ANCESTRAL HIDE TANNING WORKSHOP

Learn The Ancestral Art of Traditional

Hide Tanning

You'll learn this timeless skill from start to finish, transforming a raw hide into a beautiful, usable product.

This intensive, three-day course focuses on the traditional art of fat-tanning animal hides. We'll use a variety of techniques that rely on lecithin and oil as the primary dressings, resulting in a beautifully soft, durable hide. While this process isn't for the squeamish, the final product is a testament to your hard work. You'll walk away with a high-quality hide and the skills to practice this ancient craft on your own.

The course will cover:

• Rehydrating dried furs and prepping them for the process.

• Fleshing the skins by removing connective layers from the inner surface.

• Applying tanning agents and softening the hides for a perfect finish.

• Smoking Coyote furs on the final day to boost durability and washability.

• Learning the theory behind professional skinning and preservation.

  
  

Learn to produce incredibly soft, strong, and durable leather from raw animal skin using one of humankind’s earliest tanning technologies! Utilizing materials readily available in the surrounding environment, walk through the steps of this transformation. Discover the progression of this process from raw skin to beautiful, usable, finished leather.

In addition to enthusiastic instruction, we provide comfortable, easy-to-use tools and detailed handouts on the tanning process, along with ethnographic anecdotes and a list of helpful literature for those who wish to further their knowledge of tanning!

So, please join us for a course sure to include plenty of memorable moments, lots of practical information, and, if you put in the work, one that will see you heading home with beautiful, unique, and usable traditionally tanned skin!

Additional Information:

Duration: 3 days (Friday 9:00 am - Sunday 5:00 pm)

Max number of participants: 12

Prerequisites: None

Venue and location: California Survival School is a premier wilderness training center in the San Francisco Bay Area, offering hands-on courses in traditional skills and modern survival.

Tucked into the lush hills outside of Livermore, California, the site offers the perfect natural escape to practice these age-old skills. The quiet beauty of the surrounding forest creates a peaceful space to focus and connect with your work as you transform raw hide into a finished, durable product.

Accommodation: This course is daytime only. Local accommodations are available in town, and instructors can recommend potential camping locations upon registration.

Included: All course materials.

Not included: Off-site Accommodation and food.

Instructors: Theresa Emmerich Kamper

Questions? Contact California Survival School by email: info@casurvival.com

A bit about me:

I'm an avid practitioner of traditional living skills and various forms of primitive technology. My interest came in part from growing up in the USA's Rocky Mountains, where backpacking, hunting, and fishing are deeply rooted in the culture. This passion led me to the academic field of Experimental Archaeology, where I earned a PhD from the University of Exeter in the UK.

My work has been featured in both documentaries and popular TV shows, including Alone Season 8 and Surviving the Stone Age. I've been tanning skins using traditional methods for over 30 years. Learning to tan was a natural offshoot of my desire to use as much of an animal as possible, and it had the added bonus of producing a beautiful end product.

In my instruction, I share a wide range of information—from the intricate details of skin morphology to helpful tips for dealing with the numerous, frustrating problems often encountered when you're first learning to tan.