On Thursday September 5, 2002 I took a white tail deer hide from our freezer to thaw so I could make it into buckskin.

At Kathy and David Browne’s house on Saturday, September 7th, 2002, we {my best friend Amanda and I} laid the deer hide on the ground and placed four 2 x 4’s around it to frame it. The neck was put at the top of the frame and the rump at the bottom, and there was left 1.5 feet around the hide between it and the frame. My dad drilled holes in the corners of the frames and put bolts in to make the frame strong.

Next we cut holes with a knife in the hide about 1” from the edge and about 3 inches apart all around the edge of the hide. We strung rope through these holes and around the frame. We pulled the rope tight to center the hide in the frame and to enable us to scrape the hide without tearing it.

Then the hide was stood up we scraped off all of the flesh.

This took us hours.

The hide needed to dry before we could scrap off the hair.
Otherwise you could tear the hide.

So we put the hide in the sun.

The hide became dry very fast then because it was a very HOT day. We scraped off the hair. That took hours. The hide started to rip because it was thin because the deer had been very young. So, to save the piece that we finished, we cut the hide off of the frame around the edges by the rope.

Next, we tanned the hide. We put it into a solution of half brains and half warm water, which was blended and cooked. Then we rung it out as much as possible with the ringer part of an old ringer washer. We repeated this 12 times.

After the braining, we stretched the hide and kept stretching and pulling it over a lariat to soften it. We didn't stop stretching the hide until it was dry. This took about 3 to 4 hours. But, the hide just ended up feeling like parchment paper. We left the hide in the brain solution over night to see if that would help.

The next day {the 8th} we re-brained the hide again while ringing out between braining, about 12 times. We then re-stretched the hide, and rubbed it on the lariat. This took another couple of hours. But it ended up feeling the same as the day before.

Then Marcia came up with the idea that we make women shields with the hide. So, then we went along the side of the road to find grapevines. We both gathered enough for us to make a grapevine wreath each. We sized the wreath to fit around the hide, but left about 2 inches between them. Then we put our hides in warm water for a while, until they were easy to move without tearing them.

We cut the hide in two, so we each could have a half. We put holes in the hides with a paper hole punch about 1” apart and close to the edge. Then we strung them onto our wreaths with waxed cotton string. We pulled just tight enough to center the hide.

While they were drying, we wrote out different symbols that represented us, or what we wanted to be like. The symbols were just for us; no one needed to know what they meant. When we were finished making up our symbols, and the hides were dry, we drew them on. These are our own women shields, which represent us.

Report written by Felicia Saunders. Photos by David Browne.

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Here are a few more pics from the weekend.

On Sunday we continued stretching...

... and then smoked several hides.

The result was a soft piece of buckskin in and beautiful golden colour.

Showing off the latest in wilderness wear are Mimi and Marcia.

Thanks to Eric & Kim Saunders for organizing this event. Thanks also to everyone who came out. The knowledge shared and the willingness to help each other was extraordinary.