A recipe for renewing traditions

From the Teetl'it Gwich'in Cookbook:

Porcupine River Sausage
(Darius Elias)

Moose intestine
Caribou meat
Potatoes
Carrots
Onions
Turnips
Salt and Pepper
River water

My uncles and I harvested a moose and some caribou in the fall of 1999 along the Porcupine River near Salmon Cache and I remembered a recipe my dad showed me one time.

I took the intestine from the rump of the moose. It's about 2.5 feet long and is like sausage casing. I then cleaned it out real good in the river and turned it inside out so fat was on the inside. To do this I slid a willow through the intestine and pulled it through. Then I cut the intestines in half because it ended up being too long to make just one. I then tied one end of each of the two moose intestines with twine.

I then cut up small pieces of potatoes, carrots, onions, turnips and stuffed the vegetables and meat inside the two intestine pieces. I added some river water and tied the ends off.

We were going further up river to look for more caribou, so I wrapped both of the stuffed moose intestines in tin foil and buried them under our campfire, a couple of inches under the soil. I then placed lots of hot coals on top. When we came back some hours later, I dug up the tin foil wraps and they were still hot. It was cooked perfect.

Background on the Cookbook

The Teetl'it Gwich'in of Fort McPherson, NWT have taken a significant step to preserve traditional ways of preparing their regional foods.

With help from CIHR-funded researcher Dr. Harriet Kuhnlein of the Centre for Indigenous Peoples' Nutrition and Environment at McGill University, the Teetl'it Gwich'in have produced a cookbook that captures recipes used for years by First Nations families in and around the town.

It includes recipes for caribou, moose, fish, duck, beaver, muskrat, porcupine, rabbit and ptarmigan. The pages also are sprinkled with health tips and suggestions on how to avoid disease through smart nutritional habits and regular exercise.

"We made 400 copies and every home in Fort McPherson got one," said Mary Ross, one of the many people with the Tl'oondih Healing Society who helped gather the recipes for the book. "We also mailed out copies to the Gwich'in Tribal Council and band councils, the Dene Nation and people who had contributed to the cookbook."

The reaction has been overwhelmingly positive: "People are very happy about it, especially the young people who want to know how to make use of more traditional foods by substituting them for store-bought foods," Ms. Ross said.