Events

Fall 2009 Another successful Hide Camp has passed. This was the fourth one and we plan to host another next October! Stay in touch... Things are slowing down as they do every winter. In the spring, the ELK Center will be hosting herbal medicine classes and welcoming our first interns! Fall 2008 Update There is a new forum we can use for planning  events: www.elkcenter.org/gather Hide Camp report back – fall 2006   by Laurel This fall, a number of old and new friends took part in the first annual Hide Camp held at the Elk Center land. There was food, music, camping, swimming – and a distinct lack of hides! The season's late dry spell left the woods dry and noisy underfoot. An excellent year for bear, deer and elk; disappointing for hunters.   A hide barrel placed at the start of the road yielded four donated hides. The first donation came complete with a sawed-open head (antlers removed), two hocks, and an assortment of organs. I looked up from the bag and wondered if I had a secret admirer. Thank you, mystery hunter – it made a good stew. The other hides came in varying conditions but all had pretty bad score marks. These knife marks on the flesh side are permanent reminders of an inexpert skinning job. A deer hide can be pulled off the body after the initial cuts are made.  Cutting the hide off makes more work, damages the meat, and makes tanners sigh sadly over their fleshing beams. Connections continue to be made with the local community. Apparently, the local butcher is a drummaker and a fierce competitor for hides (is this why my flyers always get taken down at the market?). I talked to his assistant before the season began. “This may sound strange,” I said, “but I'm looking for deer brains.” “Oh, don't worry, I'm Indian,” he said. Another I-love-Happy-Camp moment. My lifestyle is not unusual at all here – it's just how things are. People kept busy with projects they brought from home. A friend donated half a bison hide. Out of generosity or cruelty, I'm not sure, as the still-stiff hide rests on my floor as a rug and a frustrated tanner nurses his blisters and sore back. Tanning is always a learning process. As an experiment, we tried graining a deer hide fresh from the barrel (without soaking or bucking). It scraped easily and led us to ponder the natural necessity of community, the need for people to butcher the deer and preserve the meat and process the hide all at once soon after the kill.    Though shifting and temporary, the camp did offer a small vision of community. We had time while working on tanning projects to talk about other parts of our lives, to catch up and gossip and form new friendships. As (currently) the only committed full-time resident of the land, I really appreciated this vision and all the varied gifts that everyone brought. It was anarchic in the best sense – everyone doing what was needed to make the camp happen, which was exactly what we wanted to be doing anyway.