A Time of Plenty

Before contact with Europeans, Nuu chah nulth Peoples utilized a wide range of sea resources, and possessed a wide range of technologies for their harvesting and preparation. For example, a wide range of hooks, nets, spears, lines and methods were used for catching a multitude of fish species. Similarly, a variety of tools, from digging and prying sticks to special pack baskets and sacks, were used for the harvesting and gathering of sea foods. Sea otter hunting required not only special preparations, but also the use of specific canoes, and particularly made bows and arrows. Archaeological digs in traditional Nuu chah nulth territories along the outer west coast of Vancouver Island have revealed deep, large, shell middens, a reflection of the abundant mollusks and intertidal resources used by Nuu chah nulth Peoples over thousands of years. Digs in Hesquiat Harbour, dating back to 500 BC, uncovered thirty-four species of shellfish including sea urchin, northern abalone, butter clam, cockle, horse clam and crab, and eleven species of marine mammals including northern fur seal, porpoise, varieties of whale, and sea otter (Frederick 1980).

Alongside the evidence of past shellfish and marine mammal use, tools for a variety of technologies related to the gathering and hunting of both shellfish and marine mammals were uncovered. Arrow points made of bone were identified by Hesquiaht elders as specifically made for the hunting of sea otters.

These elders went on to describe one of the family groups, or "houses," that today make up a part of the Hesquiaht First Nation, who were specifically noted as sea otter hunters. The Homis´ath, also known as the e'ehtakamalth´ath (translated into English, the name means "still after sea otters"), owned, as part of their territories, a place called kwatl'nit, a series of nearshore reefs known for the many sea otters that habituated the kelp patches there. Today, kwatl´nit is referred to on maps as Perez Rocks, or locally as Sunday Rocks.


 
 
Sea otters were normally hunted in the spring and summer in calm weather. A hunter and his steersman checked the kelp beds that otters were known to frequent in hope of finding one still asleep before dawn. The expansion of sea otter hunting brought on by the arrival of European and American ships and traders, caused Nuu chah nulth hunters to adopt new methods of hunting that would ensure them the capture of more sea otters than they had previously needed. These new hunting methods involved from eight to twenty canoes, each with two to three men, engaging together in a sea otter hunt. A specific person, knowledgeable in weather forecasting and observation, was responsible for calling the group of hunters on an appropriately calm, early morning for a hunt. Before dawn, the canoes traveled in a line, with hunters typically standing to watch out for sea otters. When one was sighted, a paddle was waved in the air as a silent signal to alert all paddlers and hunters. The canoes then circled the otter, hunters watching for air bubbles to determine which way the sea otter was going when it dove beneath the surface. The animal was then shot with bows and arrows, each hunter using his own distinctive arrowheads. The late Hesquiaht Chief Ben Andrews, in particular, recalled his grandfather's stories of sea otter hunting, and his descriptions of all the coastal tribes hunting for sea otter.

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