Caribou heart, liver, kidney, tongue, fat and blood now that's a good sausage

It's not so easy to find caribou these days.

Populations have been in decline for years.

So when people do get their hands on one they know how lucky they are, and they don't want to waste one single morsel.

Just ask Qurannaq Amos.

"Nowadays there's hardly any caribou and numbers are low, so you gotta try to keep everything because everything is pretty well edible on the caribou," Amos said in an interview with CBC Northwind host Wanda McLeod.

Amos lives in Inuvik, N.W.T. and has been making caribou sausage since he was a teenager.

He uses the lining of the caribou's stomach as acasing for the ingredients. He calls it "pitiksitaq."

He also cuts off the "dunusitaq" or what many Inuvialuit call the "Bible," because of the way it folds like a book.It's connected to the stomach lining and can be folded many times. When it's cooked, it makes a great side dish with the sausage.

"If it's not too cold out I'll do it out on the land while it's fresh and cut the sausage [lining]off and then I turn it inside out carefully cause there's fat on the outside of it and I like the fat on the outside of it so I turn it inside [out] slowly and clean it out."

When Amos stuffs the stomach lining to make a sausage, he doesn't skimp out.

"Caribou sausage [lining] is stuffed with diced up tongue, heart, kidney, liver ... belly fat and blood from caribou."

Once the sausage is filled he ties it up and freezes it before cooking.

"Boiled slowly for 1.5 hrs, can be eaten hot or cold, very inuk food, plus we drink the broth," Amos said.

The end result doesn't look anything like the sausages you find in grocery stores, as you can see in this recipe Amos shared on our CBC Facebook Arctic Kitchen Recipe page.

"That's the way I've always been eating it," he said.

Amos says he loves to share this food and recipe with his friends and family. He says it's also important to teach the "young guys" too so he can keep the tradition going: a tradition of conserving and using all of the caribou for delicious, healthy food.