Oh
Yeah, my name
is Marcus Carrasco,
M-A-R-C-U-S-C
A-R R-A S-E-O.
I'm a lab aide and
just here to cut up fish.
Yeah, yeah, my title is
a lab aide,
because I'm aiding him in
his studies.
But you also do a lot of other
things.
Yeah, whatever
Do you want to work with the tribe,
with that river, or is it just
living?
It's with GlyphWick, anything that
I've done like that has been with
GLYPHWICK.
Once you're in here,
they tend to want to use
the employees that
they got.
So it's like if something comes up
like shocking,
stuff like that, they'll
ask internally who's
available for how long.
And that's where I got connected
with butching them on that.
So...
Because we had a little bit of a
lull where we
weren't getting fish.
So I did the fish that we
did for the lakes that we got,
and then I
got to go shocking for a
couple weeks.
That was a cool experience and
everything.
Like I said, learned a lot doing
that.
What do you do?
Yeah. You're also a big role number
of that.
Yeah, I'm an enrolled member.
I've lived here my whole life.
So like I was trying to say before,
doing stuff like this really means a
lot to me.
It just makes me feel like I'm
making a difference.
I guess everybody kind of wants to
feel like they're doing something
positive, you know?
But yeah, doing this type of work
really makes me like I am doing
something positive. And then.
What's the difference between you
when you were younger and you guys
would harvest and then share
with the community versus the
feeling now when you're on this end?
Well, I still
do that.
If I'm hunting or
fishing and I'm
getting a lot,
I was always taught you share
with your
family.
And it's just,
I guess being on this side of it,
I'm more aware of
the consumption end of it.
Because again, it was just like,
load up on fish.
Have all the fish you need,
you know, have enough fish that
you know it's going to last you a
year.
But now it's like,
I'm learning about how
much is
safe, like a safe
amount to consume, how
much not a safe.
Again, I used
to think...
Eating fish twice a month was
like normal or even
more like maybe like four four times
a month was normal but it's
really not like you shouldn't be
doing that like um
you're and it's
just not good for your body it's not
good for you your family and
everything and i didn't know until
like talking with josh and
everything more and reading reading
about mercury and like
methyl mercury and stuff but
dog that doesn't just affect you
it affects your
descendants like like
your kids and like their their
kids are going to be affected by
the mercury intake from
from you so it's
yeah so it uh it's it's
a little different but I again I
feel like it's important to know
it's important to
be part of so
It's got to be a better feeling, not
only helping provide, but you're
giving knowledge with.
Oh yeah, exactly.
Like I was telling my
wife and my kids, I was like,
I used to think we can just sit here
and max on the fish because it's
like, we got it, you know?
But I always tried to give them
the smaller fish, you now?
But now it's, like, dang, we've
got a bunch of fish and we can't
eat it like we used to.
For this month, we
already had fish, so
now we've gotta wait.
But again, it's not, I might have
a lot of fish, but it's just not for
me.
Something might come up, or somebody
might pass away.
There you go, there's some fish for
that.
Or somebody has a
ghost feast, or maybe it's
something like that.
Maybe it's somebody's birthday, and
they really wanted a fish fry.
So here you go man, have
at her.
So yeah, I just,
I was
taught to share.
I was talked to like,
Don't be greedy.
So where does walleye break
and what's the importance of it
being walleye that here?
I don't know, it's just
very important, it has been a very
important resource,
not just my family but everybody's
family in the Indian community
forever, it is just
like Sturgeon, Sturgen
is very important too.
Everybody wants to eat walleye,
because sturgeon is like
a bottom feeder, not looked at as
like primo, you know,
so, but walleye it's, everybody
wants to eat wall eye,
it's top notch, A1,
this guy he never had a
walleye before, are you kidding me?
I was like, dude,
it will blow any other fish, I
don't care how you prepare it,
it smokes any other of the fish out
of the water. Like it could be salt
water, fresh water, like don't,
it's just the best fish,
okay, and it's just, it
ranks high because it's so good.
I don't know how to, it is
just a very important commodity
and it is because of
that being, it
just hard to describe, it like
deer, like deer is just something
that has been part of our
culture forever,
like you just can't take it away.
Yeah, I don't know.
It's just, it's hard to describe,
but it's just if I was
to put it, it just because taste
alone, you know, like just taste
wise, like you, you
can put it up against any fish out
there and it's going to
blow them off the off the market,
like off the map, like, just you
can you can fry it,
you could bake it, you could saute
it.
You can you could poach it.
Like you could do like anything you
want with it. And you can make that
taste incredible like
you can you can even burn
the crap out of it and i'm
telling you like uh we went fishing
one time don she she's
one she's the uh treaty specialist
here she made fish tacos
and burnt the crap off of the meat
and it was still bomb like
i'm telling you it's just it's
a great fish it's
yeah like i was
telling you before people
won't worry about smelting stuff in
the springtime. It's like, man,
we're all about our walleye.
Like, yeah.
Growing up, kids were always
like, oh, smelten season's right
around the corner. It was like,
smell it. Man, we've got, man we're
worrying about walleye over here,
man.
I'll save some for you.
But yeah,
it's just something that, it has
just been part of our people,
creator gave it to us to help
sustain us, so it's
just, it's...
Very important again just like deer
or anything else like
it was placed here for us
to sustain us so we can
make it and to carry on
the next generation you know so
again i i want to be able to
guarantee my kids i can catch
them something you know like so
it's yeah it's all
about sustainability i
guess is like why it's so important
like you We want to
be able to provide the next
generation with this,
you know?
Like, I never thought
about it, but it's...
My ancestors really fought for
my ability to
come out here and go setting it and
harvest fish, so yeah,
it's just important.
I don't know what else to say man.
It's just very, it's just
part of who we are.
Just, it is like anything else.
You got all like the trees and stuff
too. It is just part of who you are.
Like you got maple trees.
It part of tapping trees, you know.
Like we were making our syrup and
our sugar and stuff.
It just part who we as a people.
So that is why it
is important. It was just a
resource that creator put here
for us to this thing else.
And we've been taking advantage,
like, good advantage of it for
thousands of years and I
I would like to see it continue as
long as possible.
So doing stuff like this, doing work
like this really does make me feel
like I am
providing that, you know.
So, yeah.
Sorry if I was just lambing on there
for a little bit, but it was just,
yeah, it was It's just like, I...