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LIIDLII KUE/FORT SIMPSON - Michael Neyelle learned how to make drums by watching his uncle Johnny Neyelle at work.

One year, Neyelle travelled to Deline and spent the spring with his uncle learning the drum making process. While his hands were busy lacing babiche (lacing made from rawhide) through a new drum frame at the Deh Cho Friendship Centre in Fort Simpson Neyelle reflected back on that time.

Michael Neyelle tests the tension on a strip of babiche (lacing made from rawhide) as he laces the handhold on a new drum frame. Neyelle is teaching drum making at the Deh Cho Friendship Centre in Fort Simpson. - Roxanna Thompson/NNSL photo

"I'm glad I was taught this. Now I can teach the young people to carry this on," Neyelle said.

Neyelle is doing exactly that as he offers a series of drum making workshops at the Friendship Centre over the next few weeks.

"There's a lot of work in making a drum. It's not easy work," he said.

Before leading the first workshop on April 30 Neyelle had already done some of the work. He arrived with two frames that he'd recently made.

To make a frame you need to select a tree of the right size, either spruce or birch. The best time to cut it down is in the late spring when the tree is soaking up its own sap so it will be more pliable, Neyelle said.

After you've cut the tree down you trim it with an axe before using a planer to create a strip of wood with an even width. To bend the wood into a circle Neyelle built a jig, a circular wooden template, and clamped the strip of wood onto it. Pouring boiling water over the wood helps it to bend, he said.

Once the strip of wood completely encircles the jig you allow it to dry and then plane down the ends and glue them together to form the drum frame, Neyelle said.

The next step, which Neyelle demonstrated at the Friendship Centre, is creating the handhold on the back of the drum. The handhold is made of babiche, which is threaded in a specific pattern through holes that are drilled in the frame.

Neyelle prefers to have six cross pieces but some drums have four.

"Six is good. You can put your fingers right around it," he said.

Neyelle made his babiche out of caribou hide. Each strip has to be cut to just the right thickness, about four millimeters wide, because it shrinks as it dries, he said.

"It takes time and precision," said Neyelle.

Neyelle's uncle used to make babiche by holding a part of a hide firmly in his mouth and cutting it with a knife, using a fingernail as a measuring guide. Neyelle used a pair of scissors.

The final step, which Neyelle will cover sometime this week, is covering the drum with hide.

"Putting the hide on is another challenge, he said.

The hide, in this case caribou, has to be allowed to sag into the frame before it is laced on using babiche. If the hide is pulled too tight it will stretch and maybe tear as it dries, Neyelle said.

Lacing the hide to the frame requires "a lot of patience and a lot of time," he said.

These drums will be the first ones that Neyelle has made without his uncle's guidance.

"It's always a learning experience. You learn from your mistakes," he said.

The drums will be kept at the Friendship Centre for use in its programs. Offering drum making fits with the Friendship Centre's goal of giving youth the opportunity to try different types of cultural activities, said Aaron McNab, the centre's executive director.

The drums should be around for a long time to come.

"A drum can last a lifetime. It just depends how you take care of it," said Neyelle.