...(Jerky) may not be quite as tasty as fresh meat, but it has much food value and actually is very good. It has the advantage of being light in weight and of keeping indefinitely, so long as it is kept perfectly dry...
...Jerky can be made out of almost any piece of meat. The piece can be small, only a pound or so, or large, up to several pounds in size. Of corse it must be removed from the bone and kept in chunk form. A very sharp butcher knife is required. A hunting knife is too thick-edged and usually too short for the job...
...First, cut straight through the center of the piece, stopping within a quarter of an inch of going clear through. Then the process is practically like unrolling the meat, first one side of the chunk and then the other (Drawing reference here). Hold the meat on the palm of the hand and work the knife carfully along through the meat, parallel to the surface of the palm. Be careful you do not cut yourself, and don't be discouraged if at first it seems very slow.... ...one little chunk opens up into a long, thin slice, many inches in length. We have seen pieces fire and six feet long! You will end up by discovering that you have only about one pound of jerky for every five pounds of fresh meat you start with. But, you still have the real meat and all of its food value. All you have lost is water.
Skewers, usually of plum or cherry wood, are made to keep the long strips spread while drying. These are pointed at both ends and merely caught on each side of the strip. The strips are then hung in the hot sun on poles of the drying racks, which are made in various forms, high enough so that the dogs cannot reach them. Bruce Yellowtail made a big fuss when his grandmother hung some of her jerky on his radio aerial!
You need not worry about flies. The meat is cut so thin, not much over a quarter of an inch in thickness, that flies cannot "blow" it. And the cleaner the camp is kept, the fewer flies there will be. Very few flies will even alight on the meat. Even if they do, sunlight is a good disinfectant, and most people prefer the jerky cooked, further eliminating any danger of contamination.
While drying the meat, make sure that no two surfaces touch. In the hot sun, jerky will dry hard in a couple of days. It should be removed at night, piled up on a clean canvas and covered, so it will not absorb moisture from the atmosphere... ...When it is properly cured, it is nearly as hard as iron, about the consistency of sole leather, but we can assure you that it does not taste like it.
...It can be cared for...by keeping it in cloth sacks which are in the air and dry all the time. For an extended period of time it can be kept in a big tin can, like a lard can. If the meat gets damp, or is unprotected in a dark place, it may be attacked by weevils.
Jerky is sometimes eaten "as is," but is best when cooked. One method of cooking is to break it up into little pieces, barely cover them with water, and simmer until soft. The jerky will never regain the original plumpness and texture of the meat, but it will become quite tender, depending upon what cut of meat it was made from in the first place. Salt the stew to taste, and, if you like, thicken the broth with a little flower for a rich gravy.

To make pemmican, first roast jerky over coals until the grease begins to show and it takes on a ritch brown color like seared fresh meat. This in itself is a good way to prepare jerky for eating. It is rather crunchy but very tasty. To continue with the pemmican, pound the roasted jerky fine. This is done on a clean canvas or oil-cloth, using a smooth, flat stone for an anvil and the back of an axe for the pounder. Formerly a stone hammer, set in rawhide, was used.
Now dry fresh chokecherries just enough to take out the excess moisture, then pound in the same way, enough to reduce the pits to as fine a pulp as possible. Mix some of this cherry pulp with the pounded jerky, pour melted suet (the hard fatty tissue about the loins and kidneys of beef, sheep, etc., used in cooking or processed to yield tallow) over the whole mass, mix it thoroughly, and then pat into egg-shaped balls. These balls can be preserved in oiled silk or in a plastic bag. In the old days, the pemmican, instead of being made into balls, was stored in cases made of bladders or of rawhide, with melted suet poured over it, and sealed completely...
...Service berries, or June berries, sometimes called squawberries, can be used in the same way. Sometimes nowadays the pemmican is made without any fruit, a little sugar being added instead. But it is not so rich or tasty as the old kind...