)." Anderson describes Heikki, an eighty-year-
old Finnish American, hunting from his kitchen while sipping
coffee in the early morning. Anderson points out, though, that
Heikki did not always hunt from the home: Heikki used to be a
real hunter-every bit as daring as Frank Buck or Ernest
Hemingway. When he was younger, he would dump the deer
bait in his back field. Then he'd wait in a blind constructed from
an old picnic table. He'd even wear the appropriate orange
jacket and an orange hat with ear lappers. (28) Comically,
Heikki's wilderness experience is defined most explicitly in
terms of the civilized world: picnic tables, back fields, and
orange ear lappers. But while Anderson supposedly mocks
Heikki's ignorance of what it means to be a "real hunter," he
actually suggests that Heikki has never accepted the
civilization-wilderness dichotomy at all, satirizing those who
place faith in its credence. In regions where a mixed economy
remains active or within historical memory, deviations from
Posewitz's model of sport are perhaps inevitable. Whereas
Posewitz asserts that the "ethical hunter never chases or
harasses wildlife with a machine" (61), Tom Koskinen clearly
violates these ethics: Here's something I learned from my dad.
Partridge like to hang by the sides of the road, and if you spot
one when you're driving, you try to straddle the car over the top
of the bird. It's just high enough to nick the bird's head, killing
it instantly, and that way you don't damage any of the meat. The
only problem is if it flushes straight over the car. Then you'll

21. hit it dead on, and you'll have an awful mess. You've got to be
moving pretty fast too, maybe thirty miles an hour, so this
doesn't really work on old logging roads. A few times I've
driven across the state hunting the whole way. The limitations
Posewitz would place on technology prove highly prob- lematic
under scrutiny. How does one draw a line between Koskinen's
car hunting and fish finders, outboard engines, magnifying
scopes, or ATVS? All are regular components of many
sportsmen's gear and all are undoubtedly part of the "chase."
While I suspect that Posewitz remains relatively uncon- cerned
with these latter sporting tools, I trust he would turn a wicked
eye to- ward Koskinen's practice. Upon closer inspection,
however, the subtleties of Koskinen's practice, his concern
about a clean kill and a painless technique, seem to run counter
to the supposed barbarism of poaching. Why, then, does
Koskinen's practice endure such stigmatization? The eating of
road kill is a popular topic of jest and ridicule, as well as the
subject for Buck Peterson's popular The Original Road Kill
Cookbook. Though many find the idea of eating car-killed
animals revolting, others see little difference between a shot
animal and one killed following a collision. The Koskinens have
eaten road kill, including the fresh road kill of others. The
origin of this intense stigmatization is less related to bacteria
than to the powerful economic distinction made between those
who eat road kill and those who do not. Had the partridge been
killed "sportingly," it would be a delicacy. Disgust and revolt
emanate from the need to eat unsportingly killed animals, a
practice apparently below the noble mind of the sportsman for
whom the fallen partridge represents not a vulgar food source
but human mastery over the wilderness. Proudly engaging in a
stigmatized behavior, Koskinen sees through the illusion of
sport, dismissing its reductive claims about technology and fair
chase while exposing its elitist attitudes toward nonsporting
hunters. For the poacher, cleverness and innovation are central
components to survival. Though most poaching occurs without
incident, many poachers understand their own ritualized role as

22. the "prey" of the warden. The sport between poachers and
wardens is very real and cannot be dismissed as mere rhetorical
play. If sport means little to a poacher's hunting, it figures
centrally as they place themselves in vulnerable positions while
competing publicly with wardens. Though the Koskinens
maintain clean reputations and know the woods and waters well
enough to avoid wardens, they are well versed in concealment
methods. Tom Koskinen describes one such strategy: "Another
trick poachers use for fishing is when they catch too many fish,
they'll hook a stringer onto their anchor and lower the first
stringer to the bottom of the lake with their anchor and then
they can put another stringer on there."1 A warden's own
ingenuity is the key to catching these poachers, and by
pretending to have nothing to hide, the poacher can escape the
reputation he or she might otherwise establish through
suspicious behavior. The poached fish on the anchor are
present, not detachable from the boat, linking emblem- atically
the fate of the fish to the fate of the fishermen, leaving the
warden engaged in a contest of wits with the poachers based on
an immediate knowl- edge of the local environment Without this
sporting element, without the game of the chase, the rela-
tionship between poachers and wardens can change in nature
entirely. Tom Koskinen's son, Mike, tells a story of his
grandfather, Tom Koskinen's fa- ther, an occasional poacher
who also worked for the Department of Natural Resources: Oh,
and don't forget the story about the old-timer who showed up on
opening morning when Grandpa was manning a registration
station. The deer's eyes were all sunken in and it had severe
rigor mortis. The body cavity looked all dried up. "Just shot him
this morning?" asked Grandpa? "You bet, first thing" was the
reply Grandpa nodded and registered the deer.20 The old-timer's
inept poaching does not fool the registrar, but he is still al-
lowed to poach without consequence. Without the illusion of
sport, the reg- istrar has no will to fine the old-timer. His
poaching attempt was so pathetic and ill conceived that nothing
can be gained by prevailing in a pairing of wits. In this episode,

23. the absence of fair chase causes a breakdown in the prescriptive
relationship between warden and poacher, a relationship which
by nature is less legal than it is ecologically schematic.
Poachers equally participate in the sport between themselves
and war- dens. The hiding of illegal game in plain sight serves
as both security to divert suspicion, as well as a self-satisfying
means by which an individual poacher can assert greater
authority over the ecological landscape than a warden. When the
poacher knows the land and regional ecology better, the poacher
fools the warden, whose formal education and training are
subordinated by local know-how. The poacher therefore creates
a sense of agency and en- titlement to poaching-thereby
affirming his own notion of nonsporting hunting-through his
ecological deftness, his inborn naturalistic prowess. Koskinen
thus describes another technique: This is what some ice
fishermen do, when they catch fish they don't want to have a
warden see, maybe a walleye after season or if you pull up more
fish than your limit. This was done when people were using ice
chisels to break through the ice. They'd chisel into the ice a
little reservoir hole, maybe a foot or two in diameter, without
breaking into water. Then, they'd chisel a real small hole
completely through the ice, just a couple inches in diameter.
The reservoir fills completely with water, and you put your
illegal fish in there. Then the top will freeze up, and you can
cover it with snow. The fish will stay fresh too, that way, and
not freeze up. Because of the region's plentiful snows, hiding
the catch when ice fishing is usually not difficult. However, this
technique is especially useful when someone is fishing for
extended periods of time on waters that are heav- ily patrolled
by wardens. To rebuild the necessary ice takes time, and the
poacher still must remove and transport the catch without being
caught. Yet this technique perhaps serves less of a practical
function than it does a so- ciological one. Here Koskinen offers
a red herring, noting that the fish will stay fresh and not freeze
up, instead of offering an explanation that explains the
elaborate holding structure. Though it is practical not to have

24. one's fish freeze through, snow insulates adequately on all but
the longest or coldest of days. The creation of this tank is
symbolic, a demonstration of a supe- rior knowledge of the
immediate ecology, steering poaching from its solely pragmatic
roots and establishing a tangible naturalistic The agency
generated by the cleverness of such a structure far outweighs its
practical aspects. "Form-a-buck," a practice used by a pair of
Koskinen's brothers during the 1980s, not only exhibits the
aesthetics of hiding an illegal deer in plain sight, but it also
demonstrates the unwillingness to comply with laws based on
values that tightly regulate gendered kills. Originally used to
increase the deer population, the recovery of the deer herd left
many questioning the con- tinuation of buck-only laws.
Koskinen takes credit for thinking up the fol- lowing technique,
but he insisted he has never tried it: hing aesthetic. They called
it "form-a-buck." Form-a-buck recipe: 1. Cut off the horns of a
spike or small fork. 2. Drill 4 inch hole into the base of each
antler. 3. Use toilet anchor bolts or double-ended screw. Thread
one end into the horn. 4. When a doe needs to be converted into
a buck, use a nail and hammer to puncture the skull and screw
the horn onto the head. This was used by a couple of my
brothers in the U.P. They hada couple sets of antlers. They were
in their 40s, old enough to know better! The methodology in
creating bucks is subtle yet demonstrates a refined set of skills
about how deer are gazed at and handled by registrars,
neighbors, and strangers. The late November cold freezes the
screws firmly in place, so that the antlers would not pivot if
they were handled gently. Unlike similar tech- niques I've heard
about in Minnesota which use larger antlers, Koskinen's antler
choice attracts less scrutiny than a larger set, which would be
more closely admired; likewise, a smaller antler provides
significantly less torque on the screw if the antlers were to be
manhandled. Registered and conscien- tiously hung high on a
buck pole, these deer proudly maintain a poacher's best work
within the public domain, secretly celebrating open defiance of
the law. This silent public persona recalls the Koskinen's

25. Christmas Eve epi- sode; it is the silence which marks
communities, codifying insider-outsider dichotomies which
divide and define an ethnically transmitted discourse about
ecology and people's place within it. Though the Koskinens
participate in one poaching tradition among many that coexist
and interact within a poaching community, they utilize poaching
as an activity which defines them ideologically, economically,
politically, and historically from the sportsman. This conflict is
one of cultural clashes, one in which the wealthy and powerful
in a late-capitalist economy control eco- logical and economic
management policies of regions in which they do not reside. For
many in the Finnish American community, poaching is a
continu- ation of nineteenth-century tradition, rooted in a
complex of individualism, poverty, and traditional reliance upon
the local forests and waters for food. The tradition of mixed
economy differs from that of the ways, most centrally their
incorporation of the notion of sport. While both poacher and
sportsman incorporate the concept of sport into their hunting
and fishing and use the notion of sport to justify the fairness of
their actions, only the sports man is competing with the
animals; the poacher's game is entirely different.