Sitkan Peter Williams is an artist who makes a variety of garments and craft objects from the hides and fur of seals and sea otters — marine mammals that he hunts himself. Williams can do this because he is Alaska Native (Yup’ik Eskimo) and exempt from the federal ban on hunting in the Marine Mammal Protection Act.
But Williams did not grow up hunting. He discovered it as an adult, and discovered himself as he learned how to hunt.
While the hunting of marine mammals is widely accepted in Alaska, it’s not the case elsewhere. In order for Peter Williams to expand his business and career, he’d like to sell work outside the state. In fact, he’d like to enter the fur trade on the Eastern seaboard.
