by Sheila Schmutz, artisan from Saskatoon
I’ve loved fur clothing since I was a little girl, as well as animals. I was very lucky because my parents indulged me in this. Growing up, I lived in towns or cities, but was allowed to nurse baby birds in my bedroom and bring home tadpoles to mature into frogs.
They also bought me a real fur hat, collar and muff for Christmas when I was six! These fur pieces were white with little black “tail” trim, but I’m quite sure they were rabbit, dressed up to look like ermine. They wouldn’t have been able to afford ermine, even if it had been available.
By the time I was a teenager, I’d graduated to raccoon. I had a red wool coat with a raccoon collar! When I grew out of that coat, I took off the collar, and with my mother’s help, turned it into a bonnet-type hat that I wore for a few more years. My mother had a mink boa and my grandmother a neckpiece made from three martens, complete with heads and tails, both of which I still cherish. (I’ve been known to wear the mink boa, but not the marten piece.)