Awards mount for Crookston taxidermist – Grand Forks Herald

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CROOKSTON-Nick Genereux’s taxidermy studio is filled with head and full body mounts of all sizes and varieties.
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It’s also filling up with awards.
Owner of Outdoor Addictions Taxidermy in Crookston, Genereux recently won Taxidermist of the Year and Judge’s Choice Breakthrough Best of Show awards in the Masters Division of the Minnesota Taxidermy Guild’s annual convention and competition March 30 through April 2 in Rochester, Minn.
As Minnesota taxidermy awards go, that’s as good as it gets.
“I was surprised because I’ve only been doing this for 7½ years,” Genereux said. “Usually, (the awards) go to somebody who’s been doing it a lot longer than I have-like 15 or 20 years. So it was a pretty big shock and a huge honor.”
Genereux entered several mounts in the competition, but it was his lifelike full-body mount of a huge Manitoba black bear that earned him top honors. Including the intricate wooden base featuring rocks, grass and driftwood-the kind of habitat you’d expect a Manitoba bear to frequent-Genereux says he has about 128 hours invested into the mount.
A Fisher, Minn., hunter shot the bear. As with all good taxidermy, it’s a work of art.
“Up inside the mouth, there’s a lot of detail work and along around the eyes. If you look up in the nostrils, those little rolls and stuff up in there, they are there,” Genereux said. “It’s a lot of time.
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“From a taxidermist standpoint, there’s a lot of little features on this the average person wouldn’t realize.”
Genereux also entered his work in North Dakota and South Dakota taxidermy competitions, winning 24 major awards between the three shows, including best Professional Division entry in North Dakota with his bear mount, Best Bear Mount in North Dakota and Minnesota (South Dakota doesn’t have a bear category), Best Wall Mount Deer in North Dakota, Best Out of State Mount in South Dakota with a porcupine, and Best Elk Mount in the North Dakota and South Dakota shows.
The full-body bear mount earned Genereux 16 of the 24 major awards he received in the three competitions, including Taxidermist’s Choice in all three states and the Artisan Award in North Dakota, which is the Taxidermists’ Choice Best of Show award.
That’s quite a haul. Genereux attributes the success to his focus on details and the skills he’s developed as a taxidermist.
“A little bit of artistic ability is definitely a plus-and being picky when it comes to details,” he said.
Career shift
A 2002 graduate of Crookston High School, Genereux, 33, graduated from South Dakota State University with a degree in wildlife and fisheries management but became interested in taxidermy while attending college. He attended a 10-week taxidermy school in Montana and opened his Crookston studio in 2010.
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You still could say Genereux has a career in fish and wildlife, just not in the way he initially envisioned.
“I did use it a little bit,” Genereux said of his fish and wildlife degree. “The first year or two, I was helping the DNR office in town here for their spring burn season-type work, but I quit that. The word has gotten out and I’ve gotten a lot more work. It’s just taken off-almost to the point of where I’ll have to start turning things away.”
Genereux, who initially worked out of a space in downtown Crookston, three years ago built an addition onto his house for the taxidermy business.
“It’s a pretty good setup for me now,” he said. “I walk through my garage and through the doors into my shop. It’s nice because it’s set up the way I like it. Efficiency-wise, it’s nice.”
Less time outdoors
The downside to self-employment and a booming taxidermy business is the impact it has on his own hunting and fishing, Genereux says. During the Minnesota firearms deer season, which is his busiest time of year, Genereux says it’s not uncommon to put in 90- to 100-hour weeks.
That leaves little time for outdoor pursuits.
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“I didn’t think that one out when I started this shop,” he said with a laugh. “I don’t have time to deer hunt very much any more for rifle season because I’m in the shop too much, and it’s just myself. If I had an employee or two, I could just have them come in and work and then go hunting, but it doesn’t work that way when you’re by yourself.”
No surprise, perhaps, but bears and deer are his passions. Genereux says he no longer does bird mounts because there’s not enough time.
“I’ve gotten too busy and I don’t enjoy them as much,” he said.
Genereux says his grandfather, Robert Cooley of Grand Forks, did taxidermy work as a hobby, but that was the only family connection to the craft.
An avid outdoorsman, Cooley died in December 2008.
“He used to do it out of his basement when I was really young in grade school. I used to think his were really nice, but now I guess I’m a little above him” in quality, Genereux said. “And even my mom, she thought his were really nice, but when I got back from school, she thought mine were already a notch above his.”
Genereux, you might say, is a perfectionist. His taxidermy shop is filled with binders of fish and wildlife photos he uses as references for his mounts. It’s all about getting every little anatomical detail the way it appears in the natural world, Genereux says. As an example, a typical hunter getting a deer head mounted probably doesn’t pay much attention to the hair patterns on the animal’s ear, Genereux says.
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“There’s a lot of intricate little hair patterns on a deer ear that an average guy would never think about,” he said. “Usually, they’re looking at the antlers; they don’t sit there and study an ear.”
Judges look, though. And in Genereux’s case, they like what they see.
“That is what really sets apart an average mount from a really good one,” Genereux said. “If I had an average to poorly done mount next to a really good one, you wouldn’t necessarily know what’s good or why it’s good.
“All the little things add up, and then you can see it.”
Genereux says he’s just as picky with customers’ mounts as he is with his own, which is apparent with the award-winning bear he mounted for a customer. The recognition he is gaining in state competitions stands to keep him busy for the foreseeable future.
“I’m sure it will help out next year,” Genereux said. “It will mean a few extra jobs.”
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