July 14, 2006
Hide and sleek in the tanning parlour
Nunavik Furs uses a
little know-how and a lot of machinery to create natural beauty
JANE
GEORGE
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PHOTO TO ENLARGE
This
tanned sealskin can be yours for about $150, but prices are rising, say Nunavik
Fur manager Daniel Lemelin and Makivik Corporation's Charles Dorais. (PHOTOS
BY JANE GEORGE)
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KUUJJUAQ - If you walk
into the office of Nunavik Furs in Kuujjuaq, you may immediately know that the
furs lining the corridor come from polar bears, muskoxen, black bears, raccoons,
otters and seals.
But you'll be lost trying
to guess the purpose of many machines inside the workshop.
That's because tanning-
the art of preserving pelts from decay - requires a unique set of equipment
and a special know-how.
Master tanner Daniel Lemelin,
who runs Nunavik Furs, knows tanning inside and out. He's able to explain the
complex steps of washing, pickling, tanning and softening, which transform a
stiff, dried-out pelt into a silky, long-lasting fur.
Furs arrive at Nunavik
Furs stiff as a board. After rehydration in a bath, a machine strips any remaining
fat and membranes from the back of the skin. It's a noisy and tricky process
over a sharp, twirling scraper.
"This was a woman's
job before," explains Lemelin, as he slides the slippery ski over the scraper.
But, with many Inuit women
now in the workforce, there's not enough time for them to carry out this painstaking
job, which used to be done with a handheld scraper.
"So, this is a service
we offer and it's appreciated," he says.
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The
tanning process starts as any remaining fat is painstakingly removed from the
skin.
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Nunavik Furs is a subsidiary
of the land claim body, Makivik Corporation. That's why providing service to
the beneficiaries of the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement is important,
says Charles Dorais from Makivik's economic development department.
Nunavik Furs got its start
a few years ago, when Makivik learned that a set of tanning equipment was being
sold in the Gaspé region of Quebec by a company which was going out of
business.
At that time, Lemelin was
already tanning furs in the basement of his Kuujjuaq home - and he was eager
to get into the business.
"We saw a real potential,"
Dorais says. "Otherwise we wouldn't have gotten into it."
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Daniel
Lemelin mixes some ingredients for his "secret" tanning mixture: tanning
is a tricky process, involving age-old, labour-intensive techniques. In the
past, animal brains and other natural substances have been used in tanning.
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Nunavik Furs business now
serves Nunavik hunters and trappers, both directly and indirectly.
Some send in furs for tanning
and then keep the tanned furs or sell them for use in Makivik's Inuit Fur Clothing
Program or its clothing subsidiary, Nunavik Creations. Community hunters and
trappers associations also send in larger quantities of furs, purchased through
the hunter support programs. The finished furs are then resold to local residents,
who can buy them at a discount if they're beneficiaries.
But Makivik also wants
a larger clientele for Nunavik Furs. It's now the only small tannery in the
northeastern part of Canada, outside of Montreal, and the only one specializing
in wild fur.
This is what happens after
the pelt is cleaned at Nunavik Furs: it's beaten, dried, tumbled with sawdust,
stretched, and oiled. The result is a soft, lustrous and pliable fur.
Nunavik Furs' tanning prices
are reasonable - as little as $35 a foot for a cleaned polar bear skin.
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Ready
for sale - the corridor outside Nunavik Furs is full of a wide variety of furs.
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And Dorais stresses that
Nunavik Furs manages the entire tanning process in an environmentally-friendly
way.
"Whatever we do here
doesn't hurt the environment," he says.
Beneficiary Dominique Morisset
is now learning all the various steps involved in tanning from Lemelin: hands-on
training is the only way to learn this craft.
Small-scale tanning is
not a speedy or modern process. It takes at least a week to tan a polar bear,
although Nunavik Furs can turn out about 30 tanned sealskins a week.
Some of the machines used
in tanning are hand-made; many at Nunavik Furs are nearly 100 years old.
Tanning, the way Nunavik
Furs does it, remains an incredibly labour-intensive business, say Lemelin and
Dorais.
But the results are encouraging.
Hanging outside the workshop are hundreds of lustrous furs, most of which sell
for about $100 - that is, apart from black bear, muskox and polar bear furs.
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Dominique
Morisset, a beneficiary-in-training at Nunavik Furs, cleans a polar bear skin.
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Nunavik Furs also sees
lynx and otter furs brought in from local trappers.
"When you do down
river from Kuujjuaq, you have animals you don't see in the Arctic," Dorais
says.
The market for tanning
extends beyond Nunavik, too. As the word gets out that you don't have to go
south for expert tanning, Nunavik Furs is getting more business, Dorais says.
More furs are arriving from other places, including Nunavut, where a tannery
in Qikiqtarjuaq once tanned sealskins.
"If we can expand
our market, we can become viable," Dorais says.
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