Halifax taxidermy class has waiting list of eager students

Taxidermy may have peaked in popularity during the Victorian era, but a one-day class hosted in the basement of an antique thrift store in Halifax has people lining up to learn the pastime.

Taxidermy 101 is taught by Doug Hillman, affectionately known as The Embalmer, underneath Plan B on Gottingen Street. 

Hillman's five-hour class aims to show throngs of students — and eventually those on the waiting list — the ins and outs of what Hillman calls "honouring the life, not the death of any animal."

CBC contributor Jackie Torrens managed to bypass the waiting list for a chance to learn more, and spoke of the experience with Mainstreet Halifax host Bob Murphy. 

'Amazingly beautiful art form'

"You have to make your way through all the odds and ends stored down there, including a coffin — which seemed fitting," Torrens said. 

Hillman, who grew up on a hobby farm, took up taxidermy about five years ago. By following a few online tutorials and plenty of practice, he now teaches at a table in Plan B's basement fit for eight.

The class has had a good reaction from students.  

"I am here because I've always found taxidermy to be this amazingly beautiful art form and it's always fascinated me and I've always collected it, I'm also an ecologist so I love animals," said one student.

"I think it's good to understand how life works and I think we bubble wrap everything and we get our meat from a supermarket and we don't know where it comes from and what we're actually consuming and it's good to face the choices we make and what we're doing," said another.

The rat's pyjamas

Around the table are stainless steel trays, scalpels and a pile of pre-perished rats. Hillman guides his students through dissection and removing the skin — or as he calls it, "the rat's pyjamas." 

"It's just when the skin comes completely off you obviously just have the skin itself and it does look kind of like you took his coat off — so I just said it in a cute way, cause I didn't want to offend anyone, of taking off his pyjamas," Hillman said.

The pyjamas have to be washed and blow dried. Borax is used to clean the inside of the skin to get rid of any lingering bacteria.

Finishing the job

Then comes stuffing with cotton batting. Sewing with waxed dental floss comes next. Hillman uses ball point pins for eyes, or he'll go to Value Village and reuse teddy bear eyes. 

The final step for students is to mount their newly-stuffed animals on a piece of corkboard.

"It is an art-form. It kind of gets pushed to the wayside 'cause it's seen as macabre. It's seen as immortalizing death - which is totally not true," Hillman said. 

"What we're doing here now we're not talking about the animal being dead. We're talking about them being alive and looking like this — bringing them back — which everyone is doing a fantastic job, by the way."