Inuit women reviving traditional black-bottom sealskin boots through summer workshops 

Two Inuit women are working to conserve a traditional way of crafting sealskin boots that the Inuit have used for generations.

Friends Kimberly Pilgrim and Veronica Flowers started a workshop series this summer to pass on the tradition of black-bottom sealskin boots — from the hunt to the finished pair. 

"It's really exciting," Pilgrim told CBC News in a recent interview. "It's been very empowering and emotional to learn these skills."

Pilgrim and Flowers, both university students, were looking for summer work when they thought of doing their own workshops and paying others to share their knowledge with participants. 

The pair put together a program that would teach women how to hunt seal, clean them, and use every part, creating the traditional boots through a summerlong series of sessions.

They named their program Kisiliginik Workshops, from an Inuttitut word that means "to work with sealskin." The program was funded by the Ulnooweg Foundation and launched on July 10, meeting three times a week. 

"The special thing about these boots that we're making is it's not just the typical moose hide boots that people make. It's the black bottom ones, the traditional sealskin boots that people made back in the day with the waterproof stitch," Flowers said.

Flowers's family donated the sealskins for the workshops, as the black-bottom boots are made almost entirely from raw skins, not skins that are found in stores. 

"It's definitely a dying tradition," Flowers said.

"The special part about it is the bottoms are black sealskin — the hair is removed from the seal skin. So it's just a black surface, and that's what helps you walk in them because the hair is removed and it's also really thick."

Flowers was taught the craft by her grandmother a few years ago but is still learning, she said, and some of the funding has been set aside to pay others for their knowledge. Pilgrim said it's important to value the knowledge that someone has gathered over a lifetime.

"Katie Winters taught us some really interesting and amazing things the other day when she was showing us how she cleans sealskins," Pilgrim said.

"People should get paid for it when they can. It feels really good to just be able to pay people for things that they probably have been sharing their whole life."

Flowers's brother Nicholas created sheets listing the Inuttitut terms for each part of the seal to hand out to others and share online. Learning traditional sewing practices in the ancient language is empowering, said Pilgram.

"It's a really powerful way to enhance the workshops, being able to share and know the terms for everything," Pilgrim said. "Whenever I get the chance to be able to say words in Inuttitut or learn new words and phrases, I'm very happy."

Pilgrim said she and Flowers have been asked if the workshops will continue. The pair are busy with school this fall, she said, but hope to revisit the workshops in the spring.

The pair say they hope to see the knowledge spread. 

"It's not a one-off thing for these participants," Pilgrim said.

"They're going to keep applying what they learned and then teach, like, their children, teach other people who want to learn," she said. "It'll be good to see the skills more widely used in the community."

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