This will be a growing page of resources to reference and learn from for Fall hide work.

Skinning

Soaking/rinsing the hide

I get the feeling this step is optional.  I soak hides before fleshing as I find it helps to remove some of the dirt and blood in the hide and loosens up the flesh. I soak a minimum of 1 day, up to 3. Use a lake, river, or two tubs you transfer the hide between until the water is less dirty. Soaking on the shore of a lake may discolour the flesh side of the hide if there are cuts in the hide. These can be removed with scraping.

Fleshing the hide

Her Nose-Robert Badine - works on the softening stage of two hides and shows two fleshing techniques 

Shaving the hair off the hide

Cutting lacing holes into the hide

Stretching the hide on a frame to dry

Freezing the hide

Extracting brain and marrow fat

Tools and equipment used

Here are the tools I use for fall hide work. On the left are my punching tools used for fleshing hides on draped over a post or laced onto a frame.  In the middle are fleshing knives used for fleshing hides draped over a fleshing beam/horse.  On the right are the knives I use for shaving hair off hides on a post or frame, or cutting off flesh on the frame.

The metal punching tool is actually a wood chisel from Home Hardware - it works well but sometimes can damage the hide with the sharp edges.  The wooden handle punching tool is from JShine Designs. The bone punching tools were made by me out of the lower leg bone of moose. They have an angle cut for the punching end, with teeth cut into the edge. I believe these would benefit from wrist straps.

The bone fleshing knife on the left was made by me from the lower leg bone of a deer - it was cut in half with a sharp edge sanded onto the outside of the cuts. The second bone flesher was gifted to my son and is made from a deer rib bone.  The blue handled flesher was purchased from a trapper store in Dryden ON (I believe its closed) and the pink handled one is from Halford Hides. The wooden flesher is from Kevin Finney (on facebook).

Two of the ulus are Inuit made and two are touristy ones. The Inuit made ones hold an edge better, while the touristy ones did the trick before I had good ones! The red and blue handled knives were purchased at an outfitting store and sharpen and dull quickly.  The wooden handled knife is a beaver skinner purchased from the now closed trapper store.

Please message me through the contact form if you know of resources I can add.

Miigwech