Caribou Blanket | Life Below Zero

Mr. Caribou hides gonna make a nice blanket. You don't just rip a caribou hide off of the caribou and start sleeping on it. It's got to be cleaned up. There's still fat on here. There, these warm flies lay eggs on caribou and their fur. In summertime, the eggs hatch little maggots born under the skin down on the legs usually, and then they migrate up to the back.

Kind of a pain because they degrade the hide. Some people find it kind of tedious, but you have to work, taking all that stuff off. You want the hide to last; you don't want any fat or junk that's gonna be rancid on it without cutting holes through the hide. That's the big thing; it's a very delicate operation.

The goal is to get the hide flexible, soft after it dries. Mostly, it's by scraping, sometimes chewing on it. Because what you'll see is you'll actually see it turning the leather, like right here. If you just chew it a little bit, you know? The whole days, people used to hide all the time. Saliva actually helps it a lot.

A lot of people don't get to do stuff like this anymore. Everybody used to do this; everybody used to work on hides. That was just the normal way of life. It's a special feeling when you've got your food and you're betting on a mountain that you can see right out the window while you're in your cabin.

That's what subsistence living is; it's just nice. Just like doing the dishes, it's like chopping firewood, working on a hide. You see the results right in front of your eyes. Look at that! Isn't that beautiful? That's gonna make a beautiful blanket. I like it.