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JERKED VENISON 
By STAG MURRAY 
W ITH the coming of the chill, 
crisp, days of fall, we who 
are possessed with the “call 
of the wild” are busy greasing our 
moccasins and filing our sears pre¬ 
paratory to “lightin’ out” for the bush 
country in quest of sport, adventure 
and a trophy. Some of us are lucky, 
a few of us have noses for finding 
“runs,” but all of us have, right down 
in our hearts, the 
desire to bring 
back a pretty head 
to mount up over 
the mantelpiece 
where we can sit 
and smoke in front 
of the fire during 
the long winter 
evenings and talk 
of the trail with 
evidence of having 
“been there.” 
How many of us, 
however, give a 
thought to what a 
treat it would be 
to our buddies who 
come around to the 
house occasionally 
for a pow-wow, if 
we were to tell 
them to come early, 
and then lay be¬ 
fore them a good 
round meal of jerked venison that we 
had been keeping up our sleeve since 
the fall hunt? I’ll wager they’d be 
tickled to death. 
Old Frank Sibley, veteran woods¬ 
man of the Racquette River country 
gave me the idea last winter, when, 
one day as we were squatted about 
the lunch fire on our snow-shoes, he 
turned to me suddenly and in line with 
our conversation said, “One thing I 
can’t figure out about these here city 
fellers is thet durn few of ’em wants 
to tote out more ’n a bucks head.” I 
thought awhile, tilted one of my shoes 
nearer to the fire so that the lampwick 
lacing would soften up a bit and re¬ 
plied, “Sib, isn’t it because they don’t 
savez the way to jerk their meat?” 
“Wal,” he drawled, “guess thet’s 
about it.” 
I had trailed moose in the Lake St. 
John country, and knew how the 
Montagnais dried and smoked bear, 
moose and caribou steak, so I was curi¬ 
ous to have old Sib’s recipe for jerking 
venison. Sib knew how. He hadn’t 
spent his life in the Adirondack forest 
for nothing. He had a “rep” as a 
woodsman we all envied, so I ventured 
to query, “How do you do it, Sib?” 
The question had the effect of spill¬ 
ing oil in the breach—it loosened his 
action. He reached into the pack- 
basket, drew out a frozen sandwich, 
stuck it on the end of a toasting fork 
he had cut in a nearby alder brake and 
held it near an opening at the base of 
the fire. 
“My way,” he began slowly, “is the 
old St. Regis way, and if it is done 
right, you’ll get the sweetest, tastiest 
bit o’ meat you could wish for. The 
first thing to do is cut the venison 
into chunks about 3" x 2" x 1", then lay 
the hide out and scrape it well; putting 
on it a layer of salt amounting to a 
1 pt. cup. On top of this you spread 
about V 2 a cup of sugar and then 
sprinkle black pepper on that, but very 
sparingly. Next you lay out the veni¬ 
son to cover about one square foot of 
the hide and on top of this you repeat 
the dose of salt, sugar and pepper. 
Put layer upon layer until all your 
meat is neatly piled up and be sure 
that plenty of salt, etc., gets down 
between the chunks. Then wrap the 
meat up neatly in the hide, tie it well 
and bury it for three or four days in 
a damp cool pit about one foot deep 
and cover it well with moss and ferns. 
While the meat is seasoning build a 
rack ten feet long, three feet high and 
three feet wide. 
On this stretch a 
strip of 1" mesh 
wire. Underneath 
this and over the 
total length build 
a fire of dead hem¬ 
lock bark, building 
on it until you 
have a great l}ed 
of hot embers 
ready at the same 
time you are to 
take the venison 
out of the pit. 
“Unwrap the 
bundle and lay out 
all the venison on 
the wire mesh plac¬ 
ing the pieces well 
apart. Cover all 
of it with birch, 
balsam or spruce 
bark to keep the 
heat in and leave 
it alone for about an hour and a half. 
Then turn the meat over, cover it again 
with the bark and let it remain so until 
the fire has died out or the venison has 
thoroughly dried. It is then ready to 
be eaten, or will keep in a perfect state 
of preservation for about one year.” 
That is Sib’s recipe, and I have 
reason to know it is an excellent one. 
All that is necessary from the outside 
world is a small roll of 1" mesh wire, 
ten feet long and the regular 3 ft. 
width it comes in. The St. Regis did 
not have wire, but used instead, a mesh 
made of deer thongs. As no flames 
should be permitted to break out, this 
mesh will not burn and a good woods¬ 
man could resort to such a “net” should 
no wire be available. 
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