Join in SciXchange’s virtual hide-tanning camp
A small team of hide tanners, including SciXchange’s Amber Sandy (second from left), went to Sioux Lookout in September 2020 to create a virtual hide-tanning workshop for the Ryerson community.
Ryerson’s Pow Wow looked a little different last fall owing to COVID-19, so instead of a live demo of how to tan a deer hide, SciXchange’s Amber Sandy put together an online hide tanning workshop for the Ryerson community, now available on the SciXchange website.
In September, Sandy drove to Sioux Lookout in northern Ontario to put the series together with her team of knowledge holders: Jean Marshall, Kanina Terry and Julia Prinselaar.
“It was really important to connect with and build community through the workshop,” says Sandy. “There are a lot of people who are really interested in learning about hide tanning and providing this opportunity, even virtually, creates more space for people to see ways in which they might pick up this practice.”
The online workshop includes 10 step-by-step videos that walk viewers through the intricate process of preparing a deer hide for tanning. Sandy says hide tanning provides her with a way of understanding who she is in relation to the natural environment and the workshop is an opportunity to share Indigenous ways of knowing with the Ryerson community. “It's become a really incredible opportunity to create space for urban Indigenous people to learn about hide tanning and reclaim that space and knowledge for themselves.”
Sandy hopes this video series makes Indigenous knowledge and science more accessible to the Ryerson community, and that it can be shared more widely as well. “I've received some messages from people homeschooling their kids who have been able to incorporate the hide camp into their lesson plans,” she says. “And I hope that the workshop shares the message of resilience; Indigenous people have the drive for our knowledge to be more accessible for ourselves and for others as well.”
This overview video covers the many steps involved in the deer hide tanning process. More detailed step-by-step videos are available on the SciXchange website.
Hide tanning requires a number of tools, and each knowledge keeper has their own unique way of doing things. Kanina Terry shares her tools with the Ryerson community.
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