WARNING: This story contains images of dead animals that may disturb some readers.
Nahanni Shorting slips a blade between fat and fur and carefully glides it down the length of the back of a coyote, one of four strung up in Ashern Central School’s wood shop.
This is the first time skinning a wild animal for some of her high school peers in Manitoba’s west Interlake, but Shorting has been hunting with family since she was 13.
She got certified as a trapper six months ago and at 17, she is already thinking about how she can pass down those skills.
“I have multiple cousins, and I would teach them,” said Shorting, who is from Little Saskatchewan First Nation, north of Ashern.
“It’s probably what my dad would want anyways, to carry on the legacy and the knowledge of hunting and providing for your family.”
A local trapper donated the coyotes to the Lakeshore School division’s land-based education program, which started about a year ago.
About a dozen students took part in the skinning class. Some opted out of the session, while others were reluctant but warmed up to it.
Program co-ordinator Andrea Neiser tries to instill an appreciation for how everything is connected, sometimes by taking students to explore the outdoors through activities like ice fishing on Lake Manitoba. Other times, she teaches them skills associated with trapping and fur preparation.
“There’s a variety of reactions. Some students aren’t so fond of it, some students are right into it, some students have been exposed with these northern communities, so they’re really interested in learning how to do it,” said Neiser.
Embracing Indigenous ways of knowing
Donald Nikkel, superintendent of human resources and policy at Lakeshore, said the land-based program emerged from a growing embrace across the province for teaching Indigenous ways of knowing in school.
That’s something that is particularly important in the Interlake, where Nikkel says roughly half of Lakeshore School Division’s 1,000 students are Indigenous.
“We also have this really rich history where we have folks who immigrated to the area about 100 years ago and they worked on the land here as farmers, and then we also have our First Nations communities and Métis who have been here much, much longer,” said Nikkel.
“The land is a place where we can come together. Students can learn together, they can appreciate each other, and it’s about appreciating our past, our history,” he said.
“If you know where you’ve come from, you know where you’re going, and so I think that’s really powerful for our students.”
WATCH | Students get crash course in how to skin coyotes:
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Students in Manitoba’s Interlake region are learning through a land based program that promotes Indigenous ways of knowing and ways of staying in touch with nature, heritage and more.
The land-based program isn’t only accessible to students at the school in Ashern, a small community about 175 kilometres northwest of Winnipeg. Students from other areas in the Interlake enrolled in the Lakeshore Educational Growth Opportunities program, or LEGO, also took part.
LEGO is an alternative educational program that provides students with work placements to develop on-the-job experience in a range of sectors, from mechanical to day care settings and more.
Though skinning may not seem like an employable skill to some people living in some communities like Winnipeg, LEGO director Jemini Beroud said that isn’t necessarily the case in the Interlake.
She pointed to an example of one man who lives and traps in the Interlake, but is also employed through Cabela’s to teach people in Winnipeg fur-harvesting skills.
“In the Interlake we have a lot of farm kids, so for the most part they’re pretty used to manoeuvring around skinning and trapping,” said Beroud.
“This is maybe an opportunity for some of the students that don’t have opportunity to get a chance to see what that would look like.”
Owen Favel, 17, from Fisher Branch Collegiate, said a late uncle from Fisher River Cree Nation who trapped, and his grandfather would help. Favel never got the opportunity to follow them onto the trap line and pick up the skills.
“It makes me feel like I missed out a lot,” he said.
PHOTO GALLERY | Students get lesson in skinning (WARNING: Contains graphic images):
After his crash course at Ashern Central, Favel says he wants to get more into it.
“It feels pretty good. I really do hope that for generations to come that people do keep skinning and trapping. It’s part of history.… It keeps people in touch with the land.”
Neiser, 39, is helping young people like Favel maintain that connection, though she only got into trapping five years ago herself.
She was looking for a way to get outside more, learn new outdoor skills, and maybe make a little extra money. She got her husband’s uncle to teach her the basics.
But fur prices aren’t what they once were. Costs associated with equipment and fuel, and time invested, present a challenge.
Neiser learned first-hand why it’s no longer possible to make a living trapping. But she also learned another lesson she tries to pass on to the students.
“My family does have Métis heritage, so it’s nice to learn and carry on those traditions,” she said. “These traditions are dying out fast. It’s important for us to learn them and then pass them down.”
One of Shorting’s dreams is to become a welder. Neiser’s job also interests her.
“I would probably try and aim for a land-based co-ordinator on my reserve one day,” she said. “Maybe I’d first take the step to help my community out.”
Information Radio – MB7:57From ice fishing to trapping, how some Manitoba students are getting a land-based education
CBC reporter Bryce Hoye speaks with Information Radio host Marcy Markusa live in Ashern about how students are getting a crash course in land-based skills — including how to skin a wild animal.