Smoking

Philomène Mckenzie - Since we're going to smoke the skin, I'm stitching it up to keep the smoke from escaping through the holes. You have to close all the holes, the one made by the bullet, as well as tick holes. We use patches on the larger holes. The skins have many ticks in the spring. Before tanning or smoking, we decide what to do with the skin.
Narrator - Once the skin has been prepared, and all the holes closed, we'll fetch the tools we need for smoking: stones and an old tree trunk.
Philomène Mckenzie - You can use any kind of wood. In this case, it's spruce. By crumbling the rotten wood, you increase the amount of smoke.
Narrator - The colour won't be uniform, because the smoke doesn't penetrate the same way everywhere, or with the same intensity. There are seams, folds, and drafts inside the tent to contend with.
Philomène Mckenzie - Anyhow, we'll set it up with cords, which will help the smoke go everywhere. First, we place the skin temporarily. Then, we adjust our set-up as we go along. It's a large skin, I don't know if the smoke will penetrate everywhere.
That's it for the set-up. Now, we'll have to watch it to make sure the wood doesn't burst into flames as it comes into contact with the hot stones.
The way the skin was removed when the animal was butchered, means that it's not straight now, and we'll have to make many adjustments.
Here's the result! It's the best we could do with this skin.
The paler shades were caused by drafts in the tent, and the darker ones by wood that was too rotten.
With this thicker piece of skin we can make moccasins. This skin is thin, here. We'll use it to make children's moccasins and mittens. It's a spring skin, it had parasites. It's not the best quality for moccasins.
See those white marks? Those are parasites. The insects get into the hair in the fall, and this is the result by spring. The best skins are fall ones. The colour of the skin is a success. But, because the large skin is so thin, we'll only use it to make mittens, or small objects that don't have to be too resistant. Even though this is not the best-quality skin, we can still make many things with it. Ultimately, despite its faults, it's a fine skin.

Site Navigation

Smoking

Transcription