Perched at the edge of the glorious North, a soul has only two options: keep a cozy down-filled Southern-comfort blanket between oneself and the environment/culture until your time here is up. Or plunge in head first, nekkid’ and polar-bear style!!…
The Crafter here tends to fall into the nekkid’ – bear – head category.
The land here not only jump starts the creativity, it yeilds up all sorts of lovely treasures to incorporate into soap and body goodies. From the low-bush cranberry to rich fats. It is an artisan’s dream environment!
So my darling dh must be equally inspired on my behalf, since on his recent sojourn North he scoured the villages of Baffin Island to get his hands on some Muktuk for me. And, halleluja, he happened upon a bunch that was past it’s eat-by date! So he arrived home to the loving arms of his family bearing some 30 lbs of glorious narwhal fat!! I was so excited, I started rendering it within the hour…. So here follows some of the pics from the following sixteen hours:
Oh, glorious, lovely fat!!
It oozes oil just sitting on the board
Ready to render
Yes, the dog likes it too (and the cat)
Bubble, bubble, toil (and stink) and trouble
There it is that glorious oil….
What cannot be conveyed to you effectively however, is the incredible, indescribable, abominable SMELL !!! Having rendered tallow, I was wise enough to know the process should be undertaken out-of-doors…, thank heaven. But this was a whole new level of ewwww. It actually clings to you. On the upside, my hands were sooooo soft from handling it.
But the finished oil is a glorious golden treasure. The tricky part will be saponifying it. There is absolutely no SAP numbers I can find anywhere!! So I must experiment. I will make soap to send back up to Pond Inlet and some for the Elders here, but I also think I will make some fabulous lip balms with it too…. What a thrill!!!
My soapmaking has come to a grinding halt as I await delivery of many of my basic oils…, and as the hubby and I lay our huge garage pad and start the actual structure…, and as we head off this weekend to cut and buck firewood (our permit takes us about 150km away)…, and as I pour and test new container candles…. Wow, I need a nap. 🙂