Finally saw some Saint John’s Wort this morning right near my apartment!!! Either the city got real good at weed whacking or they came in late. Glad I found some :)

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@lesorciercanadien
Finally saw some Saint John’s Wort this morning right near my apartment!!! Either the city got real good at weed whacking or they came in late. Glad I found some :)

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happy canada day. please consider donating to an indigenous-led charity. fuck colonialism.
indian residential school survivors society (BC)
toronto indigenous harm reduction (ON)
native women's resource centre of toronto (ON)
water first (nationwide)
indspire (nationwide)
miskanawah (AB)
ma mawi wi chi itata centre (MB)
manitoba indigenous cultural education centre (MB)
native women's shelter of montreal (QC)
native friendship centre of montreal (QC)
first light (NL)
list of indigenous charitable organizations sorted by cause (nationwide)
It’s coming along! I worked on the pleats of the skirts, the sleeve assembly (not yet set into the body), and the back lining. I also assembled the pocket flaps, shoulder wings. I’ll keep the front closures on that selvedge to honor the blanket coat’s history (sometimes being made from blankets). God I love working with wool.
I love the blue, even if not historically possible until aniline dyes in the 1860s, but the point isn’t historical accuracy 100%. It’s the historically-minded vibes. And it POPS with sashes!
SK+TE'KMUJUE'KATIK (AT THE PLACE OF GHOSTS) dir. Bretten Hannam, 2025
Sobbbiinngg!!! 😭😭😭🥹🥹🥹🥰🥰🥰⚜️🪶
Since Canada is currently trying to sell itself as an "ethical alternative" to Iran's oil, I would just like to remind folks / share some quick information:
More than 50% of Indigenous communities in reserve areas in Canada are at high risk of pipeline spills. When there is a spill, reserves are disproportionately impacted.
The National Energy Board and Supreme Court of Canada has a history of declaring the "public interest and economic interests outweigh Indigenous and treaty rights." Basically, Indigenous peoples don't count enough as "public" to matter.
Pipelines are built without proper consent from the Indigenous Nations they choose to occupy. Keep in mind I say choose, because this is the case even when alternative pipeline routes are suggested that could avoid reserve land. This is a direct, constant, and often violent threat to Indigenous sovereignty.
The MMIW crisis is funded by the oil industry through the creation of worker's "man camps" near reserve land. These "man camps" are nothing but pits of sexual violence and human trafficking of Indigenous women and girls. I am not exaggerating; this is well studied and well documented.
Resources & Sources:
To become an ‘energy superpower’, Canada wants to bulldoze Indigenous rights (START HERE!)
Indigenous Resistance to Alberta Oil and Gas Development Report
When the environment is destroyed, you're destroyed: Achieving Indigenous led pipeline justice
First Nations Consent Ignored as Canadians Asked to Subsidize LNG Expansion
Oil pipelines and food sovereignty: threat to health equity for Indigenous communities
Is Violence against Indigenous Women in “Canada’s interest”? Liquified Natural Gas in B.C., Sexual Violence & Narratives of Terra Nullius
The colonial playbook never ended, Canada’s pipeline deal proves it
Stand together: Alberta's First Nations and non-Indigenous unite against Big Oil

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Example of the Apothecary Sheet in Action: Sarriette/Summer Savory
Let's use the apothecary work sheet on an iconic herb in the Acadian pantry, the Summer Savory (Sarriette d'été). This page can help you get some spell-work correspondences due to associations you write within.
I got to know summer savory when I moved to Nova Scotia. Outside the Maritimes, it's not an herb you see often in supermarkets, and if you do, thank you, Farmer John's Herbs! It pairs great with potatoes, different meats, and other root vegetables, and is a staple in the Acadian pantry. How did it become a staple among our people? It's a story emblematic of our displacement and resilience.
The lore often points to the town of Burnt Church, New Brunswick, and the Robichaud family.
The herb made its way from Europe with our French ancestors, and thrived in our 17th century kitchen gardens. Following the capture of Louisbourg by the British in July 1758, Col. James Murray was sent to destroy Acadian settlements in the Miramichi region. On 17 September 1758, Murray reported spending two days in Miramichi Bay looking unsuccessfully for Acadians, but destroying anything he found; one of them being the first stone church built in New Brunswick. No Mi'kmaq or Acadian was safe from those raids. My own family sought refuge in Camp d'Espérance, along the Miramichi River. It's a region that was rife with starvation, hiding out, and great suffering. (1).
Through the Acadian Expulsion, our gardens were scorched to the ground, and we were forced to either live out in abject poverty and forced service in the American Colonies, or find a way to come back home in secret. Once we did come back to the Maritimes (when we were legally 'allowed' to come back), we were given poor land for cultivation (our previous fertile lands occupied by New England settlers brought in by the Crown and their American co-conspirators), or did subsistence fishing on the isolated coastlines. (1) The sturdy, hardy summer savory plant was still growing in the ditches of neighbouring farms and on rocky highland cliff sides of coastal communities, helping sustain us through the consequential poverty we endured in the nineteenth century into the early-twentieth..
A descendant of the deported Acadians, Jean Prudent Robichaud (1867-1958) supposedly acquired the seeds from a Mi'kmaq woman from the Esgenoôpetitj First Nation at Burnt Church, NB, while he was working on Mi’kmaq farms with his draft horse. (2) Both Mi'kmaq and Acadians were forced to compete for meagre resources following the Seven Years' War and the Acadian Expulsion, and as a result, that pre-deportation cooperative relationship soured. It's something I'm hoping gets remediated, as I see examples of really terrible racism and vandalism (I think of the Baie Sainte-Marie lobster fishing rights being challenged by some Acadian/settler fishermen, causing loss of catch/materials/livelihood vehicles in the Sipekne'katik First Nation in 2020, and ongoing to this day.) (4)
This shared history of loss, oppression, forced subsistence agriculture, and the intimacy and comfort of Acadian cooking make it a powerful herb to recall your Acadian ancestors, and to start allyship workings.
It's a plant that is so closely tied to Acadian culture, I wanted to share just how soul-sustaining and cooperative our culture is, courtesy of the University of Maine's Culture Focus page on the Acadians and our cultural values:
Spirit of cooperation; some Acadians say its from cooperatively building and maintaining miles of dykes; others say it is evident in the number of successful fishing, farming and other economic Co-ops.
Adapting to and thriving in new circumstances, as evidenced by the maintenance and evolution of Acadian culture in all areas of the world where Acadians live.
Joyful pleasure in family gatherings and festivities, as evidenced by vibrant music and performances, and by summer family reunions attended by thousands of relatives. (3)
With those key features in mind, Summer Savory can be used in holiday cooking to incite warmth and love, help you in social justice and community efforts to replenish your strength (it being such a hardy plant), and doing spells for adaptability and embracing change.
The following care instructions are taken directly from the Albert County Museum & RR Bennett Centre.
Culinary uses: Summer savory is a common herb in Atlantic Canada and associated with holiday food. For example, turkey stuffing for Thanksgiving is made with summer savory rather than sage. Summer savory plays a significant role in Acadian food culture. The herb is the main seasoning in fricot (rabbit or chicken stew). It is also a component of the Herbes de Provence mix.
Crop description: Compared to modern varieties of summer savory, Ancienne d’Acadie is a short, stocky plant with a strong flavour. It grows 8-12 inches in height and is more cold-resistant than modern varieties. The plant is quite beautiful with delicate small leaves and a profusion of light purple blooms, which attract bees and other pollinators.
Growing: Direct-seed in the spring after threat of frost has passed. During the season, tip-propagation can be used to acquire new plants. It can be harvested throughout the growing season or just cut in the fall. It pairs well alongside onions and beans, enhancing their flavours, and keeps aphids away.
Seedsaving: The variety must be isolated from other varieties of summer savory in order to keep the variety pure. The seeds are tiny and care must be taken while processing seeds to avoid losing the seeds with the chaff. Norbert Robichaud harvests the small seed pods in early November. He crushes and winnows these in a light breeze. He cleans the seeds by rolling the rest of the seed on a sheet of paper, and gently blowing the remaining chaff of the seed. (2)
Another Traditional Seed-Saving Method: Women of the household would cut the twigs from the summer savory bush to dry them for winter. Once cultivated, the leaves of picked off the stems. The stems have little seeds attached to them. The seeds would then be dried, and placed in glass containers for winter storage. Once all the foliage was consumed, the seeds would always be found at the bottom of the glass for sowing in spring!
You can grab your seeds here at Écoumène Édaphon in Saint-Damien, Québec, once they're back in stock:
Old Acadian Savory is a heritage variety deeply rooted in the cultural and human history of Atlantic Canada. Towards the end of the 19th cen
So, here's the page example in English for all of you lovely folks, but I'll write things by hand in French for my own records:
Sources
John Mack Faragher. A Great and Noble Scheme: The Tragic Story of the Expulsion of the French Acadians from Their American Homeland. W.W Norton & Company, 2005. 562 pages.
Albert County Museum & RR Bennett Centre. Summer Savory: The Herb of Acadie.
https://umaine.edu/teachingcanada/culture-focus-acadia-acadians/
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/commercial-lobster-fishing-indigenous-rights-dfo-9.6995262
I also found this book at my local booksellers today!!! I’ve been wanting an Acadian basket book for a while now, it even shows you how to make one!!!!!
We’re learning fléchée today with some yarn from Dollarama!! I’m hooked :)
Book: Fingerweaving Untangled by Carol James
Sealskin boots - potential resources within Canada/the Maritimes
I'm planning some sealskin boots based on the Acadian brogannes patterns I shared earlier in the month. I also found a PDF of a person from West St. Modeste in Newfoundland and Labrador explaining how the boots were made, from the preparation of the fur and leather, down to the sewing steps. I'm still collecting resources, and happy to share what I find!
I may try ordering a seal skin from Bilodeau Taxidermy Canada, a taxidermy shop in the Normandin region of Saguenay Lac-Saint-Jean, where the shipping fees are decent and make sense for me. It amounts to about 172$ shipping included for a 4 feet pelt. I'm going to Saguenay in August.. perhaps I can ask my parents to drive me there so I can avoid shipping costs?
This could be a really fun project for me at some point! Making a capote but with rainjacket/parka fabrics. And I don’t know why I didn’t already have a pair of leggings/mitasses in my every-day wardrobe! I usually use mariner’s wool slops if the rain outside is pelting vertically, but this is obviously the solution! Not to mention I’m on the hunt for a solid pair of walking boots that won’t fuck up my feet and hips so, I have to say goodbye to knee high fashion boots :( not with mitasses I don’t! I can have a knee high look everyday!

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Watching Treaty Road on APTN+. I’m so grateful I have access to such a powerful show, teaching me the histories of the numbered treaties in Canada. Not only that, but how the treaties, the Indian Act, all impacted and dictate land use, misrepresentations of language and translation to favour the colonial mindset, and opportunistic exploitation of land, water and resources that hurts everyone, Indigenous and non-Indigenous alike. My heart breaks.
My capote overcoat is coming along very well! I took a 1760s justacorps pattern, and extended the front panels for a double-breasted look. I have my doubts if one fur trade blanket will cover it though.. so much skirt.
All in all, drafting and making the mockup took me just about seven hours. Mind you, I just assembled the pieces real fast with the widest stitch, and no construction or tailoring canvas. I just wanted to see if an 18th century pattern fit me, and it did!
It’s meant to take the important design elements of French Canadian capote coats, like the justacorps design, and the sash closing it shut. I am aware I may need to use linen ties at the front but…. I love buttons too much. I wanted it to be a pattern from back then, but with the mercery and the comforts of today: like buttons. And you know, some Outlander-esque tomfoolery that a historical fur trader wouldn’t have time for, like embroidery or other embellishments. I might make it out of melton wool in either blue or grey, and line it with linen. I’m thinking of making a fur vest underneath to keep warm in colder weather.
Pattern; the Cut of Men’s Clothes 1600-1900 by Norah Waugh, p. 70-71. Victoria and Albert Museum; Coat, Waistcoat and Breeches c.1760
First hike of the year in Point Pleasant Park! It was a beautifully misty day, with lots of frog croaking, and I found a lot of bunchberry (quatre temps) flowers and a blueberry (beluet) bush!
Also, I may have to re-read this book. It gave a really fun and quick history of Amntu’kati, otherwise known as Point Pleasant Park. There’s something about those woods that just, resonate beautifully. And I love smelling the ocean air while traipsing the trails.
SK+TE'KMUJUE'KATIK (AT THE PLACE OF GHOSTS) dir. Bretten Hannam, 2025
I will wait with baited breath for this to come out!
I’m finally watching it, and OMG 18th century Mi’kmaw woman with an Acadian girlfriend (I presume) just fighting the British, probably helping Acadians escape deportations, I just about squealed! And Nancy Kenny (who plays Rene in the film) also plays an Acadian mother in the Acadian Deportation Heritage Minute!! Knew her face looked familiar.
Excellent movie as well 🩷 I adore seeing our forests on the silver screen, and finally getting access to this film’s Mi’kmaq storytelling.
La fête du Sacré-Coeur - The Sacred Heart of Jesus: a small reflection in a tired brain moment
Photo: my grandmother's bread oven on the shores of the Saguenay River.
The end of this week brought about a comforting presence in my environment. As we booked our tickets to finally visit Saguenay Lac-Saint-Jean this summer, it was also my great-great grand-dad's birthday on June 11th.
Joseph Gilbert (1892-1983) was a loving dad with a patient eye for natural phenomena, and a love of fiddling. His wife Flore Savard would always make sure that there was a maple syrup barrel at the ready for one of his sweet-tooth cravings, and he would also harvest his own tobacco, insisting the plants had to be picked by the waxing crescent, otherwise, the plants would wither and no longer be fit to smoke. He loved watching patterns in nature. With his trusty farmer's almanac in his pocket, he'd watch the skies for signs of rain or storms. When his wife and their daughter Florida (my great-grandma) would prepare the bread dough for baking in the stone oven outside, he'd set up the oven, stoke the fires, and place all the filled bread tins until the oven was full. He always prized home-made bread, and was a bit finicky if he went to dine elsewhere. He also hunted moose for his family to feast on annually.
All these little memories that I read in my great-grandma's biography, written by my great-aunt Florence Bergeron, had me a bit wistful. In my post about the sugaring season, there was a prayer that sugar makers would say on this feast day, to ensure their harvests. Their trade, along with Joseph Gilbert's love of maple syrup (and the great lengths he went to to acquire his annual barrel sometimes), had me taking on a more personal approach to this feast day. To remind us of the prayer used, here it is below:
Sugar makers would make consecrations to the Sacred Heart of Jesus in June. All sugar makers that were part of the Association des producteurs would recite the following prayer:
"Par la chaleur et le feu du foyer, l'eau de nos érables se débarrasse de ses impuretés et devient notre délicieux sirop d'érable. N'est-ce pas aussi par la chaleur et le feu du foyer si ardent de l'amour de Votre Divin Coeur que nos pauvres coeurs, purifiés de leurs imperfections, se changeront en des coeurs que Vous aimerez davantage. Faites que notre volonté soit aussi ferme que le bois franc de nos érables, que nous respections toujours les lois de la justice et de l'honnêteté chrétienne dans notre travail et nos transactions commerciales. Soyez le Roi aimé et respecté dans nos cabanes à sucre. Nous vous promettons d'y exposer Votre image pour que toutes les 'parties de sucre' soient sous votre protection."
My translation: "By the heat of the hearth fires, the water of our maples gets rid of its impurities and becomes our delicious maple syrup. Is it not also by the heat of the hearth fires, so ardent like the love of your Sacred Heart, that our own hearts are purified or their imperfections, and transform into hearts that would reflect your Love. Make our resolve as sturdy as the wood of our maples, may we always adhere to the rule of law and Christian honesty in our trade and in our commercial undertakings. You are the most respected and loved King in our sugar shacks. We promise to keep your Holy Image hung on its walls, so that every sugar season is under your protection."
The day of the Sacred Heart of Jesus is celebrated the third Sunday after Pentecost, sometimes the whole month of June. Nowadays in Quebec, it passes us by, but was mostly celebrated and observed at the sanctuary of Notre-Dame du Sacré-Coeur de Jésus, on the rue Sainte-Ursule in Quebec City, now a heritage building, and no longer an open, functioning chapel since 2016. In the nineteenth century into the early 20th, this feast day was welcomed with much pomp and joy. Some communities also had superstitious phenomena occur that day regarding fire. In Lanoraie, QC, in June 1881, after an evening service for the Sacred Heart of Jesus, a fire broke out on the altar in the chapel. The Sacred Heart of Jesus statue on this blazing altar was left untouched. A bishop from Montreal, Édouard-Charles Fabre, consecrated this statue in 1882, and since, it’s been the origin of a popular pilgrimage site in Lanoraie. (Abbot A. Desrosiers, 1983.) Jeanne Pomerleau "Saints et fêtes du jour au Canada Français" Les éditions GID, 2014.
Even as flames engulf everything in the growing heat of summer, and as the sun increases in strength for the summer solstice, leaves are in full greenery, the light stays out longer into the twilight, and I’m convinced out of my apartment to go enjoy the woods.
Today was a work day and a busy week, so I didn’t end up doing much, but I think, to both honour Joseph Gilbert, the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and that day’s special prayers uttered by our sugaring tradesmen of so long ago, I’d do something like this for a celebration/ritual:
I’d start off with the prayer above, then, I’d offer a maple syrup bottle to my altar, and bless it with something tobacco-scented (though I haven’t figured out what just yet.. I’m not a smoker, my wife has asthma, and yeah, don’t want nicotine.) From there, I’d take a walk in the woods with an almanac or a tree guide, and try to befriend, get to know any plants in my area. Maybe one day I’ll have one little tobacco plant that I can watch grow, and remember how fondly my ancestor kept his own. The fire of the candles, of the Sacred Heart, bring you back to yourself, and to your inner-most feelings of being human, and being open to others. Let the Sacred Heart teach you how to help others in need, reach out to a friend you haven’t talked to in a while, and put yourself aside to help someone else. While I may be exhausted, annoyed, and just overall sour at times, it helps to slow down a bit, breathe, and just remember: we're all human beings trying to survive in this hellscape. I love every moment I get to meet someone new, whenever I can ask someone a question about their life experience, or when I go to church on Sundays and ask someone how their week went and watch their eyes well up with emotion (I'm just glad they can share things with me).
So to all my friends, mutuals and other people I have yet to meet: don't let the insane happenings of the world dull your emotions. They matter. And give yourself some love too.

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Do you ever just.. well up at seeing a 2cm glass dove bead from the Acadian Belleisle archeological site? I did.
Source: Dr. Hilary Doda. Fashioning Acadians, clothing in the Atlantic world, 1650-1750. McGill Queens University press. 2023
Dr. Hilary Doda was my costume studies history teacher in the Costume Studies program at Dalhousie University, a real gem of a person.
She’s giving a talk about it on July 14th! Email [email protected] for Zoom access!
Traditional Acadian Footwear
Note: traditional Acadian words are in bold and italics
As my sewing studio is now set up, I've been turning my attention to recreating historical Acadian items of clothing, as a tangible connection to my ancestors, and for the sheer practical experiment of understanding how things were made in the past.
While most of us don't do our own hide tanning anymore, or have ready-access to pelts and leather, I'll still try to source my materials from local hunters and communities, and ask around. I have a friend who attends Inuit amauti workshops and she uses seal fur, so I may be in luck.
Jean-Claude Dupont, in his book Histoire Populaire de l'Acadie, has a section just on the making of various footwear, depending on regions, from Beaubassin, the Magdalen Islands, all the way down to Louisiana. The following is what I've loosely translated from that chapter:
In Beaubassin, they mostly relied on cow hides and a few pelts from the fur trade to make their shoes, or they used wooden clogs to not muck up their leather boots in barns. Thanks to the fur trade pelts many trappers brought through Beaubassin in the 1680s, Acadians were able to trade those for their sought-after commodities from Boston merchant ships. Every man of the household knew how to prepare and tan hides, both from farm animals as well as wild pelts. They'd start by drenching the pelt in alum and salt, and after that treatment, roll it in wood ash. Then, they could scrape off the remaining meat from the pelt with a crooked knife. After the first drying, they'd dip the hide in oil, and let it dry again. (1)
Dosithée Léger, 77 years old in 1973, Robichaud west, New Brunswick.
Vital Landry of Memramcook, New Brunswick, who was 85 years old in 1967, tanned his hides with alum, salt and bark from the haricot (hemlock tree). Édouard Robichaud of the same village used the same tree bark, but used lime and chicken manure, or charcoal from wood. He then used porpoise oil to treat the hide.
On the Magdalen Islands, my ancestors were commonly using cod oil, and in the spring, loup-marin oil (that designated any type of local seal to the Madelinot Acadians).
To sew the boots, makers used linen or hemp thread, coated in brai (a resin substance made from vegetable resins from trees like pine or machequoui (bouleau, birch), sometimes, made with tarry substances). There are three usual designs for Acadian boots of this kind: the canisteaux, the brogannes, and the hausses.
Canisteaux were often made from either moose, deer or cow hide. They were sometimes called caristeaux in Chéticamp. Either way, it’s always made from the hind leg of the animal. 15 to 20 inches of the hind leg’s shank area were stripped from the leg, and pulled away almost like a big sock off the carcass. The hairs would be kept on, and work on the exterior of the boot for some, or in the interior of the boot for others, to each their preference. The piece would then be stretched and molded to wooden molds for the foot shape. Eel sinew would be used to close the toe ends of the stretched toe box (pictured below):
Brogannes were ankle-length boots that was notched in the front for the closure, whereas Hausses were the same pattern, but mid-calf high, and the notch opening at the back. The same pattern for the foot can be used, and the leg pattern differs. For winter, these boots can also be knee-length, and on the Magdalen Islands, was also made from seal fur. (See below):
Note: pardon the 'sauvages' designation for these boots above.. it's what they're called in the ethnographic Acadian books, and how my ancestors would have called them. These boots very much are a borrowing of First Nations/Inuit cultures, and this language wasn't ok then and it's not ok now.
From my family’s memoirs: Seal hunting and making boots
Seal hunting still remains a staple of some Madelinot families. Obviously, that knowledge is lost in my family, due to us migrating away in the 1920s. Seal hunting techniques were passed on from neighbours and family, and of course, the first Acadians on the islands learned not just through experience, but through the help of the Mi’kmaq and the Inuit. My great-great grandfather Dominique would put on his home-made crampon leather boots to hunt the seals in the pack ice just offshore, with other men from families nearby. The elder sons also took part in this annual hunt. It was a timely way for families to make up the yearly budget, and even if one man did poorly, the profits were always split among all. Men would bring back the pelt and meat, stories of their exploits, and render the fat into really useful oil. Seal oil was also used to fry croxignoles (traditional woven doughnuts) as a springtime delicacy still treasured today. The pelts were either used to make boots and other items, or be sold for a welcomed boost to the family purse. The hunt would usually begin in March. Every year, wives would get anxious as the men were out hunting. It was well-known that a group of men from the same family all drowned one year, and accidents and exposure were not uncommon. My great-great grandmother Anasthasie always had lots of anxiety while Dominique was out hunting, and Angèle remembered those days well.
The Winter Magdalene Mail of 1910
Many supplies to support a whole family were hard to ship all the way to the islands reliably, especially in the winter. The following saga illustrates just how isolated it gets: On January 2 1910, a storm severed the only telegraph line to the island. Getting desperate, locals sent an empty wooden molasses barrel (ponchon) with letters in the direction of the mainland on Candlemas (Feb.2). It floated 96 kilometres to Cape Breton, taking 10 days to get there. The 125 letters inside traveled through the postal system to Halifax, where the alarm was finally raised on Valentine’s Day. A month later, a steamship arrived on the islands for assistance, and since 1912, the islands finally got the Marconi cable installed. My great-grandmother didn’t have clear memories of that episode, but she did remember the family not being able to have flour, which was a sorely needed necessity that the general store couldn't provide because of this outage. For most families, seal hunting wasn't done out of sheer pleasure, or out of community ties and identity (though it did foster admirable teamwork and social cohesion). It was done, because mainland merchants used their workers’ labour intensively, and barely paid them living wages. They controlled everything that was sold and bought on the islands, and that left many families to winter with a lot of debt. Seals helped us get some relief.
Making Madelinot Boots: My Ancestor's Method
Home-made leather boots with double-leather soles were essential for traversing the ice safely, modelled directly from Inuit and First Nations designs like moccassins and mukluks/maklak. Dominique would start at the end of January to cut and sew the hides for boots. He had kept hides from the slaughtering season in October. He would clean and scrape the cowhides of their hairs, and let them dry on the barn door. After tanning them, he’d dip them in a mix of alder (Verne) dye and very hot water. This made the leather take on a beautiful copper colour. To craft the boots, he’d use an awl to make regular stitch holes, and he’d use a cord that my great-aunt refers to as “Corde de brai” (cord that was dipped into a tarry-like substance). At the end of those cords, he’d add some hog hairs to help with easy lacing. He’d sew the cord with the cross-lace method, to further waterproof the boot seams. He’d waterproof them further with cod liver oil, or if he was lucky, seal oil, as a final tanning step. (P.144) Source: Angèle des Iles, Rita Lapierre-Otis.
Final Notes
All this to say, I don’t have enough money to get myself a good leather cow hide, or even better, a seal hide, but once I do, you bet it’s a project I’m going to start! Right now, I’m waiting on an early fur trade replica blanket to make myself a traditional Capote.
I also have the DVD ordered for a documentary about modern-day Magdalen Island Acadians, especially young folks, who are keeping the seal hunt traditions of their ancestors alive. "Chasseurs de Phoques", directed by Nicolas Lévesque. I sadly have yet to find a DVD player to finally watch it. You can purchase your copy here:
https://chasseursdephoques.ca
I am also a full supporter of traditional hunting of seals, and sustainable game management with two-eyed seeing knowledge. People exploring and enjoying their cultural staple activities are allowed to do so, and we have lots of organizations that handle modern seal hunting ethically and sustainably. PETA can get fucked.