In this article in our Materials series, we’re looking at the process for preparing and dyeing caribou hair for tufting. Caribou hair tufting, which involves securing hair to a piece of fabric or hide through a loop of thread to create a three-dimensional image, is an art form practised by Inuit artists but has roots in Dené and Métis culture and artistry. The IAQ spoke with Dené artist Maria Rose Sikyea, whose practice includes processing caribou hair with her husband, Curtis Ladue, creating tufted jewellery and accessories, selling bundles to other artists, and teaching workshops.
Based in Whitehorse, YT, Sikyea and Ladue prepare and hand-colour caribou hair through Sikyea’s business, Caribou Woman Creations, which she started in 2019. Sikyea was inspired to become an artist by her father, Timmy Sikyea, a well-known fashion designer in the 1970s and ’80s, who used tufting and quillwork on his pieces. “I got to be around that as a young one, and it was beautiful to witness in the studio, seeing all these pieces come together,” she says. [1] She started processing her materials and tufting as a way to reconnect with her culture.
In addition to preparing caribou that she and her husband have hunted in her husband’s traditional Kaska Dena territory, Sikyea also works with tanned reindeer hides from Sweden and Norway to process and prepare bundles of hair in a range of colours. Working with different hides helps deepen Sikyea’s understanding of fibre, technique, and seasonality. “For us, the work is both technical and spiritual. It’s a practice of patience,” she says. There are several ways to prepare caribou hair for tufting, and this four-part guide is how Sikyea does it. We also spoke with Inuvialuk tufter Brendalynn Trennert, who goes by Inuk and has over 30 years of experience working with caribou hair. Inuk learned from watching her mother, a moose hair tufter. “I chose caribou hair because it’s finer hair. It takes more patience in trimming the hair to make it look smooth like velvet when tufted,” she says.[2]
Part 1: Source the Hide
Step 1: Hunt the caribou
When hunting the caribou with her husband, Sikyea makes sure to be very intentional and respectful. “We always give an offering to the land…making sure that we are giving thanks to the caribou providing for our family,” she says. Offerings include tobacco, cedar, sweetgrass, or a prayer, if they don’t have anything on hand. Both Sikyea and Inuk prefer working with winter hides because winter hair is generally longer, fuller, and lighter, meaning it absorbs dye better. This means Sikyea hunts caribou from December to early March. Inuk receives her caribou hair from her brother IngNing (Spencer Trennert), who hunts the caribou. One challenge she notes is that it’s difficult to obtain caribou hair because of the limit on how many caribou can be hunted in a year. Because of this, many people use reindeer hide from Europe. “Hair tufting is an art form. There’s no shame in saying it’s reindeer, deer, caribou, or moose hair. . . .It doesn’t make it any less magical if you’re using reindeer hide,” Inuk says.
Part 2: Prepare the Hide
Step 2: Skin and cool the hide
It is important to skin the hide very carefully to avoid damaging it. You don’t want any score marks on it. After skinning the hide, Sikyea cools it by putting it on the snow, which is an important step to prevent spoiling, hair slipping (meaning hair loosening and coming off the hide), and unwanted odours. Overheating is more of a concern in the summer and early autumn months.
Once at home, Sikyea begins fleshing: removing the blood, fat, flesh, and grease from the hide. This step is labour-intensive and requires focus. Remaining fat and membranes can cause problems later in the process and can also transfer oils into the hair, making the dye uneven.
Sikyea usually fleshes the hide by securing it to a piece of plywood and scraping off the extra flesh with a bone fleshing tool. This step can be done even without plywood—Sikyea suggests doing it against a beam, a log, or even on the ground with some pegs. This technique is often used in areas where there aren’t trees, like the tundra.
Caribou hide laid out on the snow during a hunt on the tundra, 2017 COURTESY MARIA ROSE SIKYEA
Step 3: Flesh the hide
Once at home, Sikyea begins fleshing: removing the blood, fat, flesh, and grease from the hide. This step is labour-intensive and requires focus. Remaining fat and membranes can cause problems later in the process and can also transfer oils into the hair, making the dye uneven.
Sikyea usually fleshes the hide by securing it to a piece of plywood and scraping off the extra flesh with a bone fleshing tool. This step can be done even without plywood—Sikyea suggests doing it against a beam, a log, or even on the ground with some pegs. This technique is often used in areas where there aren’t trees, like the tundra.
Maria Rose Sikyea after fleshing a summer caribou hide, pegged directly to the ground in 2018 COURTESY MARIA ROSE SIKYEA
Maria Rose Sikyea securing caribou hide to scrap wood for fleshing and scraping, 2017 COURTESY MARIA ROSE SIKYEA
Step 4: Dry and scrape
Sikyea will leave the hide to air-dry, either indoors or outdoors. It could take a couple of hours indoors to a day or two outside, depending on the season. Once the hide is dry, it’s time to scrape the excess. You could also do freeze scraping. If the temperature is very cold, the hide will freeze, dry, and then you can scrape.
Maria Rose Sikyea fleshing a hide on a birch beam at Gwich’in Territorial Park COURTESY MARIA ROSE SIKYEA PHOTO BEN POWLESS
Scraping hide stretched along the wall of a shed, 2018COURTESY MARIA ROSE SIKYEA
Step 5: Wash the hide
After scraping the hide, it’s time to wash it. When Sikyea is preparing the hair to dye for tufting, she doesn’t tan the hide—meaning she doesn’t get it to the point where it’s supple and soft—because it’s a very rigorous and difficult process. Instead, she prepares it so that the hide is only a bit softer and not rotting. To do this, Sikyea uses a mixture of egg yolk and a gentle hypoallergenic soap and will rub this all over the hide in a thin layer and then leave it to dry. This mixture opens up the fibres and makes the hide softer. While the hide is drying, Sikyea will stretch it out a bit. “That’s just the way I do it. You could do a pickle or salt treatment. I just do what's more readily available,” she says.
Step 6: Smoke the hide
To smoke the hide, Sikyea will create a smouldering fire and a small teepee-like structure for the hide to go in. You can create a structure even with a tarp. She uses punky wood, meaning rotten wood, to produce the smoke that seals the fibres. Sikyea warns that you need to watch this process carefully so it doesn’t create a fire and burn. This step strengthens the hide, prevents the hair from slipping during the dyeing process and afterwards, and generally increases durability. “It’s kind of like curing the hide so that it’s more stable,” Sikyea says. It also helps prevent moths and bugs from damaging the hide. This step in the process can take half a day if you need to create the teepee structure. “It’s a project…but at the same time, you’re doing other things while it’s happening,” Sikyea says.
Hides smoking inside a teepee during a hide-tanning camp in Yellowknife, NT COURTESY MARIA ROSE SIKYEA
Step 7: Wash with soap and water
This wash, with gentle hypoallergenic soap, is to remove any leftover debris, like dirt, dust, and leftover blood. It’s important not to use harsh soap, like dish soap, because this can eat at the hide. You don’t want the soap to completely cut the grease, but you do want most of the oil out of the hide. “You want to swish it around rather than scrub it,” Sikyea says. This step involves multiple rinses until the water is clear because you want to prepare the hair for dyeing. Harsh handling can cause snapping and the hair to go a bit fuzzy. Sikyea recommends being mindful of keeping the hide neat, not bunched up. “You want to be able to run your fingers through the hair,” she says. After washing the hide, leave it out to dry. Sometimes Sikyea doesn’t wait for the hide to fully dry and instead goes straight to dyeing. Usually, this is when she is using synthetic dye.
Washing the hide after it has been smoked COURTESY MARIA ROSE SIKYEA
Part 3: Harvest the Hair and Prepare It for Dyeing
Step 8: Select the hair for tufting
Not all hair on the caribou is the same, so you’ll want to think about what projects you have in mind. Both Inuk and Sikyea recommend using the beard or neck hair for tufting because it is the longest and easiest to work with. Sikyea generally uses the top part of the caribou—the shoulder, neck, and down the spine—and will colour this hair with synthetic dyes. The hair on these parts ranges from 5 to 21 centimetres. She will select the white portions of the hair for natural dyes and bright colours, as it is less work, and the greyish/brown hair for darker colours.
Cutting winter hide into squares in preparation for the dyeing process COURTESY MARIA ROSE SIKYEA
Step 9: Remove the hair in clean bundles
Sikyea slices the hide into squares or rectangles and ensures the direction of the hair is consistent so it’s easier to comb and tuft later. She will then separate the squares of hide into piles by hair length and quality. “This sorting is part of the artistry. It’s like building a palette before painting,” she says.
Step 10: Wash the hair
Once the hide has been divided into bundles, it’s time to wash it. Caribou hair can be delicate, so it’s important to handle it carefully. Sikyea rolls the hide between her fingers when washing it in lukewarm water. She uses mild soap and swishes the hide around, rather than scrubbing it, which takes several rinses until the water runs clear.
Step 11: Remove debris
After the wash, when the hair is still wet, remove the fine fluff and debris that will dull the final tufting. This involves hand-picking debris and gently combing. This step can be tedious, but it’s important for the final result.
Step 12: Dry the hair
It’s important to dry the hair fully and without high heat. Sikyea will tumble dry the hair on low heat and when it is mostly dry, she will let it air dry by folding it over the top edges of cardboard boxes, which allows the hair to hang freely on both sides. This method ensures good airflow, helps prevent matting, and reduces the drying time. Properly dried hair will remain fluffy and easily accept dye.
Clean caribou hair drying before dyeing COURTESY CATHERINE BLONDIN / O’TE SEWS
Part 4: Colour the Hair
Step 13: Plan the palette
Before going into the dyeing process, Sikyea plans out the colour palettes. “Sometimes the colours are inspired directly from the land—sky blues, berry reds, aurora greens, floral tones, and deep winter purples. Others come from family memories,” she says.
Sikyea and Ladue use both natural and synthetic dyes, like Rit-brand fabric dye. To achieve vibrant colours, Sikyea uses Rit and doesn’t set the dye with vinegar. Natural dyes have softer tones, so she will add vinegar to help them set. Sikyea uses a variety of plants (and insects) to create natural dyes, like onions, beets, willow, aspen, blueberries, logwood, turmeric, yellowdock, and cochineal.
Step 14: Dye the hair
Prepare colour baths carefully. Sikyea has pots and containers that are dedicated to dye work. The dye should be fully dissolved in water before the hair goes in, and there should be enough room in the pot so the hair can move gently and dye evenly. She dyes hair in small batches so the colour remains consistent and even.
When dyeing hair, it’s important to control the temperature and have gentle movements in the water. “You do not want to cook the brittle hair, because it can cause the hair to be more prone to breaking and cause the hide to harden, which makes it harder to grab the bundles of hair,” she says.
Make sure to stir gently and only occasionally. Stirring is important to avoid patchiness, especially toward the root. “It’s important also to be patient and not rush the process…it’s not something you can just cook on the stove and walk away. It’s really important to be actively doing this,” Sikyea says. Sometimes there will be strands of hair that come off on the edges of the pieces, so it’s important for Sikyea to have a catcher in the sink. “That hair, we give back to the land or burn it…we don’t want that caribou to go to the dump. We want to honour the caribou, so even when tufting, all the hair is cared for, ” she says.
Rinsing dyed caribou hair and drying it on racks COURTESY CATHERINE BLONDIN/O’TE SEWS
Step 15: Rinse the dyed hair
The first rinse is just with lukewarm water, and it removes the excess dye. The subsequent rinses are with a gentle soap and water to prevent colour transfer later. “My husband helps me with this because it’s a lot of rinsing and a lot of water,” she says. Generally, it takes about five to seven rinses for the water to be clear. This part of the process requires attention and focus. Red and black tend to be the most difficult and require more work to rinse, so Sikyea charges more for items with these colours.
Step 16: Final dry
Sikyea tends to do this step on top of cardboard boxes. Depending on the temperature of your space, this tends to take two or three days. If Sikyea doesn’t have time to wait for it to fully air-dry, she will put the hide in the dryer on a no-heat setting when it’s mostly dried. “If you didn’t do good rinsing, you’re going to have rainbow splotches in your dryer,” she warns. It’s important that the dryer doesn’t get too hot because the heat will cause the hide to curl up and the hairs to become scraggly.
Freshly dyed caribou hair bundles drying over cardboard boxes COURTESY MARIA ROSE SIKYEA
Dyed caribou hair drying on cardboard CATHERINE BLONDIN / O’TE SEWS
Step 17: Sort for tufting
Once the hide is dry, the final step is to sort it again. Sikyea does this by colour, length, and texture. She will then bundle the hair so it’s ready to sell or to use for tufting herself.
Finished bundles of dyed hair (left). Curtis Ladue holding baskets of finished hair (right) COURTESY MARIA ROSE SIKYEA
Step 18: Caring for finished hair and tufted items
Both Sikyea and Inuk recommend keeping prepared hair in a cool, dry place. Sikyea recommends storing the hair around cedar or with cedar oil to prevent insects from damaging it. “It’s still a living, breathing material. It has spirit, and it needs to breathe,” she says. She also recommends against keeping the hair in an airtight container. If you do keep hair in a plastic container, Sikyea recommends keeping the lid open slightly because if there’s any moisture, the hide can mould. “Don’t pack caribou hair in plastic,” says Inuk, who receives her caribou hair from her brother in cardboard boxes or paper bags and recommends storing hair in baskets or wooden boxes.
Maria Rose Sikyea’s micro-tufted earrings Ehstį Malęę featured in travelling exhibition My Big Bougie Beaded Earrings (2026) COURTESY MARIA ROSE SIKYEA
For finished items with caribou hair tufting, keep them out of direct sunlight and hang up earrings and pendants. “Don’t put anything on top to squish the hair,” says Inuk. Sikyea also recommends keeping items away from pets, as she has had customers ask her to repair earrings that were damaged by dogs and cats. If the hair does get squished, you can use a clean, wet toothbrush to gently brush the hairs upward to fix the shape.
Annie Akulukjuk Kilabuk Scraped Sealskin with Caribou Tufting Beaded Earrings (2021) © THE ARTIST
The greatest challenges Sikyea faces during her process are colour creation and patience, especially during the various drying stages. Even though she has extensive experience working with caribou hide and hair, Sikyea still finds it difficult to create the exact colours she has in mind. Despite these challenges, she finds joy in all aspects of her work, saying, “The beauty of colouring caribou and reindeer hair is that it teaches me to slow down.” The process is also healing for Sikyea. “Caribou hair tufting helped me a lot during my sobriety journey. It gave me the ability to have a quiet mind and focus on my hand work,” she says. She is also uplifted by the growing popularity of caribou hair tufting, encouraged by young people taking up the practice and adding contemporary twists.
Visit Onte Sews to learn more about Catherine Blondin and her practice.
Notes
1 All quotes Maria Rose Sikyea, interview with Melissa Kawaguchi, February 2026.
2 All quotes Inuk, interview with Melissa Kawaguchi, September 2025.