Sports

Newburg taxidermist has a lot to offer

By Tyler Ohmann

03/26/2013

A hidden gem in the midst of the northern North Dakota Prairie is located right in Bottineau County. Located in Newburg is the only full-time taxidermy school in the state of North Dakota—Dave’s School of Taxidermy taught by Dave Tonneson.

That isn’t it. Tonneson is an accomplished taxidermist, who has served the area for nearly the past two decades, and was the taxidermist choice game head at the 2013 North Dakota Taxidermist Association competition.

One of his sons, Jonas, is also in on the family business. He has joined during the past couple of years after finishing school.

Jonas does a lot of the skinning, fleshing, tanning and preparation, but also works on customer’s things too.

“Everything that I mount has to be approved by him,” Jonas said. “If I do something wrong, I have to redo it. He’s got a set standard of what he likes students to have, so that everything is good when it leaves.”

“There are no shortcuts,” Jonas added

A taxidermists beginning

Tonneson began doing taxidermy while he was in his final duty station with the Navy in Alaska. A friend got him going and he decided to continue being a taxidermist after moving back to North Dakota. Along with taxidermy, Tonneson also ran a guide service.

In 1996 he opened up the school, and began teaching his trade to others.

Dave’s favorite things to mount are fish and deer heads.

“It takes a lot of patience to mount a fish if you do it right,” Dave said. “It has multiple colors and they are so bright when you get done and you can make them look really life like, and that’s the same thing with white tails.”

The thing that made him love to do taxidermy was the reward from a finished product.

“If you really study your references and put a lot of work in, you can really make them come alive,” Dave said. “That’s the reward for doing it. It isn’t necessarily the money.”

He also stated that it isn’t necessarily a trophy that makes the best mount.

“Everything you do has a story,” Dave said. “It may not be the biggest buck, but it has a story behind it.”

Tonneson’s home is decorated with dozens of mounts, and all have stories.

He has really relished in all the work that he has done in the past, and is doing well.

“There is a lot more work out there for a taxidermist than I think people realize,” Dave said. “Especially if you have a website. I’ve gotten fish from New York, Michigan and right now I’ve got one for a guy in Texas.”

Dave’s school

Dave began his school back in 1996 or 1997, he can’t quite remember, and though he doesn’t remember when exactly it was, he does remember when he began to like it, which was shortly after starting it, even if it gets him into trouble sometimes.

“Ever since I began teaching I’ve gotten behind on my client work, and that sucks,” Dave said. “But that’s the route I chose to go and I really enjoy teaching, but I really enjoy doing taxidermy too.”

“I just have to try and find that middle ground,” Dave added.

That trouble tends to be with clients who are dissatisfied with slow work.

“Unfortunately I’ve lost customers because it’s taken to long, and I’ll get a nasty phone call once in a while, deservedly,” Dave said. “You just have to take it in stride and get as much done as I possibly can, but I wont rush to get something done.”

“If it’s going to get done it’s going to get done right,” Dave added.

Jonas is pretty happy with Dave’s style of teaching.

“I took second at a competition, I’m pretty happy,” Jonas said. “He covers all the bases, but I’ve been picking stuff up ever since I’ve been around it, so I’ve got more education than most.”

“As a teacher he is pretty good,” Jonas continued. “He has a lot of different ways of explaining things in case you don’t understand another way.”

And recently, Jonas helps out teaching too, now that he has years under his belt.

The school offers several different programs, but a seven or eight week program is recommended.

Dave has taught students from all over the US and Canada including: New York, Michigan, South Dakota, Minnesota, Toronto and many other places in Canada. He also has received inquiries from places as far away as Australia and Bangladesh.

Most students at the school are there to either supplement their current income or to open up a full-time shop. The range of Dave’s students varies from right out of high school to folks nearing retirement age.

One of his prize pupils is Lindsay Johnson from Antler, N.D. She recently competed and did well at the ND taxidermist’s contest.

“She is really, really good,” Dave said. “She’s been down to contest a couple of times.”

Another reason Dave enjoys teaching is the focus and drive of his students.

“It’s something that you really have to like, but that’s the great thing, anybody who comes to school here wants to be here,” Dave said. “It isn’t like in high school where you got half the kids that want to be somewhere else. They want to be here and they want to work.”

Dave said that the shop is always open, so that anyone who wants to, can be in there working.

The school covers all aspects of taxidermy from glass cases to antler chandeliers, reproduction, all aspects of mounting, including a horse head and a snake.

“Seven weeks doesn’t necessarily mean seven weeks and we’ll kick you out,” Jonas said. “If it takes eight weeks, we’ll help you out. It might be a little extra, but we’re not worried about that.”

“We want to make sure that they know everything they need to know to start their own business, or whatever they want to work on,” Jonas added.

Dave limits his class sizes to four students at a time, so as not to be unfair with the student’s time.

“I don’t want to get a big class size, so that everyone gets the attention that they need,” Dave said. “I tried five by myself, and when you have to wait 20, 25 minutes to get a question answered, because I’m with another student then it’s not really fair.”

Dave said his best teaching asset is his patience.

“I try not to lose my patience,” Dave said. “I’ve only lost it once, and everybody was wondering how it took me that long to lose it.”

The one question that Dave gets all the time is simple, why teach? Don’t you lose business that way?

“I’ve had a lot of people ask me what I’m doing teaching taxidermy and teaching myself out of business,” Dave said. “What’s ended up happening is that I’ve had a lot students who don’t like doing certain things, and they’ve decided like they don’t want to do fish, and they’ll give me all of their fish.”

“Or if they get a back log, I think I have a couple elk out there for a former student of mine,” Dave added.

In fact, Dave said that he currently has work from five former students.

Currently Dave has only one student Dan Nelson from the Morris, Minn. area.

Competition

Another big aspect of the Tonneson’s business is sending their work down to contest in Bismarck every March.

Dave has been racking up awards since he started going to competition in 1996 and has many ribbons to show for it. He has even placed at competitions nationally.

“I’ve been to two nationals, including once in Buffalo, N.Y.,” Dave said. “I think that was in 2000, and I went to nationals in Billings in 2004 and I placed, and that’s on a whole other level.”

The biggest thing about competition is the preparation that goes into it.

“When you’re competing you put a lot more hours into it,” Dave said. “I don’t put as many hours in it as I should, or I try to cram them in, which isn’t smart either.”

Dave said that it takes about 60 hours to complete the average deer mount for a competition. One for a client takes on average about 14 hours.

And when you get into that much work, that can mean little sleep in the weeks prior.

“The last week that we were preparing, the last 72 hours I got nine hours sleep,” Dave said. “He (Jonas) got even less.”

“We were working mostly 18-hour days (preparing for competition),” Dave added.

The contest has two divisions—professional and masters.

Currently Jonas is entering into the professional division, while Dave generally enters his work into the masters division. The criteria for either is really detailed and harsh.

“The best way to describe the difference is that there are 42 hair follicles in an eyelid (of a deer), and you have to have all of those in place for competition,” Jonas said. “And there are glands in the ears, that you can’t even see it, but you can feel, and they’ll check for that, and they need to be there.”

Dave said they look for those small things even in the professional division, and he said the masters division goes way beyond that.

“When you’re just starting out like these guys (Dan and Jonas) you enter your stuff into the professional division, where the judges don’t judge quite as harshly,” Dave said. “When you get in the masters they are looking for every little detail, anything that is not there or not right you get kicked.”

One of his most prized accomplishments came this past month as Dave’s mount of an antelope won taxidermist’s choice for best game head (game that is non-deer).

“I wasn’t even going to take it,” Dave said. “Jonas took everything down there and I stayed home. I didn’t believe that it was good enough for masters division.”

Dave said it was a real honor to be chosen for that award.

“Having the taxidermists there choose that, to have something chosen by your peers, I think is probably one of the biggest rewards anyone can get,” Dave said. “To have your peers look at your piece and say, ‘wow, that’s really nice.’”

And while many people would consider Tonneson’s Taxidermy a hidden gem, it really isn’t. The operation has a top-notch website with all kinds of information on the business. Anyone who wishes to learn more can visit that at www.tonnesonstaxidermy.com, or call (800) 566-7974.