INUVIK
Donald Prince has reached into the past to enrich the future.

Cindy Baryluk is one of about 15 people participating in a course on traditional moose-hide tanning led by Donald Prince. Here she works at scraping the hair off one of the hides in preparation for tanning. - Shawn Giilck/NNSL photo

Prince, originally from Fort St. James, B.C., has been running a class for the last month or so to teach people how to prepare and tan moose hides. The program has attracted about 15 people eager to pick up a skill once commonly used throughout the North. It's fallen by the wayside mostly due to the rising costs of the hides, and the difficulty finding anyone with the knowledge who also has the time to teach.

"Most of the people come out on Saturdays, but we also work at it some evenings," he said.

The class has been running out of space on Navy Road donated by the Mackenzie Valley Construction Company. Prince said the owner has taken an interest in the project as well. He had no trouble rounding up enough interested people by posting on Facebook, word of mouth and a few posters scattered around town. It was more difficult to find the raw materials. It took some time for Prince to round up enough hides to provide enough work for the class. They currently have seven hides, including one caribou, in various stages of tanning.

"I bought some of them, but I was hoping for more hides," he said.

Moose hides have become a bit more scarce and far more expensive, Prince said. That's one of the reasons for developing the course. A resident of Inuvik for only about a year now, Prince said he was initially quite surprised to see the high prices for crafts related to hides. He soon discovered that was because the price of tanned hides is at a premium, and many people didn't know how to bypass that by preparing their own hides.

Conditions have been a bit tough, with cold and cloudy spells increasing the time needed to prepare the skins properly.

"If we had some sunny warm or hot weather, it would go a lot faster," Prince said, looking at a skin on a stretcher which was actually frozen in the garage where the program's been held. "We've got to get some of these dry, so if we get some sun, we'll leave them out for a few days.

"With the proper weather, we could do a hide in a couple of weeks. You have to soak and stretch them about five times. The first time you stretch it out, you have to take all the flesh off. The second time, you take the hair off and stretch it again. Then you dry it out and scrape it again."

The process is repeated until the hide is soft and supple. The final touches include working the hide with oil using blunt sticks and coating it with a mixture made from the brains of the animal. There's a hunting adage that says every animal has just enough brains to treat its hide, Prince said with a laugh. Smoking the hide is also important, since it changes the chemical composition of the hide, he said. That prevents the leather from drying out and becoming brittle. He learned the craft from an expert family member, as so many people do.

"I used to watch my grandmother doing this back when I was a little kid," Prince said. "She had a big smokehouse, and she was always in there working, drying meat or making dried fish.

"She sewed all winter too," he continued, "making moccasins and other things."

Cindy Baryluk is one of the participants who is eager to talk about the experience.

"I wanted to learn how to tan moose hide," she said. "I had an idea of how to do it, but not like the whole thing.

"I've learned just about everything, I guess," Baryluk said. "I didn't know about the soaking and scraping of the hair in particular. It's something that I can do forever."

Baryluk and Melissa Lennie said while there are still people around who know the craft, most of those people don't have the time, or some do not have the inclination, to teach and pass the techniques along. That's why they were excited to have the opportunity offered by Prince.

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