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skin and the warm flesh as he works. The writer spent 2 or 3 hours 
skinning his first sheep on a mountain side at 25 degrees below zero, 
frosting several knuckle joints in the operation, but after some experience 
shot, skinned, and cut up the meat of a caribou ready for loading on a 
sled in 25 minutes, at 30 degrees below zero. The difference was entirely 
due to knowing what to do, and making it snappy. 
MAMMALS REQUIRING SPECIAL TREATMENT 
Bears 
Bears necessitate more hard manual labour than most species, as they 
are generally fat and in any case the skin adheres tightly to the flesh and 
must be cut away. Scraping the grease from the skin is a long and tedious 
operation which should be done as soon as possible, as the skin will dry 
rapidly in spots where the knife cuts have removed the fat, and it is 
very easy to gash the skin at these points, or to shave off a patch of the 
hair roots so that the hair will drop out. The skin of a polar bear is 
most readily cleaned of fat after it has been spread out on the ice or snow 
and frozen flat and smooth. By a fortunate provision of Providence, polar 
bears and Eskimo are frequently found on the same range, and an Eskimo 
woman with a curved-edged ulun or woman’s knife will shave the blubber 
from a bear skin with high professional skill and startling rapidity. It 
will pay any collector to watch this operation once for his own education. 
The same results may be obtained by using a strongly curved skinning- 
knife wdth bevel-edge and stretching the skin across the thigh or over a 
rounded beam. With a little practice, cultivating a sweeping, outward, 
shaving stroke, with the back of the hand up, regulating the pressure by 
the “feel” of the blade on the inside of the skin, the blubber may be 
loosened and rolled up very rapidly. The removal of the blubber is an 
absolute necessity, whether the skin is to be salted or dried. 
The bear’s feet should be skinned to the base of the claws, and the 
thick, hairless pads on the soles should be left intact and attached to the 
skin. The foot is most readily skinned by continuing the leg incision 
around the inner side of the foot at the edge of the hair. The ordinary 
hunter or trapper, white man or native, usually cuts off these pads, leaving 
them attached to the carcass, and most “hunter’s skins” come into the 
market in this shape. Though this mutilation does not deduct from the 
value of the skin for a rug, it does deduct from the scientific value. Bears, 
or any other mammals with thinly haired under parts, should have the 
opening cut made along the middle of the back, if the specimen is to be 
mounted standing erect on the hind feet. 
If Indian or Eskimo assistants are employed, they must be watched 
very carefully, as many of them have traditional methods of their own for 
cutting and removing skins of most animals, to say nothing of superstitious 
taboos, one of the most annoying being the common practice of leaving 
some part or tuft of the skin attached to the skinned carcass. The feet, 
and the perineal and genital regions are most subject to such mutilations, 
and the collector who would bring out a perfect, complete skin must be 
continually on the job. 
