For Alaska Native artists, rebuilding an understanding of traditional fish skin–tanning and fish skin–sewing methods is a layered process: retracing techniques through detective work and hands-on experimentation. For practitioners like Marlene Nielsen, it also includes the vital work of passing that knowledge on.

Over the last several years, I have been researching the traditional use of fish skin, speaking with Alaska Native artists who are reviving the practice. I reached out to a few Alaska Native artists throughout the various regions. Among these was Mangyepsa Gyipaayg Kandi McGilton, a Ts’msyen beadwork artist and cedar-bark weaver from Maxłakxaała (Metlakatla), Alaska. Kandi replied about working with fish skin, saying, “That wasn’t really something the Ts’msyen did as far as I know.” 1 She noted that in the discussions she’d had with Southeast Alaska artists the only use of fish skin they could think of was using shark skin for sandpaper. “In fact, they’ve all in one form or another shared my thought, that fish skin is so delicious we always eat it.” 

Overflow sockeye salmon skins drying on a clothesline, 2016 

Kandi and I talked about the historically preferred use of cedar bark for garments by Ts’msyen, Tlingit and Haida. In comparison, other regions in Alaska do not have tree species conducive to clothing construction, which may have contributed to a greater reliance on wearing fish skin in different Alaska Native cultures. Fashioning clothing from trees and food sources draws a direct connection between the people, animals and surrounding nature. Pulling apart all the colonial threads that led to the erasure of Alaska Native fish-skin artwork is beyond the breadth of this article. Nevertheless it’s essential to briefly note that forced assimilation created a multigenerational knowledge disconnect through systematic shaming, theft, discriminatory laws, the weaponization of Western education by boarding schools and the replacement of traditional materials, such as animal skins and plants with synthetic materials and a new hierarchy of value. The repercussions of this erasure are still felt today, including the lasting impacts of genocide, which forces Indigenous Peoples to prioritize the monumental struggle of trying to stay alive above preserving cultural practices and traditions.

Marlene Nielsen demonstrates the difficulty of sewing strips of sockeye salmon together due to the toughness of the material. She wears a thimble and bandage for protection, 2020

This history makes the role of teachers who can share knowledge about working with fish skin even more vital for the revival of the practice. A significant moment in the revival of using fish skin was in December 2012 when artists Marlene Nielsen (Yup’ik), Audrey Armstrong (Koyukon Athabascan) and Coral Chernoff (Sugpiaq), who were already individually revitalizing the tradition, came together for the Sewing Salmon project, hosted by the Smithsonian Institution’s Arctic Studies Center at the Anchorage Museum in Alaska. They shared tanning and sewing techniques for creating clothing and art, examined ancestral objects in the museum’s collection and made educational videos from the workshop. 

A mask made from sockeye salmon skin and fins as well as beaver and wolf fur, 2021

From the fall of 2021 to the late winter of 2022, Marlene, who began her own fish-skin art learning journey in 2002, taught me how to make a Yup’ik fish-skin hood through traditional tanning and sewing techniques. Marlene is Yup’ik from Qarr’unaq (Kokhanok), Alaska, located on the south shore of Lake Iliamna, the largest lake in Alaska. While reflecting on her search for knowledge, Marlene talked about growing up in Alaska. “We were taught really not to ask too many questions when we were younger,” she said. 2 “I think it was [because] they were afraid to be rude. So that’s why I try to teach a lot of the stuff so people know it’s okay. So we don’t lose our art anymore.”

Marlene Nielsen with participants during the Sewing Salmon project at the Anchorage Museum, 2012 COURTESY SMITHSONIAN ARCTIC STUDIES CENTER PHOTO WAYDE CARROLL

Early in Marlene’s exploration about working traditionally with fish skin, she spoke with an Elder who was Dena’ina from Nundaltin (Nondalton), Alaska and Yup’ik from Qarr’unaq (Kokhanok), Alaska. “I know there was a lady in the lake area up in Nondalton [who] said that they used urine tanning. She said she faintly remembers using that.” She noted that the Elder had passed away years ago, but she had done a little work with fish skin, making tiny earrings and sharing memories with Marlene about seeing her parents use fish skin for summer and fall boots. The material, which is incredibly light, is too thin to wear in colder weather where thicker insulation is necessary to keep warm. I told Marlene that I’d heard Yup’ik qayaq for men were traditionally made custom-measured according to individual body proportions and expressed my interest in learning this traditional method of customization in garment pattern making. She expanded: saying, “They always just tried it on. If it was a little bit too big they’d make it smaller. So they always try to make it a little bit bigger because you could always make it smaller.” This is the method Marlene used to create her stunning salmon-skin parka. She laid the tanned skins over her own body, following the contours of her form to ensure a precise fit. 

Marlene Nielsen wearing a coat and boots made from sockeye salmon and a bag made from Dolly Varden trout, rainbow trout and sockeye salmon, 2016

Marlene uses different methods to preserve fish skin after she scrapes and washes it, including utilizing tannins from birch bark and rubbing alcohol. As she studied the tanning process, she also experimented with various types of oil with varying degrees of success until she settled on mink oil as the best, most absorbent fat preservative.

It saddens her to see younger generations giving up the practice of smoking fish. “Long time ago, my mom said that they used to have to put up smokehouses. Their smokehouses probably were about 30 to 40 feet long and they would fill those smokehouses up probably four to five times every summer. Then they’d go and get fall fish,” she says. The regular practice was important for the community as both an ongoing source of food and sewing material. Marlene noted that even just a little piece of skin, if cured a certain way, could be boiled to make a broth that would sustain people through times of starvation. “A lot of my skins I try not to preserve because one of these days it might save someone, but the skins that I do preserve, I have them labeled saying what was used on them. So that was another reason why we preserved a lot of fish. This was the most sustainable animal that we had in our area and that we’re able to live off of during starvation.”

A basket made from sockeye salmon skin and tails, 2021

Harvesting bark, boiling it to extract the tannins and then soaking skins in that solution represents the most common Alaska Native traditional tanning method for fish skin today. However, this process is time-consuming, energy intensive and resource heavy, especially for a material that is not as durable as others, such as deer or moosehide. Using urine—an easily accessible resource—presents a more practical method for preserving fish skin. Evidence that supports this technique can also be found in museum collections I have explored, but when I asked Marlene about it, she recalled only trying it once. “I went to a lot of shows, and a lot of craft fairs,” she said. “And when you talk about urine tanning people kind of turn away and say they don’t want to bother with that skin because it was cured by urine.” 

Drying spawned out sockeye salmon skin which take on a red colour in fresh water, 2021 

This closed-mindedness resonates with my own experiences working with animal skins in art and fashion with non-Indigenous people. In recent years, folks from the European luxury leather industry have been exploring traditional tanning and dyeing techniques from various cultures in their quest for sustainability. They aim to address serious concerns such as the prevalent use of toxic chromium in leather production. However, many European leather craftspeople—despite their desire to claim sustainability—appear reluctant to accept the “quality” of traditional practices. They seem unwilling to acknowledge that their current standards are part of the problem and that these traditional methods have served for thousands of years. What’s required is not just a superficial shift for marketing purposes but a genuine cultural transition. 

When I asked Marlene why she spent 20 plus years learning about working with fish skin, she said, “It was a lost art. Nobody knew anything about it. Nobody even thought about working on fish skin around the lake area.” But through the tireless work she and other dedicated Alaska Native artists have put in over the last few decades, our knowledge base is growing so that new generations can maintain the traditions of our peoples.

Ilegvak is a Fellow in the Inuit Art Foundation’s Alaska Native Art Writing Fellowship program and a 2022 United States Artists Fellow. He is originally from his family’s village of Akiaq, now based in Sheet’ká. He is currently writing a non-fiction book on the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act. He has been published in First Alaskans Magazine and Inuit Art Quarterly. His visual art has been shown at museums, galleries and fashion runways across Turtle Island. 

NOTES
1 All quotes Mangyepsa Gyipaayg Kandi McGilton, interview with Ilegvak, August 2020.
2 All quotes Marlene Nielsen, interview with Ilegvak, fall 2021.