Home visit PTC

I thought I might as well make up for slacking on the blog, by making two entries in one night. So this was a big first for me too. We recently had parent teacher conferences (PTC) this past week and I had some students that weren't able to make it, so I had to reschedule. One parent had another obligation, butchering a seal, so I decided to stop by the house for a visit and possibly take care of the conference at the same time.

I walked into the house and sure enough there was a dead harbor seal lying on the kitchen floor. Someone in the family had killed it a couple of days earlier and after letting age for a couple of days, they butcher it. The women generally do this work after the men hunt the animals and bring them home. Women use a special knife called an Uluk that was designed has been used for centuries by the Yup'ik people. It is basically a large curved blade with an ivory or wooden handle directly on top of the blade and you hold it in your palm. A well sharpened Uluk can cut through fish, seal, elk, or musk ox in no time.

She was going to work on this seal beside us on the kitchen floor while we were talking about my students school work and attitude in class. It was a little distracting and amazing at the same time.

People generally cut the seal blubber away from the animal first and remove any pieces of meat from the blubber. The blubber is then cut into smaller pieces and allowed to drain of the seal oil, which is used for everything. I had a chance to try some a couple of weeks ago when I was visiting one of the elders in the village. I was offered some moose soup, which I eagerly agreed to and told that I should try a little (very little) seal oil in the soup. It is very very strong, but kind of tasty. Word of advice, a little bit goes a long way. The seal meat is sometimes used in soups, but most often cut into strips and hung to dry like beef jerky. I haven't tried any yet, but I look forward to it.

Hope everyone is hungry after this, cause you're all getting seal jerky for christmas.

Thanks for reading.
Dirk