How climate change led two Indigenous communities to connect over moose hide tanning
CBC News | Posted: November 12, 2021 9:51 PM | Last Updated: November 15, 2021
Sharing moose hide tanning techniques was an opportunity to help another community adapt, says Dene artist
Moose are such an iconic Canadian symbol that it's hard to imagine any part of the country not being familiar with the large animal. But Liz Pijogge of Nunatsiavut, an autonomous region on Newfoundland and Labrador's Arctic coast, remembers a time when moose weren't quite as common in her area.
"I remember stories when I was younger that hunters would say this is the first time they've seen a moose," she told The Current's Matt Galloway.
That's no longer the case, though. Thanks to warmer temperatures in the northern regions brought about by climate change, more moose are migrating further north.
We know this land so well through generations…. But now that's all kind of changing because the river's freezing differently, so people are changing their routes and travelling on the land.-Melaw Nakehk'o
This is forcing northern Indigenous communities to get accustomed to the big beast's presence, especially as other sources of nutrition and goods become scarce or banned.
"Right now, Nunatsiavut is under a caribou ban, so we're [prohibited] from hunting caribou," said the northern contaminants researcher for the Nunatsiavut Government.
One such way people like Pijogge are getting better at utilizing moose is by learning how to tan moose hides. Moose hide can be used to make things such as jewelry and moccasins.
But the community quickly ran into a problem. Because the animal has so little history in Nunatsiavut, there was a lack of community knowledge about using and caring for moose hide.
That's when another northern community, the Dene First Nations from the Northwest Territories, stepped in. In 2019, members of that made the trek made the trek to Nain, N.L. to teach members of Nunatsiavut how to best utilize moose hide.
"When I went to go to the camp … it was quite different," she said. "It was, like, getting the hair off, which we don't normally do with caribou … soaking it and spreading it with brains."
Moose hide tanner Melaw Nakehk'o said the brains are used to soften up the hide.
"There is like a particular type of fat in the brain, like some kind of enzyme, that when it gets into the fibres of the hide it, it just helps to break it down."
A new relationship with the land
Nakehk'o, a Dene artist, was among those who made the trek to Nain to help. She likens the trip to the knowledge sharing her ancestors engaged in generations ago.
"Being able to share all of that with a new community that is, because of climate change, [just] developing a relationship with the moose … was such as interesting and really important project," she said.
Nakehk'o's first experience with moose hide tanning came in the 1990s. She used to help her grandmother, Judith Buggins, scrape the hair off moose hide when it was dried on a frame.
I was able to develop a new relationship with the land that I'm from.-Nakehk'o
She didn't start taking moose hide tanning seriously until 2008, though, after attending school and living in the United States for a time.
"Once I returned to my homelands as a single mother, I turned to my art for an income," she said. "I soon needed more [moose hide] and decided to tan my own hides to sustain my art."
Moosehide tanning isn't an easy process to learn, though. Moosehide is tougher than other hides like caribou, and different tools and techniques must be used in order to not damage the hide.
"For myself, I'm very lucky because my grandmother was a hide tanner and I inherited her tools," she said.
Despite the difficulty, Nakehk'o found assistance through the knowledge holders and elders in both her community and surrounding communities.
By 2011 she was teaching others to tan moose hide, and in 2013 she helped co-found Dene Nahjo, an Indigenous innovation collective in Denendeh, N.W.T.
"There [are] a lot of lessons that you can take from hide tanning and learning about my own traditional territory," she said. "I was able to develop a new relationship with the land that I'm from."
And when Dene Nahjo co-founder Kyla Kakfwi Scott made the suggestion to connect hide tanners like Nakehk'o with the Pijogge's Nunatsiavut group, Nahkehk'o jumped at the opportunity.
"It's really exciting to be able to travel with this type of work," she said. "I love to teach moose hide tanning. It just is so fulfilling for me."
Resilience in the face of climate change
Increasing moose populations are just one of the results of climate change to which some northern Indigenous communities have had to adapt. Delays in snowfall and lakes freezing at later times are forcing northern communities, including those who hunt for food, to modify centuries-old traditions to fit the warming climate.
"We know this land so well through generations…. But now that's all kind of changing because the river's freezing differently, so people are changing their routes and travelling on the land," Nahkehk'o said.
Since northern Indigenous communities like hers are living these changes every day, she said it's important for researchers, politicians and scientists who work on climate change to consult with them.
"We're observing the land. We're on the land," she said. "These are the people that are on the ground who have firsthand experience of what climate change looks like in our traditional territories."
Inuit have been living off the land and in the north for thousands of years, and we've always adapted to the cold. -Liz Pijogge
Though climate change can be unsettling, Nahkehk'o takes solace in those knowledge-sharing sessions, like the one in Nain.
"As Indigenous people, [it's] just adapting to what is happening in our environment and around us, and bringing that [as] a part of our culture," she said.
Pijogge agrees.
"Inuit have been living off the land and in the north for thousands of years, and we've always adapted to the cold," she said. "I'd say we're very resilient people."
Written by Mouhamad Rachini. Produced by Ines Colabrese and Katie Toth.