Butchering Falls First Whale

We first heard of people spotting whales off the shores of St.Michael Bay. You can see trails of waves where the whales swim near the surface. "Whales, theres whales out in the ocean!" kids screaming with excitement. There were a few hunters that went out and only two hunters were successful, Victor Steve and Danny Long. After pulling the whale to shore at one end of town, they decided to move it closer to their homes on the other side of town, near the tank farm. After pulling the 18-20 foot whale to shore, the community of St.Michael came together and helped butcher the whale. It was just a small handfull and then more people came, mostly the kids. Drew got down and dirty and helped with the whole whale, an elderly lady by the name of Mary Cheemuk was surprised to see a "gussaq" working on the whale. " That's a qussaq! Theres a white man, a teacher working on the whale!" She said. Drew heard her and just went on with what he was doing, laughing to himself. For helping, Drew and I got a slab of white meat and the dark meat. We stayed up cutting and bagging them. We dried most of the dark meat, very delicious! Here you will see pictures of the whale and three of the guys who butchered the whale, Victor Steve, Danny Long and Drew Larrabee.