Playing Cribbage with Grandma?

My caribou antler cribbage board!

I just got off the phone with Michael and Arta.  

They are doing reading time, but Michael reports that they get to play cribbage when they are done!   

Ah, sweet cribbage!   One of the important games of growing up. 

The mother bear with her baby

I learned to count first, standing by the tracks at the lake watching the trains go by, trying to determine which was the longest train of the day.  

But learning to add?   That was cribbage:  Fifteen two, fifteen four, and a pair is six...

The two sled dogs barking at the bears

I told Michael I would send him a picture of my cribbage board, which i think is the best cribbage board ever!   

I bought it at the wonderful museum/art store in Iqaluit in Nunavut. It was made by a man named Patrick Aula (here is a link to another piece he did!) 

So, Michael, here are a bunch of pictures!  This cribbage board is made of a caribou antler.  On top of it are a mother and baby polar bear, and two sled dogs.  The four animals are all carved from stone!
   
If you closely at the dogs, you will see one of them has a very stumpy tail. That is because I dropped one of them, and her tail broke off!   Ouch!   

You can see that Kiwi is not much of a guard dog!

Sled dogs have always been important in the North.  They can tell when bears are near, and they bark, which both gives an alert, and can also scare the bears off!   That is what you see here on the board:  the polar bear, and the dogs barking to tell them to back off.  :-)

The pins are inside the horn. 

There is a carved 'stopper' that holds them inside the antler.  

You can see this if you turn the antler to the side.  

When you pull out the pin, the four pegs (also carved out of bone) slide out.

  


You can take the bears and dogs off the board when you are playing.  

Or you can leave them on top!