Tanning Moosehides the Northern Saskatchewan Trapline Way

Tanning Moosehides the Northern Saskatchewan Trapline Way: An Easy Step-by-Step Guide
Written by Tommy Bird, Lawrence Adam, Lena Adam, with Miriam Körner
Photos by Miriam Körner and Tommy Bird
Published by YNWP
Review by Shelley A. Leedahl
$49.95 ISBN 9781778690327

In these modern times, when we want information our “Go To” is usually to Google or Youtube it. If one wanted to learn to tan moosehides, for example, they could indeed go online to discover how, but some steps might be missed. If tanning moosehides is indeed your intent, now there’s an excellent resource that you can hold in your hands or spread on a table: Tanning Moosehides the Northern Saskatchewan Trapline Way: An Easy Step-by-Step Guide.

The softcover guidebook by northern Saskatchewan residents Tommy Bird, Lawrence Adam, Lena Adam, and award-winning La Ronge writer Miriam Körner takes readers through the twenty-four steps involved in the time-consuming process of tanning moosehides, “a skill passed down from generation to generation since time immemorial”. The book is filled with colour photographs provided by Miriam Körner and Tommy Bird, and it begins with a helpful introduction.

If you’re from the north, you may already know the various uses of tanned moosehide. They were and are “sewn into mukluks, moccasins, mitts, vests, jackets, pants, tent coverings, dog harnesses, toboggan bags, bedding, snowshoe straps, laces and a lot of other day-to-day items”. You may have also seen beaded moosehide purses, credit card holders, earrings, and dress clothes for Queen and King Trapper winter festival events. The introduction relays that historically, Woodland Cree families on remote traplines all worked together to process the hides—it’s a huge job. Now one can learn some of the tanning skills— and “get knowledge from Elders”—at hide camps or culture camps, but there may not be time to learn everything.

Recognizing that it’s important to pass on the skills they learned with their own families, Peter Ballantyne Cree Nation’s Tommy Bird and Lawrence and Lena Adam of Fond du Lac Denesuliné First Nation have combined their “decades of experience” in moosehide tanning to share with newbies, “so that the youth of today can once more pass this knowledge on to the next generation”. In Tommy’s back yard, the trio have tanned “more than thirty hides from start to finish, and smoked “more than a hundred that had been softened in tanneries”.

It takes strength, perseverance, skill and practise to do this traditional work. The materials list is surprising, including “A small pot to cook the brain mix in,” “Oatmeal,” and “Sunlight liquid dish soap and/or bar soap”. On the optional list of materials: “Common salt,” “Sawdust” and “Spruce cones”. A bone scraper is among the important tools for tanning moosehide, and the writers include the steps to make your own from “the leg bones of moose, elk, deer, or bear”.

I particularly liked Step 24: “Sit Back and Admire Your Work”. The accompanying photo shows Elder Lena Adams and her husband Lawrence holding a finished hide that looks “soft like a fleece blanket”.

The detailed instructions, helpful photographs, and “trouble-shooting tips” in this guide are inspiring, and I hope copies of it frequently find their way into the hands of those who desire to do this culturally significant work.

THIS BOOK IS AVAILABLE AT YOUR LOCAL BOOKSTORE OR FROM WWW.SKBOOKS.COM