Brodie Thomas
Northern News Services
Published Monday, July 14, 2008

PEEL RIVER - A group of students from Aurora College Traditional Arts program spent two weeks this June at a camp on the Peel River learning the art of tanning moose hides.

Students began with a raw hide with fur and fat still attached to the skin. They left two weeks later with a fully tanned hide ready to be made into clothing.

Margaret Nazon is the senior instructor for the traditional arts program at Aurora College. Despite her title, she was quick to give credit to the main teacher in this course, Dorothy Alexie. The course was given at Alexie's camp.

Nazon said Aurora College offers the camp to students every year but she sometimes gets attendees from outside the college who want to learn the art.

The two-week course was designed to show the students every aspect of smoking hides from start to finish so they can repeat the process on their own.

When the students arrived, the camp was already set up with stations for each of the steps in the tanning process.

The procedure begins by scraping hair and fat off the hide, Nazon said. The next step is to smoke the hide in a smokehouse.

"In order to smoke it you need to burn rotten poplar and a bit of willow to create smoke and let is smoulder for about an hour," she said.

After smoking, the hide is left to cool and then placed in a special mixture of water, soap and fermented caribou brain (a whole story in itself).

The next step is to wring out the hide. The ringing area has a y-shaped tree stump planted in the ground. With the help of a ringing pole, the hide is wedged into the stump and tightly twisted back and forth to wring out any liquids.

"Then you hang it up to dry, scrape it, and start again with another smoking," said Nazon.

The entire process is repeated again and again over several days.

"Eventually you let it dry and then it is ready for final smoking," said Nazon.

The final smoking is done in a tipi rather than in the smokehouse. The hide is hung from the peak of the tipi and drapes down over a smouldering fire. A heavy material is used to create a "skirt" to keep coals and sparks from damaging the nearly finished hide. Nazon said old blue jeans make a good skirt.

"You let it smoke for an hour or an hour and a half. You don't want it to flame up, you just want it to smoulder," she said.

Maria Arey was one of the invited attendees who came to work with the students. She said she felt honoured to have learned the art. She hopes to try tanning a hide on her own in the future.

"I actually hope to get my camp set up to do it. I have two boys who will hopefully bring me a moose. Hopefully shot in early spring or late winter because that is the best time to get them. The skin is easier to work with," said Arey.