Lynn Lau
Northern News Services

Banks Island (Nov 12/01) - The yearly muskox harvest on Banks Island will be getting an overhaul this spring in an effort to make the meat more palatable for buyers.

The meat quality with Banks Island muskox has been highly variable, meaning that consumers can be in for a surprise when they buy. While one order might be tender and toothsome, the next might be tough as rawhide.

"There have been some very good cuts, but the inconsistency has been a problem," says Mark Hills, owner of Hills Foods, the Vancouver game meat company that distributes all Banks Island muskox. "A chef can't put it on his menu and know what he's going to have each time."

Because the meat is often tough, customers are looking to pay a low price, says Hills, but muskox is expensive because of the cost of freight. Hills says he's been doing what he can to make tough meat sell -- pumping it as a "special" meat requiring special handling, and turning it into burgers, sausage and hams. He's looking forward to tasting the difference when the meat comes in from the new and improved harvest this spring.

Over the last couple years, the Inuvialuit Regional Corp. has been working to standardize the meat tenderness. "We're trying some pretty new stuff here," says Patrick Schmidt, the coordinator of muskox harvest.

Firstly, the corporation decided to delay the harvest from late October to late February. That change will reduce costs because most of the meat can be shipped by sea instead of by air.

Secondly, the corporation has enlisted the help of research scientist Al Schaefer at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada in Lacombe, Alta., to find ways to improve the meat.

Schaefer says the quality of the meat is affected by what happens before and after slaughter. During the harvest, the animals are herded into corrals, and the stress they experience affects the meat quality. In February, the animals will be fed special nutrients, possibly in the form of treated hay, to reduce their stress level.

"When we first tried this, we provided barley pellets with amino acids. The muskox have never seen barley before and they don't recognize it as food. But they will eat hay, so we're doing two things -- we'd like to try treating the hay with these nutritional therapy products, and it may be possible to provide treated water in the pens when they're gathered."

After the harvest, there will also be some changes to the way meat is handled. In previous years, the muskox were simply frozen after slaughter, meaning the carcasses had no time to age. Aging is the way butchers tenderize the carcass by hanging it in a cool place for several days. With conventional livestock, like beef cattle, the aging process takes about 21 days. Replicating that in the High Arctic may be a bit of a challenge, but Schaefer says even a little aging would help.

"Even in the first 12 to 24 hours, if we can control the rate of cooling, that's going to have a significant increase in quality," says Schaefer. In February, the IRC will probably construct a temporary heated shelter to keep the meat at refrigerator-temperature, around three or four degrees above zero, for a day or two.

Back in Vancouver, Hills is keeping his fingers crossed. Currently, most of the muskox sells in British Columbia and Canada, but if the quality could be improved, Hills is confident he could expand the market further into the United States, Europe and Asia. "The world is our oyster right now. If we can improve the finish of the meat, we'll be able to open up a lot of doors."