Duck Soup



On a walk up Crow Mountain Road Today

In my last post I described the plucking, singing and gutting process of preparing a duck to eat. This was done on Tuesday. On Wednesday afternoon, the students in my class made the duck into soup. The ducks were kept in the fridge over night. When we pulled them out, the educational support worker taught the students how to slice the duck to be put into the soup. Now that the duck was gutted, the entire duck (head included) was put into the soup. It was boiled with soup base, rice, cauliflower and broccoli.

We ate the soup at the end of the school day that we made it. The Elder who shot them came to eat with our class which was really special. It was my first time having duck soup and it was quite rich and thick. There weren't big chunks of duck, but the broth was thick. I prefer caribou soup and caribou meat to duck (caribou is so tasty!) but I was am really happy to know how to make duck soup and to have had the chance to try it.

Old Crow and the Porcupine River seen from Crow Mountain Road

I organized a pizza dough cooking class for my class this past week. When I opened the fridge to put perishable pizza making supplies in, I found four muskrats almost staring back out at me. Quite a unique experience that I enjoyed. During the pizza making time there was a moose head (yes, a massive and real moose head) in a box at the end of the kitchen. I think it is made into a soup as well and it was put here before being made into a moose head stew. It is so wonderful to have so many traditional foods in the school these days. It is one of the very exciting things about spring time here in Old Crow.

Bannock is a popular traditional food of Old Crow

Bannock is a bread like bun made from flour, butter, milk and salt. One of the events over Easter weekend was a bannock making competition. This is where the above photo was taken. Bannock goes deliciously well with caribou stew or duck stew.

I am honored to have been asked by a local of Old Crow to go to Crow Flats by skidoo tomorrow. Crow Flats is the area North of Old Crow that has been used as a hunting, fishing and trapping grounds of the Vuntut Gwitch'in peoples for thousands of years. The Vuntut Gwitch'in are "People of the Lakes" because of Crow Flats. I am going by skidoo tomorrow and could not be more excited. It apparently takes two hours to get there.

I am really enjoying my time in Old Crow. The light is amazing. The people are amazing. The melting of the snow has people using skidoos, bikes, and four wheelers for transportation. There is enough snow in some places to ski still, but it won't be for long. It has been in the pluses for temperature and has been sunny every day since I can remember.

The land is stunningly beautiful here. I hope my photos are doing it justice. It is so vast, open, wild and free. I will take photos tomorrow on my trip to Crow Flats and do a post about Crow Flats as soon as I can.

Mahsi Choo (thank you) for reading my blog. Hope you are enjoying spring wherever it is that you are.

Warm Regards from Old Crow,

Haley