'There’s a whole spiritual purpose and intention': Learning how to scrape moose hides at SKG

Community members have been showing up at Shingwauk Kinoomaage Gamig this week in order to get some hands-on experience in moose hide scraping. 

The two-day workshop included storytelling and teachings surrounding the cultural aspects of preparing the moose hides, which entailed building wooden frames to stretch the hides out in order to be scraped clean of fur. 

For instructor Barbara Day, seeing younger people coming to the Anishinaabe post-secondary institution to gain some cultural knowledge by helping out with the moose hide preparation makes her feel somewhat emotional; she feels there’s a spiritual connection to the land and cultural ways at work, drawing younger people into the workshop.       

“When I see young people come here, it’s like they’re guided — there’s a whole spiritual purpose and intention,” she told SooToday Thursday. 

The hides being prepared in the workshop, which were donated to Shingwauk Kinoomaage Gamig by Garden River First Nation Fish and Wildlife Coordinator Aaron Jones, will eventually be used for Anishinaabe ceremonial items such as drums and shakers. 

“He felt it was important to give the hide to somebody to do the work,” Day said. 

Day has worked on moose hide for about two decades now. Her father, an avid moose hunter, always wanted Day to take up the work of preparing moose hides.  

“It was about connecting to the ancestors, it was about restoring our cultural ways,” she said of taking up the work initially.  

Day has also been hand drumming and singing Anishinaabe songs for more than two decades as another way of restoring those cultural ways in order to heal from the long-lasting impacts of colonization and assimilation that have been passed down through generations.   

“The drum had definitely become a healing movement for women to find our voice and to regain our power — you know, take that back — and also for that bigger collective healing that our people are going through,” she said. “We’re definitely going through a big healing — and some people even use this work, doing the moose hide, as a healing activity.”