My oldest son lives 50 feet from the Ocean, hes Inupiaq Eskimo, and not all Native Alaskans can hunt Sea mammles, they must reside on th ecoast or have a tradional tie to the Ocean, as my wifes family does with them migrateing each breakup to th eOcean till Caribou are calling us back up the river in Fall, than we go back downstream to our little village on the Kobuk delta , and quite often Seals and such, with Seals quite often and Polar Bears and Walrus occasionally.
To start with a Seals butchering, you must first consitter what it is going to be used for. Were gonna render the Blubber into oil, but chopping it up and letting it "Try out", and being an oil that renders at room temperature, it will not stick to the arteries, nor will any Sea mammle fats.
Th eoil makes a tatsy garnish for frozen meats and fish, and in this extream Arctic environment, its a caloric boost that makes eating frozen foods a doable Thang, and the person eating such will have energy and viger, rather than Hypothermia from eating frozen foods plain. Often, a bag of blue berrys and a bag of seal oil was the travle food of the man on foot, who hunted and stayed out till he had a load, often over several days, which he would live on , with the berrys and oil as garnish for the meats caught.
One Seal here was butcherd with the skin being cut for streching for tanning, the other cut for cordage. When its cut up the middle and around the flippers, its going to be streched, if its in two seperate "Hoops" of skin from above and below the flippers, its gonna be rope or bags, depending on how its worked bythe woman.
In spring, my wife will make a bag of sorts, a "puuk" (pook) that she will place the 1/2 dryed meats into the render'd Seal oils for preservation. Skins then are poor for clothing, but make great rope, waterproof boots, bags, and other 'stuffs'. Fall and winter skins make great pants and coats.
During winter, the meats are boiled or fed to dogs after a little cooking.
Seal Meats taste like a Beef with a definint fish taste to it, but not hard to get used to. I like mine with mustard and tea.
Poking holes an inch from the edge all along her cuts, to lace the strings that strech it in the frame.
Then the pelt is removed with the blubber on the skin by cutting the blubber away from the meats, untill th eentire carcass is fat/skin free.
Then the animals carcass is taken back out to be cut up as needed, to the cache, while the blubber is removed by carefully slicing the 2 inches of fat closely and carefully to avoid cutting the skin, and yet leaving none behind that would spoil the skin. The skin is streched, then scraped and cured. Then, finally, it will be ready for cutting and sewing.
The Hoops of skin will be cut as a spiral, after a soak in the scrap oils, so as to loosen and shed its hairs.
Blubber in the bucket.
This will be cut into small peices over the next couple days, to render at room temperature.
Ill post more as this progresses.