One atelier on the Côte-Nord

Why 'Smolten'

A young salmon that readies itself for the sea is called a smolt. The change it goes through — freshwater fish to ocean traveller — is called smoltification. It silvers. It hardens. It becomes something that can survive salt.

That is what a tannage is. A skin that would be gone in a week becomes something that can outlast the person who made it. The wreck of the Metta Catharina proved how far that can go: two centuries in the sea, and the Russia leather in her hold came up supple. We named the atelier for the transformation, because the transformation is the work.

What we do, and don't

We tan wild Atlantic salmon skins with boreal bark tannins and finish them with birch tar, in small batches, by hand. We sell whole skins to people who make things, and a few finished goods we make ourselves. Every skin is numbered and keeps its provenance for life.

We don't buy farmed skins. We don't tan with chrome. We don't do volume, and we don't do seconds — a skin either passes or it goes back to the compost. The constraint is the quality.

The atelier stands on the Côte-Nord of Québec, and works in French and English, in that order of loyalty. Visits are possible by arrangement — it is a working tannery, small and honest about it.