Students at the Klukwan school learned how to cut up and process a moose carcass over two days this week. This is a continuation of a local subsistence tradition that goes back generations. 

 

 

Subsistence fishing and hunting are important traditions in Klukwan. All 13 students of the local school helped process a moose carcass over two days. Pat Warren is a community member, she came to be part of the special event.

Warren: “They were enjoying seeing the texture of the moose, and also learning how to cut up the moose and how to grind it.”

Warren says whether at the school or elsewhere, butchering a moose is an occasion for sharing.

Warren: “Everybody that came to moose camp would get some of the moose, and they would also have a lost of elders in the village and they’d set aside some of the packages of meat, and then distribute it to the elders.” 

Justina Hotch works at the school. She is grateful for the village elders who came and taught the processing skills.

Hotch: “We are really grateful to have Valentino Burratin who is a master butcher who for years has helped with the community moose camps, and he led us in learning how to process a moose.”

Hotch says the school benefitted from the Department of Fish and Game’s regulations that prevented a hunter from keeping the meat from the moose he shot. The animal did not meet the size requirement, and the hunter had to donate the carcass. 

Hotch: “So one of our staff was able to go and pick it up”

And the students were put to work.

Hotch: “Then we had stations set up, with different family members and Val doing the deboning and cutting of the moose. And then we had the kids at different stations helping with the process. So every student at some point helped with cutting meat into stew meat, every student had the chance to use the meat grinder to make burger or sausage.”

The students then packaged and labeled the meat.

Marvin Willard Jr has two kids in the school. He is glad the skills are passed on to the students.

Willard: “Beneficial that they allow it in the schools right now because it’s really important that they learn this process. Because we don’t want it to be forgotten.”

Willard remembers going into Canada as a child with his grandfather. They would bring some of their harvest from the coastal area to trade in the interior.

Willard: “It was always an even trade, because we can’t get this certain food up there, and we can’t get this certain food down here, so let’s trade. And it was a good system. It worked for hundreds of years.”

Willard says sharing the harvest with elders came naturally as a child. He remembers fishing with his cousins near Klukwan.

Willard: “We’d get maybe 10, 15, 20 cohos, we’d drag them back up the river, we’d drag them in the snow, gut them all up, and we’d distribute it to all of our elders. And distribute it to all our families. We weren’t told to go do it, we just did it because that’s just the way we were taught.”

Nutrition was the focus of the harvest. Pat Warren remembers a puzzling conversation decades ago, when hunting regulations were introduced, and controversial. 

Warren: “We overheard a person at that time say  ’Well I remember when I could get two moose a week’, and my friend and I looked at each other, why would you need to get two moose a week? One moose would be enough to feed your family for the winter. So it just surprised us that some people in the area at that time, are looking at trophies, and not food.”

The meat the students processed will soon be distributed throughout the village. Hunting regulations allow for the harvest of around 25 moose per year in the Chilkat valley.