In New Documentary, Local Fishing Guide Traces Family Tradition to ‘Tengu’

Growing up in whipping-cream-white Columbia Falls, Hilary Hutcheson generally regarded her Japanese-American ancestry as an afterthought. In elementary school, she’d explain to curious peers that she was “half Japanese,” and in high school she learned about the persecution her great grandparents endured after the United States went to war with Japan. But neither she nor her siblings confronted the generational trauma that defined their ancestors’ coming-of-age experiences.

“We knew that our grandparents were in internment camps, but we didn’t investigate what that meant to us. We just knew it was a thing,” Hutcheson said. “I don’t think we really even talked about it.”

That’s due in part to the Japanese philosophy of “shikata ga nai,” which in English roughly translates to, “it cannot be helped” or, in modern parlance, “it is what it is.” The phrase gained broader cultural relevance during World War II, during the allied occupation of Japan and the forced removal and internment of tens of thousands of Japanese Americans following the attack on Pearl Harbor.

But as Hutcheson, a renowned fly-fishing guide and media personality, built a career around fishing, her fishing-centric cultural heritage came into clearer focus. Hutcheson didn’t need to talk to it, because it was talking to her.

“It’s maddening to think that we are not talking about this key point in history,” Hutcheson said. “How is it that I’m half Japanese and went through all my elementary school and high school and college and I somehow missed all of this? And then I asked around and it seems like a lot of other people didn’t learn about it either. It’s on our generation to pass on this history, this heritage which our parents and their parents weren’t able to pass on to us.”

For Hutcheson, her family’s connection to that history began taking shape when she read the book, “Tengu: Tales Told by Fishermen and Women of the Tengu Club of Seattle,” written by her second cousin, Masaru Tahara, who served as the past president and a longtime member of “The Tengu Club.” The book traces the history of the Seattle-based Japanese-American fishing group that has preserved its history not by talking, but by fishing.

According to Tahara’s research, fishing, especially for salmon, was the most popular sporting activity in the Japanese-American community, whose members opened fishing tackle stores and refined their skills for hooking the monster fish in Seattle’s Elliott Bay. But salmon fishing grew in popularity among other demographics, too, as did fishing derbies, whose organizers were reluctant to admit Japanese-American fishermen into their ranks. Most of the derbies were organized around the summer months, when fishing for king salmon is most productive, but local boathouses refused to rent boats to Japanese Americans.

“So, they started to organize their own fishing contests in the dead of winter, when rental boats were available because there was zero demand, but the only fish feeding were the smaller black-mouth salmon,” Hutcheson said.

The Tengu Club was officially born in November 1937. But the last fishing derby the original Tengu Club members participated in was on Sunday, Dec. 7, 1941. The original Tengu Club ended with the attack on Pearl Harbor.

“That’s what got me interested, reading his book, and I just wanted to hang out with these people,” Hutcheson said of the Tengu Club. “Being out in Elliott Bay in this really gritty weather seemed like such a different kind of fishing experience compared to the fly fishing I do in Glacier National Park.”

A gifted storyteller with a raft of film credits for producing and directing fishing documentaries, Hutcheson set out to tell the tale of Tengu, partnering with documentary filmmaker Britton Caillouette of Farm League, as well as outdoor brand YETI to explore the roots of one of the oldest fishing clubs in North America. Hutcheson’s initial goal was to learn more about the fishing technique called “mooching,” which her ancestors developed on Elliott Bay out of necessity — it was the only way to harvest their leftover share of the summer catch.

But after meeting with her cousin, Tahara, and learning the horrifying details of her family’s history, as well as the scores of Japanese Americans rounded up for confinement during World War II, Hutcheson became a central character in the film, which premieres to the public for a free screening on Friday, May 23, at the Whitefish Performing Arts Center at 7 p.m.

“I started this project without knowing about our family’s internment and my own Japanese heritage,” Hutcheson said. “I definitely did not set out on a sentimental journey or any kind of quest to learn about my family’s trauma. The film wasn’t supposed to be about me at all. It was supposed to be more of an oral history of the fishing club. But as my co-director, Brit, was watching my reactions as I learned about the internment camps where my grandparents were confined and everything that happened, he realized that my response was a way to tell the story. Because it’s a story that’s unfamiliar to a lot of people my age with Japanese ancestry who were blind to their own history because it just wasn’t passed on.”

The idea of “passing it on” emerges as a prominent theme throughout the half-hour film, particularly as Hutcheson reconciles the blind spots in her ancestral understanding with what she’s now able to pass down to her own daughters.

“At first I was pissed at my mom for not teaching more about it because I want to be able to talk to my kids about this,” Hutcheson said. “But then I realized she’s going through the same thing because nobody talked about it. Shikata ga nai. And it’s probably more traumatic for her.”

In the film, a subject sharpens the point of “shikata ga nai”

“We never talked about it,” she says. “That was the noble thing to do.”

Throughout the film’s production, Hutcheson said she gained a respect for the concept of “shikata ga nai,” while also accepting that nobility and naming cultural and generational trauma can co-exist.

“Throughout my life there were opportunities to learn about my heritage and my past and my family that I overlooked,” Hutcheson says as the film opens. “But all I cared about was being on the water and fishing. Being out here was my life, and then I looked up and it was my career. It happened really naturally but for fishermen and my family who came before me it was not so easy.”

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