I Blame Ray Mears - narrowly escaped widow maker

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That is why we, in a land of many trees avoid camping underneath them or check very, very carefully for dead fall trees or widow-makers.

I don't know if many folk up here have heard of Ray Mears, but good birch bark is getting hard to find many people like making old time stuff with it.
 

Robson Valley

Full Member
Nov 24, 2014
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McBride, BC
I used to watch Les Stroud on TV a while ago. Hadn't heard of RM. He must have studied Ellsworth Jaeger.

Angie Levesque does biting and has a store in Prince George, BC. She goes to Manitoba for bark.
Local stuff here comes off birch firewood logs before they get bucked up. The logs then dry faster without rot.
 
Jul 30, 2012
3,570
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westmidlands
I reccon that the good birch bark has been eraised through depletion, sort of like elephants with big tusks.from wikipedia, it suggests all are not equal.

B. papyrifera hybridizes with other species within the Betula genus.

Several varieties are recognized [7]

B. p. var papyrifera the typical paper birch
B. p. var cordifolia the western paper birch (now a separate species); see Betula cordifolia
B. p. var kenaica Alaskan paper birch (also treated as a separate species by some authors); see Betula kenaica
B. p. var subcordata Northwestern paper birch
B. p. var. neoalaskana Alaska paper birch (although this is often treated as a separate species); see Betula neoalaskana
 
Jul 30, 2012
3,570
224
westmidlands
But Canada is huge. Unless they all practice Birch biting 24/7 thete should be plenty lrft, except close to the settlements and roads.

Well the other thing on wikipedia is the fact of it being a pione4ing species it is gradualy replaced by spruce , it needs fires to clear areas, in cold areas (pretty much all of central canada), and then to grow slowly in stands so at the trees grow tall without side shoots so as to get nice pieces of faultless bark.

I suppose there is enough left, somewhere in canada, but like you say it would have to be off the beaten track by quite a way. How many fires are allowed to burn in the last 100 years ?
 

Janne

Sent off - Not allowed to play
Feb 10, 2016
12,330
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Grand Cayman, Norway, Sweden
True, true.
We mess with nature. Interrupt important cycles.
Of course, it is hell if your house and livelihood goes up in smoke because of nature...

Thank Gods Robson V escaped unhurt.
 

Robson Valley

Full Member
Nov 24, 2014
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McBride, BC
Yeah, we had good rain here in the north. We became the refuge for those running from the southern fires.
The heat melted the glass windows of the chicken coop at the ranch just before the whole thing went up in smoke.

Wildfires are so natural here that the pines are serotinous.
Seed cones for regeneration will not open without the heat from fires. They don't open.
So, you need to comprehend that this whole place, in patches, burns to the ground every 70-100 years.
Don't panic. This is normal.

The only really strange place is The Ancient Forest. A region in a "lightning shadow" where weather conditions never generate thunder & lightning storms.
From the 14C dating in soil pits, the place has not experienced fire for more than 4,000 years.
If you think you know what the climax seral stage vegetation is in the ICH Biogeoclimatic zone is here, be my guest.

Birch is not replaced in any seral stage in western Canada. Water and nutrient levels in recently glaciated soils spoil your suggested sequence.
Spruce for the most part, cannot replace birch for bio geoclimatic reasons. If anything, spruce replaces pines replaces alders and aspens
but water retention and shade tolerance in nutrient-poor glacial soils are determining factors.

As I said, Angie travels from BC to Manitoba for birch bark for her art. Birch bark is not in short supply.
Even for flint, copper and abalone shell, those things are not available everywhere.
On Isle Royale for example, there is a lump of copper, biger than a grand piano. Big deal.

I can buy copper nodules dredged from west coast rivers.
Somehow, the city scrap metal yards are so much closer!
 
Jul 30, 2012
3,570
224
westmidlands
Porcupines like to eat the bark too, so basically the lesson is watch out for areas where anything with lots of ****** outside congrugate !

The faults in the bark must come from damage, so animals disease and parasites invaiding it must be the primary reason, along with drought, nutritional problems etc

Hope you are ok robson, sounds a bit scary. I suppose alder and aspen are pioneer species there instead ?
 

Robson Valley

Full Member
Nov 24, 2014
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McBride, BC
Yeah, the Porkys screwed over several ornamental elm trees that I had at my lakeside cottage. Crop of chopsticks.
Should have planted ash (Fraxinus sp) that they don't like.

Alder is a a pioneer on burnt over glacial soils (You got it!). The nitrogen-fixing mycorhizae give them a supreme advantage.
Aspens come next and the conifers can directly jump on that.

I'm in the north. It stayed pretty lush and green. We are OK.
South of Williams Lake, pretty much everything got cooked but for a few small patches.
My retired friend on the home ranch dodged a bullet and also the properties on either side.
Irrigated crop land survived 100%. Lots of burnt cattle got shot, all new fence to keep the rest of them off the highways.

Going to be a rough, tough winter for wildlife. Starvation die-off won't be pretty this winter.
I guess you could put out hay for the deer if the bears aren't coming through your kitchen window
until they finally den up. They can't tank up on cheap food for fat now as there's nothing left.
 

GGTBod

Bushcrafter (boy, I've got a lot to say!)
Mar 28, 2014
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so then Uncle Ray promoting birch bark use with no info at all on how or where to get it from

[video=youtube;BrLRo8VuTcM]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrLRo8VuTcM[/video]

[video=youtube;mYUqDSxBOAs]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYUqDSxBOAs[/video]

all were broadcast on free tv to the masses with no information or care or concern for the millions of idiots running right out there to make their own just like Uncle Ray :eek: i don't really blame Ray it is the TV see and want idiots who are doing it but he is the one who showed the idiots the thing they wanted without telling them how to get the materials in an environmentally conscious way, so i guess this thought was in my subconscious and came out in my rant when i was in shock just after the event
 

GGTBod

Bushcrafter (boy, I've got a lot to say!)
Mar 28, 2014
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here is another as you can only do 2 video links per post


[video=youtube;V1x_mTkDrps]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1x_mTkDrps[/video]
 

Janne

Sent off - Not allowed to play
Feb 10, 2016
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Grand Cayman, Norway, Sweden
Looks like he is in Sweden? Last video - def Sweden.
The table is made from planks covered with Falu Rödfärg, a very traditional Swedish wood colour/ surface treatment and protection.

As a side note, the knifes made in Mora and surrounding villages had the handles painted with a similar colour, slightly differently formulated paint.
 

Janne

Sent off - Not allowed to play
Feb 10, 2016
12,330
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Grand Cayman, Norway, Sweden
In Scandinavia we believe that the tree is not damaged by taking the outermost bark inly.
The inner layer, should not be damaged with the knife when peeling off the outside layer.
 

GGTBod

Bushcrafter (boy, I've got a lot to say!)
Mar 28, 2014
3,209
26
1
In Scandinavia we believe that the tree is not damaged by taking the outermost bark inly.
The inner layer, should not be damaged with the knife when peeling off the outside layer.


that is what i was taught, outer layer of bark removal is harmless and don't break the cambium layer, even if just because you expose the inner of the tree to fungi and bacteria
 

GGTBod

Bushcrafter (boy, I've got a lot to say!)
Mar 28, 2014
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Sadly a lot of the stuff i seen looked like they had taken everything down to the core deadwood right though the cambium, strip of bark must have been 1/2 inch thick easy
 

Robson Valley

Full Member
Nov 24, 2014
9,959
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McBride, BC
Any of our many species of birch, if you attempt to peel off just the outer layer, you still leave a big, wide ugly insult that is sort of a pale brown.
None of this pristine white concept. The birch trees still look like hello. The texture of the bark on our paper birch is something to behold.
Birch are cut here, you use the entire log = the bark and the wood. No more, no less. Even if it's no more than cut/split chunks for firewood.
 

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