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A slipping heritage oils the wheels of tradition
Knitting, smoking and drying are all necessary when preserving oolichans
“La gosa `Wah! La gosa `Wah!”
The words open a door between past and present, where ancient knowledge blends with current technology.
“The oolichans are coming. The oolichans are coming!”
Thaleichthys pacificus, a member of the smelt family, is a small fish, nine inches or less, with a long, thin body and a large mouth. Its name comes from the Greek word thaleia, which means rich, and icthys, meaning fish. Rich refers to the nutrient rich oils packed in its flesh, a seasonal tonic wrapped in a silver and blue skin. The fish is in fact so oily that its dried body can be fitted with a wick and burned as a candle.
In March, while winter still tortures the Nass River, the oolichans come to spawn, huge schools that mark the end of the season’s lean times for predatory fish, birds and mammals, including the people of the region. In times past, all nine tribes of the Tsimshian gathered on the river to harvest the oolichan, to smoke and sundry its meat and to render its oil into precious grease.
Elder James Bryant’s family was among the last to live on the Nass. The area, he says, is still used when the fish are running. Before the arrival of Europeans altered local settlement patterns, each tribe moved about within the designated and shared territories, to harvest natural resources of food, medicine and materials in the different seasons.
When the oolichans ran, people from each tribe camped on the Nass. The Tsimshian were not the only nation represented. There were probably a couple of thousand people in the camps during that time, Bryant says. Hundreds of dugout canoes travelled the river daily.
Each year, fewer fishermen make the seven-hour trip to the oolichans’ spawning grounds. The grease-makers are even scarcer. Even so, the spring harvest remains a high point for the Tsimshian community of Lax Kw’alaams, located about 40 kilometres north of Prince Rupert. During the days and nights following the oolichans’ arrival at the dock, the village fills with the unmistakable aroma of fried oolichans and smokehouses.
We are fortunate to have master smoker Homer Tait in our family and luckier still that he invited us to help him smoke the first batch of oolichans. Homer nearly died two years ago when he fell down his basement stairs. A head injury created internal bleeding and triggered a stroke. He went through months of therapy in Vancouver and is still regaining use of his limbs, but a motorized wheelchair and sheer determination put him back in the place he loves the best—his backyard haven of vegetable gardens—and his busy smokehouse.
Homer’s greenhouse and his garden created from all kinds of recycled containers—washing machine drums, old tires, pickup truck beds—are a story in themselves. He is passionate about growing, gathering and preserving food for his own use, and to give away. What he knows he passes along to those who wish to learn.
When the fishermen bring in the oolichans, Homer gets extra and freezes it. He knows relatives will make the journey home to smoke their year’s supply with him. “I like showing people how to do it. I like helping them get ready for the next winter.”
The pussy willows are still in bloom when we meet in Homer’s basement to begin preparations for our next winter’s food supply. His son and daughter-in-law join us. There are three rookies, two veterans and a couple hundred pounds of slippery fish.
Homer demonstrates “knitting” the fish into pairs by slipping one’s head through the other’s gill. Joined they create a solid inverted V, which will hang on sticks in the smokehouse. Joining them is simple but our coffee gets cold. Our hands are too slick to lift a mug safely.
I’m thinking how fortunate we are to be doing this in a warm house, far from the howling winds on the Nass’s oolichan grounds. We didn’t have to catch the fish either, or travel.
Homer tells us stories about smoking, about techniques and about his vacuum sealer machine that has “changed his life.” Our backs become stiff leaning over the buckets. We take an occasional break to walk around, to wash our hands and have a sip of coffee. The supply of oolichans begins to appear endless, but slowly the pairs outnumber the singles.
By the time we finish, hours later, I am missing skin on the back of my index finger. While pushing one oolichan head through the other’s gills, I have discovered that some of the fish have very short, very sharp teeth ringing their large mouths. The medical clinic, I hear later, treats a number of infected “oolichan fingers” at this time of year. Happily, mine will not be one of them.
Outside the smokehouse, we hang the fishy Vs, evenly spaced and not touching, over cedar sticks that Homer has split by hand. Inside, the smokehouse walls have a rich patina of smoke and fish oil. Larger poles create a frame from which to suspend the loaded sticks. The fish drip on our heads.
Hundreds of oolichans finally hang, silver and blue, inside the smokehouse. I imagine how the camps might have looked, hundreds of thousands of fish knitted and hung on drying racks and in simple smoke rooms.
Homer’s fire pit is a portable half-barrel. With a metal cover on top, the round sides roll the smoke back in on itself, facilitating the tricky process of keeping a fire smoldering but not quite burning.
On day one, the fish dangle, almost invisible in the smoke, their silvery sides turning yellow. We come by to check the progress. They smell good enough to eat.
On day two, Homer announces the smoking is done. We take the sticks down, then slip the fish off. Homer wants the heads and tails cut off, to fit more fish into each vacuum bag. The crows appreciate the leftovers.
When the fish are all bagged, ready for the freezer, I am weary. I do not want to eat oolichans just then. We go home with nearly 20 bags of smoked, vacuum-packed fish for our freezer.
Just last summer I visited the Canadian Museum of Civilization in Hull Quebec with my brother. The Tsimshian people helped create an impressive collection of their own cultural material. I stood for a long time studying a life-sized display depicting the drying of oolichans.
I now know how they got those oolichans to stay together on the sticks.
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