Indigenous explainers: How smokehouse meat helped protect winter food supplies

By Ed Hitchins, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Energeticcity.ca PINK MOUNTAIN, B.C. — It’s a picturesque setting at Pink Mountain Ranch for the annual Blueberry River First Nations (BRFN) Cultural Camp. Surrounded by a vast, grand valley, the event is in full swing. Towards the exits, there are several people lined up, with the smell of cured meat swirling in the air. The process of drying meat goes back generations for the Indigenous people of North America. Historically, in the Peace region, the area was subject to sudden ‘chinooks’ or thawing spells in which meat would readily spoil and a winter’s supply could not be left to the mercies of the weather, according to writer Dorthea Calverley in a 1973 article published by the South Peace Historical Society. Thus, excess meat…

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