How climate change led two Indigenous communities to connect over moose hide tanning

Moose are such an iconic Canadian symbol that it's hard to imagine any part of the country not being familiar with the large animal. But Liz Pijogge of Nunatsiavut, an autonomous region on Newfound and Labrador's Arctic coast, remembers a time when moose weren't quite as common in her area.

 "I remember stories when I was younger that hunters would say this is the first time they've seen a moose," she told The Current's Matt Galloway. 

That's no longer the case, though. Thanks to warmer temperatures in the northern regions brought about by climate change, more moose are migrating further north.

This is forcing northern Indigenous communities to get accustomed to the big beast's presence, especially as other sources of nutrition and goods become scarce or banned. 

"Right now, Nunatsiavut is under a caribou ban, so we're [prohibited] from hunting caribou," said the northern contaminants researcher for the Nunatsiavut Government.

One such way people like Pijogge are getting better at utilizing moose is by learning how to tan moose hides. Moose hide can be used to make things such as jewelry and moccasins.

But the community quickly ran into a problem. Because the animal has so little history in Nunatsiavut, there was a lack of community knowledge about using and caring for moose hide.

That's when another northern community, the Dene First Nations from the Northwest Territories, stepped in. In 2019, members of that made the trek made the trek to Nain, N.L. to teach members of Nunatsiavut how to best utilize moose hide. 

"When I went to go to the camp … it was quite different," she said. "It was, like, getting the hair off, which we don't normally do with caribou … soaking it and spreading it with brains."

Moose hide tanner Melaw Nakehk'o said the brains are used to soften up the hide.

"There is like a particular type of fat in the brain, like some kind of enzyme, that when it gets into the fibres of the hide it, it just helps to break it down."

Nakehk'o, a Dene artist, was among those who made the trek to Nain to help. She likens the trip to the knowledge sharing her ancestors engaged in generations ago.

"Being able to share all of that with a new community that is, because of climate change, [just] developing a relationship with the moose … was such as interesting and really important project," she said.

Nakehk'o's first experience with moose hide tanning came in the 1990s. She used to help her grandmother, Judith Buggins, scrape the hair off moose hide when it was dried on a frame.