You’re not a fur trader, so many of the terms—hide, skin, fur, pelt, and buckskin—used to describe the outer coat of wild game animals may seem interchangeable. (And frankly, a lot of them are.) But ...

Before the advent of chemical tanning of hides to make leather, animal skins were subjected to all kinds of strange concoctions to degrease and soften them. Urine, wood ashes, tree bark acid, and even ...