salmon school

I am lucky enough to have a been invited to learn about fish cutting from Debbie, our school's secretary. She has been cutting fish since she was eight and my "lessons" have taken place over multiple days. 

The first lesson happened when Debbie invited Liz, Heather and myself down to her smoke house.  Her smoke house is just up from the beach.  This was just a few days after we had arrived in Marshall, before we left for training in Mountain Village.  It was on the same day as berry picking.

Here she hangs the salmon to dry, it takes weeks.  Then she moves the polls into the inner room where she smokes it.

Debbie, at right, had already sliced each filet into chunks and here Heather is cutting the filet into two strips with the uluaq (in Nunavut it was called an ulu and I have a difficult time remembering it has a different name).  Debbie sharpened the uluaq very often.

Trying my hand at fish cutting.

The next week, after we had come back from fishing, I tried to "cut" one of the salmon by myself.  I certainly was not ready for it and should have done more research first.  It was my first time.  I managed to cut as well as I could.  The fish is now frozen in the freezer.  I was really happy when Debbie text the next day to tell me she was cutting fish.  It was like she read my mind.  

I met her down at the beach.  She had already cut (deheaded and gutted) around fifty fish.  She showed me her technique and handed me a filet knife.  There were guts and blood all over the place but after about twenty fish I started to get the hang of it.  I can now confidently remove a head and guts from a salmon.  I also now know that I need to get a filet knife, rubber gloves, and possibly an plastic apron before my next attempt at "cutting" fish.  

Next, I need to learn to de-bone and filet.