SMOLTEN
Côte-Nord, Québec — Salmon Leather Tannery

SMOLTEN

Wild salmon · Boreal tannins · Leather with a past life

IThe River

Every skin begins in cold water.

The wild Atlantic salmon of the Côte-Nord swim some of the last great salmon rivers on Earth. The fish are caught by local hands, for food — and what was once discarded, we keep.

IIThe Skin

A byproduct, given a second life.

Our skins come from local fishers and processors — nothing is farmed for its hide, nothing is wasted. Each one carries the marks of a life in current: its own scale pattern, its own scars, its own story.

IIIThe Tannery

Bark, tar, and weeks of patience.

We tan the old way — the way the legendary Russia leather was made. Boreal bark tannins, birch tar, and time. No chrome, no shortcuts. The result is a leather of unusual depth, suppleness and scent.

IVThe Object

Numbered. Traceable. Unrepeatable.

Every finished skin is numbered and recorded — the river, the season, the tanning batch. No two are alike, and none can be made again.

The Method
In 1786, a ship carrying Russia leather sank off the English coast. Two centuries underwater — and the hides came up still supple, still fragrant, still usable. That is the leather we make.
— The wreck of the Metta Catharina, Plymouth Sound
The Grain

A texture no cow ever wore.

Salmon leather carries the diamond lattice of its scales — a grain with depth, direction and light of its own. Move across it slowly.

From the Atelier

Latest pieces

Enter the boutique
Conservation

Luxury that owes its life to a wild river.

We exist because the rivers still run wild. A share of every sale goes back to salmon habitat restoration on the Côte-Nord, and every skin is a fishing byproduct — no animal is ever taken for its hide.

100%fishing byproduct skins
0chrome in our tannage
5–8weeks per tanning batch
1atelier, Côte-Nord, Québec