Day 221: Let's be honest

I've had a few posts like this before, so let me once again put this out there - the following pictures are not for the delicate. Don't worry, I didn't loose a leg or something. This is a story...about a couple of seals. A couple of seals that woke up as seals, and ended up as seal jerky.



My friend Pierre informed me that some friends of his had shot a pair of seals and I could come watch the skinning if I wanted to. Which of course I did. Unfortunately I missed the first part because I went to some night lectures at UNIS (this was the night of the IPY opening). So all of my photos are significantly internal, we might say.



Pierre with some blubber:



Eyeballs:



After they take off all the meat and organs, the skin is left with a heavy layer of blubber. To get that blubber off, the skin is nailed to a piece of wood and hauled upright. Most of what I saw was of that long process.

Lifting the remarkably heavy skin:



Stretching one out a bit:



Starting to clean:



Pierre and a friend continue cleaning off bigger chunks of meat on theirs:



This guy does a good job:



Funny story...seal meat stinks really bad.



I didn't really get into it because I wasn't wearing the right clothes (ie things I didn't mind ruining) but the smell sticks to everything - its that special seal oil.





Once they clean the skins, they'll preserve them with salt for awhile, like so:



But until then, there's lots more of this:



After all that business was done, Pierre brought home some meat, which we are currently curing into seal jerky in our attic.

Delish.