Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Alaska Sharpening an ulu.... technique???

No not really, that's why I said that I would get flack over the way I do them. I think that the double sided bevel is far more common.

If you take a look at the link for the head knife, if you were to cut off the handle tang and replace it with the same style handle as you show on your Ulu, I would bet a head knife would be 100% acceptable to the vast majority of women.

The women out in these parts all have varying favorites when it comes to their uluaqs - that's the Yup'ik word...get the second/third syllable deep in your throat if you want to say it right..white man say "luck" out in the front of the mouth.

As for the bevel, yes, they are correctly beveled - the fish cutting ones anyway- on one side. Same deal with skinning/scraping oil from seal skins. (If you want to know an irate woman, do her the "favor" of sharpening her favorite blade on both sides!) The bevel side does go down when skinning or filetting. It's actually preety easy to figure out once you try it. Deadly sharp is great for cutting the fish skin when making strips, etc; not necessary for heading and general skin scraping.

Many folks have several favorite blades; one for salmon (in general),another for kings only, one for herring, one for kitchen, maybe another for seals, etc.

Ah, yes. The old glottal stop!

Guys: A common theme through here.... It seems the women are the only ones allowed to handle blades up there. It's starting to sound like I should give the knives to my wife and simply stick to the shooting... Take care and happy new year, 1Minute

No not really. It's just that in traditional native culture the women take on the traditional chores of subsistence living one of which is the butchering and putting away of fish and game so they're the ones making the most use of them. They prefer to use the ulus for these tasks over modern cutlery.

Most native women meet the qualifications for the outdoorsman's personal ad "must be able to clean and cook fish and game".

There are plenty of stories told by the young to middle aged men about how they learned not to bring back more than one seal at a time. In fact, I just listened to such a tale the other night. Young lads don't generally make the mistake twice of staying up late cutting that which they had ass-umed would be taken care of by "the traditional cutter-upper".

I checked on this and found the contrary to be the case (as I knew it would). All I have ever seen is happy faces by women with lots of seals. They get happy because they "share". Feeding the old and sick among them, and all the neighbors is a tradition that has been with these people since time immemorial.

I have in one trip brought back one black bear, one moose, and 11 caribou, to a bunch of happy faces. After all the cutting, the CB and the VHF radios were going strong for the come and get it calls. For a hunter, this is heaven.

You miss the point. Very few are the women these days who will happily cut up whatever an enthusiastic young hunter brings back. Many are the mothers, aunts, and grandmothers who tire of "sonny-boy" bringing home boatloads of seals, etc thinking that his work is finished. "There, I showed you," is not an uncommon farewell as the woman leaves the young lad on the beach with the rest of his "catch" minus one after he brings in a "few extra" one more time. Even beluga hunters do their own cutting. Plenty of people share, of course, but the hunters cut and distribute to the comers.