Slit the back of the neck up the middle to a point between the horns, then make a crosscut from the base of one antler to the base of the other. This will give you a cut shaped thus, T. Now separate the skin from the skull round the base of each antler, and be careful not to cut the coat unnecessarily during the operation. Next turn the head over and begin at the other end, severing the inner side of the lips from the gums as high up as you can reach, and skinning the muzzle as far back as you can. Then peel off the whole mask from the antlers downwards to the muzzle, being specially careful not to slit the skin, either at the eyes or at the nostrils, which are the tenderest portions of it. Be careful to preserve a sufficiently long neck, and do not let your Indian or Tartar cut the beast’s throat (as he will do if you do not watch him), as nothing looks worse than a taxidermist’s stitches showing under the throat of a trophy.
If you have followed these directions, you will have preserved so far the entire lips of the animal. Now take your knife and slit the lips, separating the inner from the outer skin, and dress the cut so made thoroughly well with powdered alum. Having removed the skin from the skull, you may clean this part of the trophy, either by boiling it if you have a pot with you large enough for that operation, or if not, after whittling out the eyes, brains, and any flesh you can readily detach, you may hang it up in a tree, out of reach of coyotes to dry, until fit for packing. Before putting your skins and skulls apart to dry, mark them carefully with corresponding numbers, to prevent mistakes later on.
Should you wish, however, to skin a beast whole for mounting in some museum or elsewhere, you must proceed as directed by my friend, Mr. John Fannin, curator of the Museum of British Columbia, whose directions I have slightly altered to suit my purpose, and inserted below.
Turn the beast on to his back and make cut 1, from the point of the breastbone along the centre of the belly to the root of the tail, taking care only to cut through the skin, and not into the intestines. A few pieces of fine brush, laid on the inside of the skin as you peel it off, serve to protect the skin from any blood which may escape from the bullet wounds or elsewhere during the operation of skinning.
Next, make a cut from the hoof of each foreleg to the upper end of cut 1, making the incision down the hind part of each foreleg. Make a cut from the hoof of each hind leg, along the hinder part of it to the lower end of cut 1. Now skin round the legs; sever the leg bones at the knee and hock joints, leaving these bones with the hoofs attached to the skin, but with the skin freed down to the hoofs. Now skin the animal in the ordinary manner, using the edge and not the point of your knife, and on reaching the neck make the T shaped cut described above, along the top of the neck and between the antlers. This will allow the skin to be removed entirely from the head; but before proceeding with the head the skin should be removed from the body as far as the head, and the head severed at the neck joint.
Having washed any blood off the hair and detached every fragment of meat or fat which you can get off the skin, stretch it out upon the ground in some airy spot where it can dry naturally, unaffected by sun or fire. Dress the skin with powdered alum, or failing that with wood ashes, and don’t peg it out. When prepared in a solution of soda by the taxidermist at home, the alum-dried skin will become as pliable as kid and will resume its natural proportions, and these should satisfy any honest hunter.
The methods recommended in this chapter are of course only for preserving trophies in the field. All trophies should be sent home for final preparation as soon as possible, either prepared with alum and packed dry, or in a tub of pickle composed of alum and salt in the proportion of two-thirds of the former to one-third of the latter.
Some men make a practice of carrying a saw with them to divide antlers and skulls for greater convenience in packing, sawing the skull right through from crest to nose; but though trophies are undoubtedly somewhat easier to pack in this way, I do not recommend it, as a very heavy wapiti head of mine so treated is constantly annoying me now by breaking away from the rivets which should hold it, to come thundering upon the ground.
Wapiti head