Fish/Scale 

Fish/Scale is a play on words that speaks to the scales of fish used in this art form, in addition to the size (scale) of these vibrant gifts. Playing with the notion of scale is a way of re-centering fish relations, including their many gifts. Scale can help orient us towards relations less seen and to challenge the power dynamics of anthropocentric worlds. Using macro photography to capture the close-up qualities of an individual fish scale, those viewing this art form get a more intimate picture of the gifts from the fish. My artistic practice with photography and digital art allows for this art form to be presented in larger formats, such as murals and large prints. Transforming individual fish scales to life-size art increases the physical presence of fish scales, calling on the viewer to reconsider their role. 

Indigenous relations to fish and other non-human kin have been greatly impacted by settler-colonialism of the land and water. ‘Scaling’ or resizing the gifts from the fish is about rescaling kinship,orienting towards our non-human kin and rescaling of power. Within my fish scale practice, scale is one ongoing strategy of ensuring fish are not overlooked. 

Gifts from the Fish

The language used for describing our fish relatives is also an anti-colonial tool. Engaging NamekosipiiwAnishinaabeKwe Kaaren Dannenman’s (2019) phrasing “gifts from the fish” to recenter what is seen as waste or discardable as something to be cared for, I use the term “gifts” to refer to all parts of the fish including those often seen as something to throw in the trash. 

This language comes from Indigenous teachers such as Jaime Morse and Treaty #3 Anishinaabe Land-based educator Kaaren Dannenman. When I took the Treaty #3 Trapping Course with Kaaren, she had us go through and list all the gifts from amisk (beaver)—a practice grounded in the ethics of honouring the whole life of the animal. This process of listing and considering the whole animal changed the pace and relation in which interactions with amisk would proceed. This caring language taught me to slow down, learn about the various parts of an animal or fish, a practice that extractive trapping, fishing and hunting practices often don’t make space for. Some of the gifts from amisk are returned and recirculated to the water or land, while others are encouraged to be utilized. This practice of slow consideration taught me about how honouring the animal or fish wasn’t so much about using all the parts of the animal as certain parts may be returned, but rather recognizing that there is purpose or intention to each part of any living being. While fishing in Treaty #6 with Cree Elder Lynn Jonasson, we gutted a fish after we had pulled the net and then left their guts out on the ice as an offering for the eagles in the area. It wasn’t only us who were benefiting from the gifts from the fish, but also the bird relatives who live around the lake. I understood this practice as an offering and a way of sharing with other relatives.

Many of the gifts from the fish are used in practices of Western Science though often are not thought of as gifts. Instead, Western science views gifts from the fish as necessities for material study. For example, to determine the age of a lake whitefish or to determine seasonal growth use “opercles, otoliths, pectoral spines, dorsal spines, scales and vertebrae” (Jackson, Quist & Larscheid, 2008, p.108). This is an example of how Western scientific research maintains relationships with lake whitefish versus Indigenous understandings of Land and reciprocity and kinship with atikamek. Having first encountered this practice through Michif scientist Max Liboiron, I capitalize Land and Water when referring to the connected relationships and spiritual practices engaged on the Land as a site of cultural significance, rather than lower-case land as a static geographical and physical entity (Styres and Zinga, 301). However, Western science and relationships do not exist in a strict binary. As a fish scale artist, I deepen my understanding of atikamek by reading research by Western scientists, alongside the work of fellow Alberta Métis and anticolonial scientist Liboiron. Their lab protocols follow an often-cited Indigenous value of wasting as little of the animal as possible and honouring all the gifts provided. As Liboiron asserts:

These food webs are not out there in the field, external to either laboratory or daily life. They are our food webs. Some lab members are from Nunatsiavut and NunatuKavut, some are daughters of fish harvesters, and most of us eat local fish (if we eat fish). The lab has a rule about samples; they must be eaten. We do not catch fish for science. We use fish caught for food, and we do science on the leftovers. (2021, 150)

The gifts from the whitefish are numerous, including fish scales, otoliths, vertebrae, fish skin, broth, meat, and the head. Each of these gifts have a purpose for their use, ranging from fish scale art, fish skin leather, numerous recipes, support for mental health, glue and rattles. 

Anishinaabe scholar and artist Susan Blight speaks similarly of the sturgeon and the gifts that they offer:

Abundance is different from amassing or acquisition or even quantity. It is a way of living in the world that sets actions in the service of balance and a deep knowing that we live on land that continually grows and replenishes. The abundance was not due to a reckless and unrestrained drive to collect as much as possible but to an acknowledgment that sturgeon sustained Anishinaabe life, itself a practice of promoting more life (2020, 4)

Caring for all components of the fish is a queer form of care for the fish, in that it takes      what otherwise might be seen as discardable and creates beauty. In a world where homophobia and transphobia are still present, queer care extends to our human and non-human family. When you come to understand the many different gifts from the fish, it’s hard to see them discarded so carelessly.  As Michif anthropologist Zoe Todd generously reminds us, “fish are an integral part of Indigenous legal orders, and we can and should think through our responsibilities to one another by also considering the duties and obligations we have to fish” (2018, 67). Understanding atikamek as a gift is a form of Indigenous legal order, in which the whitefish is a friend and relative whose many gifts are cherished. As we work with atikamek’s plentiful gifts, we are reminded to respect and protect the waterways that the whitefish call home as reciprocity for their sacrifice. Blight’s artistic projects often draw attention to these legal orders, issuing Anishinaabemowin challenges to the viewer encouraging them to recognize the waterways obstructed by urban development and honour our non-human relations (2018, 2021). A queer Indigenous politic of care extends to our relationships to fish, other non-human kin, the water and ice. 

Embodied Queerness

In Woelfle-Erskine’s Fishy Pleasures (2019), fishing is interrogated through a series of images where settler colonialism, settler sexuality, and masculinity are reinforced. In one, 

The men hold the heavy fish stick possessively, the women merely gesture to it, acknowledging their mates’ masculine drive. The women stand closer to the men than to each other, one hand holding fishing poles flung over their shoulders and their other hand resting on the trout stick (336).

Fishing for gifts from the fish is an embodied practice of queerness wherein the fishers and practitioners are queer themselves. I fish with my queer Two-Spirit Anishinaabe partner Melody McKiver. We meet the fish and the water, mutually reinforcing our care for each other and the Land. We subvert the heteropatriarchal images surrounding mainstream fishing cultures: two queer and Two-Spirit lovers chopping open the ice, deploying the ice jig, and setting the net. We understand our practice as future-oriented: through learning to fish as Two-Spirit people, we set ourselves up to better prepare for life in a closer relationship with the Land—especially as we face an ongoing climate disaster knowing that neither heterosexuality nor not knowing how to fish will save us. Queerness and gifts from the fish will be what helps sustain us. 

Subversion needs humour too. In Fig. 2, Melody embodies the phenomena of cisgendered heterosexual men proudly displaying their fish catches in an attempt to display their virility, such as in the well-known and oft parodied “Tinder pose”. Speaking back to the “Tinder pose” culture of posing with our fish kin, we orient the gaze of the camera towards our beautiful connection with the fish in Fig 1 and 4, emphasizing reverence for our relations and celebrating queer joy together, Fig 3.

Queer kinship begins with us, but extends to the fish. For many queer, trans, and Two-Spirit people, our families often include more than biological family due to the need to seek out community and kinship that reflects queer experiences. This dynamic is extended through Land to include our more-than-human relations and “fish are chosen family” (personal correspondence, McKiver). In “a world organized around the form of the heterosexual couple” (Ahmed 2006, 19-20), a queer fish scale practice includes reorienting fishing practices as a space for queer people, and valuing gifts from the fish that are often coded as “waste.”