The Makah: Whaling, Treaties, and the Fight for the Sea
By Daniel R. Whitcomb
Length4h 18m
About this audiobook
Before a harpooner stood in the bow of a Makah whaling canoe, he spent years getting ready. He fasted. He bathed in cold water at dawn and scrubbed himself with branches until his skin stung. He prayed, and he learned from the elders what a whale is and what a hunter owes it. The canoe itself, cedar planks steamed and stitched with spruce root, existed for one purpose: to carry a crew of eight within arm's reach of a gray whale passing the northwest tip of the Olympic Peninsula.
In 1855 at Neah Bay, Makah leaders signed a treaty with Governor Isaac Stevens that gave up most of their country but secured, in writing, the right of "whaling or sealing at usual and accustomed grounds," the only United States treaty to name that right. By then commercial whalers were hunting the gray whale toward extinction, and by the late 1920s Makah canoes had stopped going out after whales. They stayed on the beach for seventy years.
In May 1999, after the gray whale came off the endangered list, a Makah crew paddled out from Neah Bay and took a whale, and the town found itself surrounded by protest boats, cameras and lawyers. From that hunt the chapters move through the courtrooms, the International Whaling Commission and the long wait for federal permission, and back to Neah Bay itself, where the right is argued over as fiercely as it is remembered.
The treaty says whaling. The fight is over who gets to decide what that means.
Audiobook details
GenreHistory
Length4 hrs 18 mins
Narrated byListen with 1,000+ voices
FormateBook with Audio
Publish dateSep 19, 2026
LanguageEnglish
Table of contents
1Chapter 1: The Water in the Cedar
2Chapter 2: The Governor and the Chiefs
3Chapter 3: The Whale and the Market
4Chapter 4: The Long Silence
5Chapter 5: Thirteen Whales
Show all chaptersShow less
6Chapter 6: The First Hunt
7Chapter 7: The Courts and the Whale
8Chapter 8: The Whale and the World
9Chapter 9: The Right to Whale
10Chapter 10: Neah Bay
11Chapter 11: The Canoe and the Ledger
12Chapter 12: The Whale in the Water
13About the Author
More from Daniel R. Whitcomb
The Great Law of Peace: The Iroquois Confederacy and the Making of the NortheastDaniel R. Whitcomb4h 12m$6
Crazy Horse and the End of Lakota FreedomDaniel R. Whitcomb4h 32m$6
The Medicine Line: Native Nations and the U.S.-Canada BorderDaniel R. Whitcomb4h 52m$6
The Long Hunter and the Shawnee Towns: Simon Kenton's Kentucky WarDaniel R. Whitcomb4h 45m$6
Sand Creek: The Colorado War, 1851-1865Daniel R. Whitcomb3h 48m$6
The Yakama War and the Puget Sound War: Kamiakin, Leschi, and the Fight for the NorthwestDaniel R. Whitcomb3h 42m4.6 (10)$6
The Pawnee: Earth Lodges, the Stars, and the ScoutsDaniel R. Whitcomb4h 2m$6
Seven Cargoes: How Corn, Horses, and Disease Remade Native AmericaDaniel R. Whitcomb5h 20m$6
Powder River: Red Cloud's War and the Fight for the Bighorn CountryDaniel R. Whitcomb4h 19m$6
Fallen Timbers: Little Turtle, St. Clair, and the Fight for OhioDaniel R. Whitcomb5h 6m4.3 (57)$6
The Black Hawk War: The Last War East of the MississippiDaniel R. Whitcomb4h 6m$6
A Brief History of IntelligenceMax S. Bennett12h 18m4.6 (6.6K)$29 · $0.00
Ghosts of HiroshimaCharles Pellegrino8h 59m4.5 (877)$23
Lily's PromiseLily Ebert, Dov Forman8h 54m4.6 (16.1K)$29 · $0.00
On Democracies and Death CultsDouglas Murray10h 38m4.6 (6.5K)$29 · $0.00
Across the RiverKent Babb11h 40m4.6 (927)$29 · $0.00
Balcony Over Jerusalem: A Middle East Memoir - Israel, Palestine and BeyondJohn Lyons12h 37m4.6 (1.4K)$33 · $0.00
BeyondStephen Walker15h 39m4.6 (3.2K)$33 · $0.00
Kings and PawnsHoward Bryant10h 9m4.6 (678)$29 · $0.00
No EscapeNury Turkel9h 30m4.6 (809)$28 · $0.00
Jubal Stone: U.S. Marshal: Blood Trail To Hell: A Western Adventure NovelCasey Nash3h 42m4.6 (3.2K)$18 · $0.00
Fall and RiseMitchell Zuckoff17h 23m4.6 (9.8K)$40 · $0.00
The SurvivorJosef Lewkowicz, Michael Calvin9h 22m4.6 (2.5K)$29 · $0.00
Always FaithfulThomas Schueman, Zainullah Zaki12h 12m4.6 (977)$29 · $0.00
The State of Society in France Before the Revolution of 1789 (Annotated)Alexis de Tocqueville17h 25m4.6 (1.2K)$2 · $0.00
All the Gallant MenDonald Stratton, Ken Gire5h 55m4.6 (11.8K)$24 · $0.00
Medgar and MyrlieJoy-Ann Reid10h 52m4.5 (27.8K)$29 · $0.00
The History of the Peloponnesian War (Annotated)Thucydides24h 3m4.6 (1.1K)$2 · $0.00
Where the Birds Never SingJack Sacco10h 31m4.6 (3.8K)$29 · $0.00
Serviceman J: The Untold Story of an NZSAS SoldierJamie Pennell5h 51m4.6 (452)$24 · $0.00
Valley of the BirdtailAndrew Stobo Sniderman, Douglas Sanderson10h 1m4.6 (2.4K)$29 · $0.00
You may also like
The Happy Isles of OceaniaPaul Theroux24h 8m4.1 (8.6K)$53 · $0.00
The BeadworkersBeth Piatote5h 15m4.1 (1.2K)$17 · $0.00
The Pioneers, or, The Sources of the SusquehannaJames Fenimore Cooper18h 48m3.7 (4.4K)$2.40
The Amur RiverColin Thubron10h 13m4.1 (1.8K)$29 · $0.00
The Last Fish TaleMark Kurlansky6h 20m4.0 (1.2K)$14
Life Among the IndiansGeorge Catlin10h 1m4.2 (331)$1 · $0.00
Our Southern HighlandersHorace Kephart9h 42m4.2 (1.1K)$1.50 · $0.00
Indian Boyhood & From the Deep Woods to CivilizationCharles Eastman9h 55m4.3 (355)$1.99 · $0.00
Deep RiverKarl Marlantes25h 59m4.3 (11.4K)$25
All the Agents and SaintsStephanie Elizondo Griest13h 4m4.2 (322)$23
Aloha RodeoDavid Wolman, Julian Smith6h 16m4.2 (2.3K)$24 · $0.00
FrostlinesNeil Shea6h 8m4.2 (544)$24 · $0.00
A Thousand Trails HomeSeth Kantner8h 2m4.4 (524)$20 · $0.00
Grandma Says: Wake Up, World!Agnes Baker Pilgrim6h 11m4.5 (35)$17
Mother Earth Is Our ElderKatlia (Catherine) Lafferty10h 16m$29 · $0.00
The Whale House of the ChilkatGeorge Thornton Emmons1h 8m$2 · $0.00
Beautiful Philippines: A Handbook of General InformationPhilippine Islands. Commission of Independence8h 24m$1 · $0.00
Mayflower ChroniclesKathryn Brewster Haueisen11h 26m4.3 (88)$23 · $0.00
Last Stand of the Louisiana ShrimpersEmma Christopher Lirette8h 55m$25 · $0.00
Ukraine, the Land and its People, an Introduction to its GeographyStephen Rudnitsky12h 3m$2.30