DETROIT LAKES, Minn. - A visit to Kay Bachman is a little like going to grandma's house. She greets you with a big smile, and there are fresh cookies and coffee on the counter in her neat-as-a-pin kitchen.
Oh, and there's a dead beaver lying on a small table in the dining room.
"I got a little guy because I figured they're faster to do than a big guy," she said.
Speed was of the essence if she wanted to retain her title as North America's fastest woman beaver-skinner.
Using a well-worn, rounded knife that looked something like a big thumb, Bachman deftly started slicing away the beaver hide. She pulled the skin with one hand and cut it loose from the body with quick, short knife strokes.
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It's something she's done thousands of times.
"You take 35 years times about three months, and I could do 50 a day for three months, seven days a week. So if somebody wants to get ambitious and do the math," said Bachman with a chuckle.
Add it all up, and Kay Bachman has skinned more than 150,000 beavers.
It's a disappearing skill that was once in high demand in Minnesota, where the beaver helped build more than one family fortune.
Kay Bachman's skinning career started more than 50 years ago, when she married a trapper. He ran the trap line, she did the skinning. Then, a local fur buyer asked if she'd skin beaver for $1.50 a hide.
"I thought, 'I can stay home, make some money and do this.' I had four young ones at home, so I just started skinning at home, and it just developed into one thing after another. It was a normal part of making a nickel at home and not having to hire a baby sitter and go out," she said.
"So, I'd usually get up about 7 a.m. and get the kids off to school, sit down and start skinning. It was nice because we had linoleum on our floors, and I could bring in 50 beaver and do them right in the living room and still take care of my other jobs in the house. Of course, I didn't have a lot of friends over. The women just did not want to come and have tea with me," said Bachman with a laugh.
Kay Bachman hasn't done much skinning since her husband died six years ago. But she said she was raised to be self-sufficient, and wielding a knife was an essential skill.
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"It's something I've done all my life. I'd go out and shoot my own cow in the pasture, skin her out and bring her home and cut her up and put her in the freezer," said Bachman matter-of-factly. "It was a normal way of life for me."
There was a rhythm to skinning as Bachman methodically removed the beaver skin.
"This is so relaxing. To me, it's therapy. I can just sit and forget the world exists and skin and skin all day," she said. "Some women sit and knit and crochet, and I skin beaver."
It takes 15 minutes from start to finish. That's a bit slower than her competition times, but she said it's a good warmup. Her winning time in competition is about 30 minutes, and that included mounting the pelt on a board after the skinning was done.
Bachman spends her retirement traveling to trapping conventions and gun shows, where she sells handmade fur hats. She occasionally visits classrooms to talk about the role of beaver trapping in Minnesota's history.
She'll travel to East Bay Ont., later this winter to defend her beaver-skinning title.
