1

Elijah Wadhams
12 August 2003
Alert Bay, British Columbia, Canada

2

My name is Elijah Wadhams.

3

Stephen Beans
28 November 2003
Alert Bay, British Columbia, Canada

4

My Name is Stephen Beans. I was 11 years old when we made this eulachon oil.

5

Cole Speck
6 August 2003
Alert Bay, British Columbia, Canada

6

My name is Cole Speck, I was 11 years old when we made our grease.

7

How long have you been going to Knight Inlet?
Stephen: I have been going since I was 2 years old.
Cole: This was my second time going.

What do you like most about going to Knight Inlet?
Stephen: I like the duck hunting and I like riding on my quad.
Cole: It's beautiful and I get a break from School.

Is there anything you don't like about it?
Stephen: I don't like doing my homework while I am there. This year I am going to do it all on the way up there.
Cole: Same

Do you see lots of animals when you are there?
Boys: yes, you see lots.

What do you see?
Boys: Grizzly Bears, Moose, Mountain Goats, Grouse, Sea lions, Seals and lots of Seagulls.

When you were there did you boys catch your own Eulachons?
Boys: yes

How did you catch them?
Boys: A dipnet.

How does that work.
Stephen: You can see all the black in the water from the Eulachons and then you try to catch them with the dip net. We also found a net with led and corks, so we threw that in the water and caught some Eulachons.
Cole: With a dip net and the net we found

Did you catch a lot with the net you found?
Boys: yes

How much did you catch?
Boys: One set was about 300 fish.

How much do you catch with a dip net?
Stephen: With a little dip net, about 10-20 fish.
Cole: With a big dip net about 50.

How long did it take to fill your pit?
Boys: About 3 or 4 days.

What happens after you fill your pit?
Boys: You let them rot.

How long does it take for them to ferment?
Boys: about 10 days.

What do you do while you are waiting for them to rot?
Stephen: I ride on my quad, go trout fishing and play soccer.
Cole: I like to fish and ride the quads too, and just play around.

Isn't there any work to do while the fish are fermenting?

Boys: Yes there is, we have to gather wood for the fire and we have to wash all the jugs.

After the Eulachons are fermented what do you do?
Boys: We shovel them into a big blue tub and carry them to a samgat'si.

What is a samgat'si?
It's a big box, the bottom is tin with a fire below it to heat the eulachons and make the meat fall off the bones. You gently shake them to get the meat off of the bones.

How long are the eulachons in the samgat'si?
Boys: About 4 or 5 hours.

How many loads of the blue tub fill the samgat'si?

Stephen: About 5 tubs to one cooking load and we got 3 cooking loads.

What happens when the cooking is done?
Boys: When the cooking is done, this means all the meat is off the bones. You heat the grease up then there will be a little bit of foam which you scrape off the top and you throw it into the fire then you start skimming the grease.

When you skim the grease what do you do with it?
Boys: You put it into a big pot. After it is in the big pot we skim it again into the jugs.

So are you finished at this point?
Stephen: No, you let the grease harden up, then you clean the outside of the jugs, because there is grease spilled on it.

How many jugs did the 3 of you boys get?
Boys: 7 each.

Wow that's great! Thank you boys for sharing your experience with everyone.