WHAT DID I DO TONIGHT?! What Did YOU Do Tonight?!

I CUT UP A MOOSE.  Yup.  You read right.  I have cut up a brisket of a moose.  (is it the chest or the back bone or what?)  Stella told me at work today that Cunnie (my student who graduated last year) caught a moose last night.  His FIRST moose.  Yay!!!!  So she wants to know what meat I want.  "I told him that he better give some to Miss Chomic or she'll be pissed."  And right she is! :) The tradition is that they have to give away their first moose.  So, I said I would make roasts and stuff, so whatever.  Maybe 2 or whatever.  She said that wasn't enough.  She'd give me 6.  Okay, as long as I'm not taking too much away from anyone else.

Cut to Cunnie texting me at 4pm asking me where I was.  I told him I was still helping students and I was wondering if he could bring it by around 6pm.  He said that was okay.

Cut to 6:04pm and Cunnie is calling me.  I was at school helping kids still.  I answer the phone: "I'm coming!  I'm late!  I'm sorry!  Don't take my moose meat away from me!"  I ran to my house from school, turned the corner, and stopped dead in my tracks.  Cunnie is standing in front of my house with a garbage bag with a bone/leg/meat/ew sticking out of it... "What is that?" Cunnie told me that it was my moose meat.  "Oh. Um, is it a leg?"  He informed me that it was a brisket.  "Oh. Thank you Cunnie."  Cunnie leaves.

Before...The Moose Meat I was given...

Cut to me taking the bag into my house, putting it in the back porch and immediately calling Laura.  "Help.  Please come help me.  I have a hunk of a moose and I don't know what to do.  I have part of a dead moose in my house.  Help."  Laura: "I'll be right there."

We get out the cardboard, get the moose meat, and look at it.  It's covered in mud, grass, and moose hair.  Which is worse?  Dead moose or all the things I'm afraid of being on me: mud, grass, and hair?  Laura started cutting, and I "helped."

Laura-the savior of moose meat

After the first piece, it was all me.  I was cutting, I was washing, I was cleaning, I was separating... I rocked it. 

First cuts

I'm getting it...

And I've got the hang of it!

However, we needed to break down this 3 foot long brisket... CUNNIE!!! So we're weak, I was scared, and we didn't know what we were doing. We called Stella for support. She said we could get Cunnie back. I called him to come back.  After 5 calls, he finally shows up.  So he came (finally) to help us cut up the bones. I bet him $10 he couldn't cut through the bone. How was I to know that he had a Magutcher Eskimo way to feel where the weak spots were and he'd be able to figure things out? Yeah, lost 10 bucks... Darn Natives and their awesome ways...
 

Cunnie breaking bones...Don't ever REALLY make this kid angry...

All in all, it was an experience.  All in all, I feel like I'm even farther into the culture.  Laura told Cunnie before he left that the next moose I had to help cut up with skin on...No.  He said he agreed.  Urgh... :p 

After :)  It's all in the freezer and ready to eat