Caribou Hide
About a year ago I was given a caribou hide from some kind people in Glennallen. This weekend I finally got around to stretching and scraping it.
First, I put the hide in a bin and soaked it in warm water as it was still partially frozen.
Second, I laid out the hide and ran it over with the hose. This was a bit difficult as the hose had to be taken inside and thawed out in the tub. It was amazing how much water comes out of the hide when you rub your hand down it after a soak.
Next, we laid the hide down on a tarp between the stretcher. We each started at one side of the tail end and worked toward the head looping the rope between the hide and the stretcher. This was done by piercing the hide every couple of inches with the corner of the ulu against a piece of wood.
Once the ropes were pulled taught, it turned out that 250 feet was used. The rack was then laid against the shed so the scraping could start.
The scraping process took a couple hours for the extra muscle and membrane to be removed from the hide. While in storage, some of the hide had thawed due to the warm weather Anchorage is having. So while it's currently drying I'll be looking for areas where fur sloughing might be occurring. Hopefully the fur can stay, but if not, it'll make for some good buckskin.