A Little Fur

I have relearned to sow. I learned this skill first from my mother, then from various teachers during my younger years, and now from one of my new friends in Alaska. So far I've made Beaver mitts, and I'm almost done with a Fisher hat, before starting a ruff. This new sowing skill entails leather and fur, a product so enraging to some people they feel the need to throw paint on it, generally red. This was a popular past time for various types of activists in the late eighties, and like most fashions is on its way back. They have clearly never been doing their activist activity in 50 below, and thus have no concept of the usefulness fur has to offer. People in Alaska live in the middle of nowhere, which clearly is somewhere, since they can live there, but nowhere to us normal folk who need roads and Starsucks to function. Living in the middle of nowhere requires fetching of food, like fishing, but also trapping, and in doing so, they are left with fur. The fur is then treated, cut, sown into a parka, hat, mitts, ruff or mukluks, and then worn outside where the freezing cold will claim your life unless you dress properly, so you can further go outside and fetch food for the family. And so the cycle continues, which it has been doing for centuries before we invented espresso and BlackBerries. This is what I tell myself as I poke my needle through the skin (mine and the fur) to build a hat for warmth and protection, the process is Darwinistic, and I just don’t want to get cold.