A whale that made an unusual trip into freshwater then was shot Thursday by hunters on the Kuskokwim River finally was pulled onto shore Saturday, said a tribal leader in the village of Napaskiak.
The whale carcass was being measured and residents on Saturday evening were making their first cuts into it, said Chris Larson, honorary tribal chief in Napaskiak.
"The whole village is here," said tribal administrator Sharon Williams, one of hundreds of people who gathered at the village airport, where the whale ended up.
They expect that the meat will be good, Larson said.
"It's not going to go to waste," he said.
The whale sank Thursday into the river, to the dismay of hunters working from aluminum skiffs and those watching from other boats. Retrieving it was a challenge. Ropes and harpoons not designed for such a big animal repeatedly gave way.
The men weren't from traditional whaling communities and also had trouble killing it, said Rita Joekay of Napaskiak, one of those watching from a boat.
While Napaskiak residents are marveling at the whale that came to them, federal authorities are looking into how it was killed.
The federal National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has authority to protect whales. Officials said Friday that the agency is investigating the shooting.
The species of whale that was shot hasn't been confirmed. Belugas, which can be hunted by Alaska Natives, are more typically the type of whale that swims up a river, NOAA says. Locals say they at first thought it was a beluga, but after some videos and pictures were posted on Facebook some people changed their best guess to a gray whale.
The only large whale allowed to be hunted in Alaska are bowheads, and those hunts are restricted to 11 northern communities that are part of an international quota system. Napaskiak, like other villages on the Kuskokwim, isn't part of that.
On Friday night, villagers with newly fashioned grappling hooks snagged the whale. They gradually towed it to Napaskiak and on Saturday hefted it on shore at the airport, first with manpower and then with a bulldozer that dragged it the rest of the way, Larson said.
Hundreds of people were watching the scene. People from other villages and Bethel came to help, he said.
On Thursday, word of the whale in the Kuskokwim spread by mouth and text message. In the end, maybe 50 boats gathered, most of them filled with people who just wanted to watch, said Larson, 73. He went with his wife and grandson for what he called a "once in a lifetime thing." Decades ago, a beluga, or maybe a pod of them, swam up the Kuskokwim, according to legend. But a whale in the river is highly unusual.
People along the Kuskokwim who saw the whale, or heard about it, had very different reactions to the animal — and to the shooting. Some thought people should have simply enjoyed watching it. Some thought the hunters weren't properly equipped to take such a big animal. Others saw the whale as food.
A Bethel Native leader, Beverly Hoffman, posted on Facebook: "I thought we would all line up on the seawall to observe this occurrence. I know it's a source of food but really it saddened me to hear not only that it was killed but it wasn't harvested."
The whale traveled some 60 river miles from the Bering Sea up the Kuskokwim — nearly to Bethel.
While rare for the Kuskokwim, "there have been numerous cases where whales have made forays unto freshwater for a short period of time," said NOAA spokeswoman Julie Speegle.
Joekay and her husband first saw it mid-afternoon Thursday during a boat trip from Napaskiak to Bethel upriver, where they were going to buy baking supplies.
It was swimming in the river, and exciting to see, Joekay said.
A few other people saw it too, near what's called Nick-O-Nick fish camp.
Gradually a crowd of boaters gathered.
"There were some people from Bethel. There were some people from Oscarville. Even tundra villages and even downriver people," Larson said. "So it was not only Napaskiak people."
In the village, residents heard gunshots. Joekay and her husband, back from their shopping trip in Bethel, collected five of their children to see the whale. By now the whale and the boaters were downriver from Napaskiak.
Hunters were standing up in their boats, firing rifles at the whale. The scene was disturbing as it went on and on, Joekay said. Another boater said he had to maneuver away from the line of fire.
"They are shooting it and shooting it and shooting it forever," Joekay said. "Finally it stopped moving."
A video appears to show blood in the water and blood spouting from the whale's blowhole.
Then the whale sank.
"I am still thinking about the whale right now," Joekay said Friday morning.
When it sunk, "people were not as excited as they were an hour ago," Larson said.
The tribal council met Friday morning to figure out what to do. Tribal administrator Sharon Williams said she contacted nearby villages and Bethel for help.
A wandering walrus a few years ago was taken near the village — and now this big animal, Larson said.
The men used high-powered rifles, shotguns and harpoons, similar to what they are used to doing to hunt seal. During the effort to drag it to shore, the ropes to the harpoons broke, he said.
Larson said the animal's killing came as villagers longed for food following this summer's fishing restrictions during the king salmon run.
"I'll tell you this much. We have not been fishing all summer. I only got six king salmon," Larson said, describing how he gave away three of them. "People are hungry. They want food. They want subsistence food. Anything that comes up in this river is food."
Alex Joekay of Oscarville, Rita Joekay's brother-in-law, also boated over to investigate whether there really was a whale in the Kuskokwim. He suspected a seal. He was thrilled to see the big animal.
"I guess it offered itself to the Kuskokwim River people," said Alex Joekay, repeating a teaching of elders.
Last year, hunters from Toksook Bay killed an endangered humpback whale. NOAA's office of law enforcement sent letters to Toksook Bay and nearby Nightmute explaining the protections for and rules on whales.