HUN Chapter 57: Collecting Onions and Tanning Deer Hide

"The lake surface is now calm and still, this is the perfect opportunity to deploy the 'Pioneer' again."

"I'm going to that small island where I hunted the mule deer to collect all the wild onions I discovered a few days ago. They'll be an important seasoning for me in the coming period."

He brought his logging axe and bow and arrows, along with a willow basket prepared for carrying onions, placing them in the Pioneer canoe.

He skillfully pushed the canoe into the water, then nimbly stepped into the cabin and adjusted his sitting position. Gripping the wooden paddle with both hands, he used his core strength to drive his shoulder and arm muscles, paddling powerfully and steadily backward, creating a clear wake that extended continuously behind the boat.

As the distance closed, the island's outline became increasingly clear. It wasn't particularly large, roughly an irregular oval shape, covered with dense vegetation. Mainly low shrubs and some cold-resistant conifers, with edges featuring rocks smoothed by lake water and a small beach.

After about several minutes, the Pioneer's bow gently scraped onto a shallow area on the island's south side.

Lin Yu'an used the paddle to steady the boat, pulled the canoe onto the shore, and tied it to a large rock with the rope he'd brought.

"Safe landing!"

He first patrolled around the island's perimeter, carefully observing the ground and vegetation, searching for useful resources or traces of animal activity.

The island was very quiet, with only the rustling of wind through leaves and occasional bird calls, almost no other sounds could be heard.

He found some traces of water birds nesting, but most were empty, clearly the breeding season had passed.

In the island's central area, the terrain rose slightly, with some taller spruces and black pines growing there.

Here he discovered some wild berry bushes, but most berries had fallen or been eaten by birds, leaving only a few scattered withered ones hanging on branches.

"It seems this island's main resources are primarily plant-based."

"There are few traces of large mammal activity, probably only occasionally swimming over to search for food."

After finding no other important discoveries on the island, Lin Yu'an wasn't disappointed because his other main objective for this trip was collecting wild onions.

Soon, carrying his prepared willow basket and simple digging tools, he reached his destination.

The wild onion patch before him still showed promising growth. Although most leaves had begun to yellow, the underground bulbs were at their plumpest.

The air was filled with their characteristic, slightly pungent onion-garlic aroma.

This wild onion patch covered quite an extensive area, estimated at least several dozen square meters, almost covering the entire gentle slope.

"This is it, the natural seasoning base! Today, I'm taking this entire 'treasure' home!"

He crouched down, holding a pointed wooden stick, beginning his large-scale harvesting work.

He started from the slope's edge, using the pointed stick to dig around each wild onion plant's roots, avoiding damage to the buried bulbs.

When the purple-white bulbs, roughly quail egg-sized or slightly larger, were completely exposed, he would grasp the withered leaf base with his fingers and gently pull, extracting a plump bulb with soil attached.

"When harvesting these wild onions, we mainly use their bulb portions."

"In autumn, the plant's nutrients flow back to the roots and bulbs, so this is when the bulbs are most plump."

Lin Yu'an's movements were swift, like an experienced farmer harvesting mature crops from his own field.

For each pulled wild onion plant, he would first gently shake off the soil attached to the roots, then place it in the nearby willow basket.

This wild onion patch had even more plants than he initially expected.

He conducted an almost carpet-style sweep of this several dozen square meter wild onion area, ensuring no mature plants were left behind.

Time passed quietly during focused labor. When Lin Yu'an finished collecting the last area's wild onions, the sun had begun to set westward.

"Let's see my results!"

"I've practically cleaned out this entire wild onion patch! Let's estimate how much we have."

"This willow basket is full, looks like about twenty kilograms! This is definitely an amazing quantity!"

"These wild onions, with proper processing and storage, like hanging them to air dry or burying them in dry sandy soil, will be enough for me to use throughout the entire long winter!"

Carrying this heavy, enormous harvest, he paddled again toward his warm stone house shelter.

After returning to the shelter, Lin Yu'an spent considerable time processing these newly collected wild onions.

He braided some bulbs into strings, hanging them on the shelter's crossbeams to air dry for winter consumption.

Lin Yu'an took a deep breath, the air filled with rich onion aroma and faint smoked meat scent.

At this time, it was still early, several hours before sunset.

His gaze turned to that mule deer hide, which had begun to stiffen slightly on the surface due to temporary lack of proper treatment.

"Guys, the onions are processed, now it's time to deal with this deer hide."

"Such a large, complete mule deer hide would make a perfect warming mattress."

He spread the deer hide flesh-side up, laboriously stretching it out and laying it on a large birch log stump with a slight incline.

"The first step in all hide tanning is to thoroughly scrape clean the fat, meat scraps, and inner membrane tissue remaining on the hide's inner side."

He picked up the scraping board he'd previously ground from slate, beginning meticulous scraping.

This process was similar to processing beaver hide, but deer hide was larger and thicker, taking him nearly three hours to complete preliminarily.

This process allowed him to collect quite a bit of edible fat, though it still needed refining.

The mule deer hide's inner side now showed a clean pale yellow color. He repeatedly washed it with stream water to remove remaining debris.

Lin Yu'an stood by the stream, draping the cleaned deer hide over a large rock to drain, then faced the camera with a serious expression.

"Brain matter is rich in lecithin and other substances, making it a very efficient natural tanning agent. This is an ancient method still used today."

"However, in North America, especially among cervids, there exists a pathogen called CWD, a prion virus, some places even call it 'zombie deer disease.'"

"This is a fatal disease caused by prions that attacks the animal's nervous system, similar to mad cow disease."

"Although the mule deer I hunted appears very healthy from its appearance and organs, showing no signs of disease."

"But I'm about to pop the champagne, so after careful consideration, I've decided not to use this mule deer's brain matter for tanning."

"Instead, I plan to use another natural tanning agent, plants rich in tannic acid!"

"When I was collecting firewood earlier, I already gathered quite a bit of western hemlock bark and willow bark, both containing rich tannic acid."

"However, to tan such a large deer hide, this ceramic basin is obviously insufficient."

"I need a larger container, one that can completely submerge the entire deer hide in tanning solution."

"So my Pioneer will have to be temporarily 'sacrificed.'"

Lin Yu'an cleared out the canoe's contents and carefully removed the complete army green waterproof tarp from the canoe.

This tarp was enormous, thick and completely waterproof, perfect material for making a temporary tanning pool.

Next, he took his logging axe and began digging a rectangular shallow pit approximately two meters long, one meter wide, and half a meter deep in an open area near the shelter.

"No need to dig too deep, just enough to accommodate the deer hide and give the tanning solution some depth."

When the earth pit was dug to the appropriate size and depth, he laid the waterproof tarp into the pit.

He used stones to weigh down the portions of tarp extending beyond the pit edges, ensuring the tarp could tightly conform to the pit's inner walls, forming a bag-like tanning pool.

"A simple but very practical tanning pool is complete!"

"Next comes processing the bark and boiling it to make tanning agent, but that will have to wait until tomorrow."

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