In the Ancient Tlingit Way

Sitka Native Alaskan, Robert Miller, was solidly into adulthood when he decided to become more active in the 10,000-year-old culture of his Tlingit heritage and learn some of the ancient techniques of his ancestors. Nearly one year later and with zero experience, he had not yet named the business he dreamed of starting, much less created a logo or a motto. So, on December 8, 2013, he dove in headfirst by loading up his boat, launching it into Sitka Sound, and harvesting three wild sea otters. As luck would have it—or some might even call it destiny—another Alaskan Native was skinning an otter in the parking lot when he returned, and so began his very first lesson in the process of refining fur.

After skinning those first three otters and driving home, he hung the pelts on nails in his garage. He knew he was supposed to get some sort of tag from U.S. Fish and Wildlife but wasn’t sure who to call or how to go about the process. He had heard stories of Alaska Natives going to jail for failing to get such tags, depending on each official’s determination of the law. With his stress level mounting by the minute, he spent all day making phone calls until he finally found out how to navigate the process and proceeded to get them properly tagged.

Having done some research on tanning methods used by his ancestors by reading old Tlingit literature and using the internet, he had learned they used a method he refers to as ‘brain tanning’. 

“The tools they had were so simple, yet so effective,” he writes.

He had read that there is enough brain in each animal to tan its own pelt, and so, after setting the brains aside he spent three days scraping the pelts and drying them with salt. Once the pelts were scraped—unlike his ancestors who used tools made from stones and rocks—he snuck his wife’s brand-new blender out of the house and used it to mix the brains with very hot water. As it turns out, he learned this was not his smartest move, when she walked into the shop just as he was turning the blender on. After a few choice words and assured he had realized the error of his ways, she ended up buying a much nicer one and all was well.

Once the mixing process had been completed, he rubbed the brain solution onto the skin side of dried and scraped pelts that had been stretched flat and secured in place, making sure the solution saturated every bit of the pelt. After a few days and once the pelts were dry, he broke down the fibers by running the pelts over pieces of wood until they were flexible and pliable, then fired up his smoker and hung them inside for several hours of cold smoking—a process that left the pelts water-resistant and bacteria free.

Although he now uses professional tanners to process his pelts, he shares, “It was very important for me to learn this the professional way to gain an appreciation for my history.”

Although almost ready to work with, Robert still needed to let the pelts air out to get rid of the smoke smell, which he did by hanging them in the shop. This left him with the new worry of what he would do with now. The motivation came in remembrance of his great-grandmother, who once made her living making moccasins out of marine mammal fur and selling them to tourists. 

For a week or more while the furs were airing out, he tried to think of ways he could follow in his great-grandmother’s footsteps. He finally settled on the idea of putting fur cuffs on leather gloves, but he didn’t know how to sew, so he spent another week learning how to stitch.

Once he had taught himself that simple task, he continued on to the next steps of ordering quality gloves online, cutting the appropriately sized pieces of fur and attaching them to the gloves using the whip stitch he had learned how to sew by watching You Tube videos.

“After what felt like days of hand stitching, I finished one pair,” he says.

Finally, with a product in hand, Robert Miller went directly to a local store to ask if they would be willing to purchase his gloves. To his amazement they did, and to top it off, they paid him very well.

 “This was the exact moment I knew this was going to become a major part of my life,” he shares. “Doing exactly what my great-grandmother had done felt amazing!”

He then took the money made from that sale and bought himself a brand new vintage sewing machine—one he describes as at least new to him. He found the old-but-new Bonis Never Stop Fur Sewing Machine more than intimidating and found it frustrating that there was virtually no information about it available on the internet.

Emerging furrier, Robert Miller did what he needed to do next by spending hours learning such things as how to install the needle, thread the machine, figure out how to use what he calls the gas pedals, and how to work all the other components. Five hundred broken needles later, he finally learned to sew a straight line and made a pillow for his son, who still has it to this day.

Today, Robert Miller still uses the re-cycled Bonis machine and says he learns new tricks every day about its very complicated operation.

About two months later, the learning process and making of the gloves had left him out of fur, so by now having no further interest in tanning his own furs, he spent time researching professional tanners, which he describes as a battle even up to this day due to their availability being limited by strict federal regulations on the tanning of sea mammals. Even now he describes the search as labor intensive, so when he finds a good tannery, he sends his furs off.

Out of fur and tired from the intensive learning process, he once again headed out to sea for a few days harvesting otters. Once those had been sent off to the tannery, he had enough free time to begin researching a name for is business, a process which took nearly a year and resulted in the final selection of the business name, Sea Fur Sewing.

. . .

Nearly one year after the official naming of Sea Fur Sewing, Robert Miller had slowly developed enough confidence in his abilities to work with fur to allow room for his creative side to emerge. He had searched for and had little success in finding patterns for fur items, so he went to the fabric store and purchased about 25 yards of canvas material. Being as canvas was much cheaper than fur yet worked similarly on his Bonis machine to fur, it was the perfect answer to the next phase of his journey into fur sewing—design.

He began with hats, finding that trying to design something round with perfectly flat seams was a challenge. In everything he tried to design, he found difficulties, but his determination to learn proved the age-old adage that persistence does indeed pay off. Robert’s dedication to perfection was a driving force behind his successes in life, but this time it was resulting in 12 to 15-hour days that soon began affecting his family life.

Not all of that time was spent in designing patterns. Like many Alaskan artists, Robert’s fur business was a side endeavor he had undertaken in addition to his real job, which was a full-time position as a fisheries biologist. Although that job was also very demanding and often demanded he be on site in remote locations for weeks at a time, he loved every minute of it. With the fisheries job and the new business taking up virtually all his time, there was little left for his family.

To better understand this stress on the work family balance, Robert talks about his work as a biologist, which began doing trail work for the Sitka Ranger District and through the mentorship of a good leader and friend, lead up to a position as a fish technician building fish passes, which are designed to move fish over partial or full barriers to open new spawning and rearing habitat. Although he passionately describes this job as his calling in life, the work took him away from home for long stretches 4-5 months of the years. 

On those work sites, he and others would live in tents in the Alaska wilderness where he would manage large crews who built the fish passes designed to help sustain salmon runs all over Southeast Alaska. This work in conservation and sustainability would later parlay itself into his work as a furrier of harvested overabundant sea mammals, even broadening into mentorship of over 90 student conservation volunteers over the past 25 years. Not only did this volunteer mentorship instill Robert’s own strong work ethic into the student volunteers, it also created a lasting bond, with many of them still remaining in contact with him to this day.

Robert is happy he has learned to balance work and family life.  He enjoys the support of his wife, who is engaged in her own challenging career as a registered nurse, and his children. It is a lesson that came after much reflection and one that clearly demonstrates that having the love and support of family is necessary to allow both the work and the creative spirit to soar. Without this balance there is stress and a blocking of the energy needed to give fully to both work, art and home. Those who do not learn this are doomed to fail, but for those that do, the benefit of happiness, giving, receiving and soaring creativity lead to a success and fulfillment for all participants that is beyond measure.

. . .

Today, Sea Fur Sewing is the epitomy of the personal success story. No longer flailing in the early years where orders were few and far between, Robert Miller now enjoys success. Beginning with Iditarod champion, Lance Mackey, he has earned the respect of Alaska’s greatest dog mushers, who proudly wear his beautiful and functional furs. 

He has connected with TV shows, such as Life Below Zero and was recently interviewed in Field and Stream magazine. To say that Robert Miller, Tlingit Native Alaskan and American has honored his ancestors well is to know and understand his story. It is to see him connecting the ancient ways of his people to the modern challenges of our present world. 

Whereas his ancestors hunted for food and clothing, Robert Miller does the same only now under the broader umbrella of conservation such as the building of the fish passes and the culling of the overabundance of sea otters in Southeast Alaska, where the ecosystem has somehow gotten off balance. But he also maintains the essence of the ancient ways with his dedication to subsistence for the elders in his community, who still rely on the land for much of their nourishment.

Just this year he has given away over 1600 pounds of seal meat and fat to Sitka elders, fresh meat from the sea that he personally vacuum seals and delivers to those who need and want it. He is a conscientious hunter who even went back with a flashlight near dark after a harvested seal slipped from his grasp into the water, just to retrieve the meat so the seal’s life would not have been given in vain. Fortunately, after looking for 45 minutes he found it and was able to salvage the meat.

Robert Miller is that rare mix of intelligent worker and wilderness explorer. Many would agree that he lives the best of both worlds. He is also a humble believer in the concept that we are all in this together—humans, animals, the earth and each other. He is the American dream come true and he has done so without compromising the ancient heritage from which he rose. A life sprung from the ancient Tlingit ways.

Marianne Schlegelmilch is the published author of eleven books of Alaska fiction. She has admired the Tlingit Native culture ever since living and working in Sitka and meeting her first Tlingit people on the elevator in the then new hospital, who joined her for the one floor ride offering her a taste of the fresh herring roe-laden spruce boughs they had just dipped into the ocean to bring a treat to their ailing friend. Their shared laughter at the face she made told her everything she needed to know about them as a people and she will always warmly remember that day.