I Blame Ray Mears - narrowly escaped widow maker

[Janne]

Checking above your intended site is even more important after hard weather. Branches can break off, but still be resting on another branch, and be dislodged by a tiny wind puff.

Later this weekend and early next week a storm (hurricane when it hits land) will hit western UK and Ireland.

Look up!

 

[petrochemicals]

I believe you must have angered the cigarette butt gods, or yogi was annoyed he couldn't get at your pickenic basket.

I dont believe taking the outer layer of uk birck does no damage, where ever I hqve seen the outer removed, the inner layer goes brown and black, dries out and cracks so it is dead. I am not sure but birch bark removal is done on mature trees, unlike the ones in the video, which are only around 8 inches diameter. Any mature birch tree in the uk the bark is not something you cam make a birch bark container from, it is heavily developed with the chevrons up its trunk taking over like oak or ash, the silver white surface has all but dissapeared, you may get a bit off fo firelighting but thats about it. The difference in the paper birch is that it retains the nice smooth trunk.

Edit

http://elfshotgallery.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/harvesting-birch-bark.html

As is shown in this the older bark removal leaves a younger inner bark behind.

 

[Janne]

It must be something to do with the climactic difference between UK and Scandinavia.
Maybe more virulent funguses in Uk or something.

In Scandinavia (and Finland) we use birch as a hedge plant, and ornamental trees, and prune them quite heavily without them dying.

Was Birch bark used to make stuff from in UK in the old days?

 

[BorderReiver]

Birch trees die and fall down all the time, without any intervention from Mr Mears.

The wood I frequent is littered with the corpses of dead birch; birch is a colonising tree that gets in first when land is ready, as a result they make way for other species.

After the coming blow on Monday, I expect to see a few more horizontal birches.

 

[Robson Valley]

If you are rude enough to peel the outermost layers of bark from one of our paper birch (Betula papyrifera), the damage you do is never repaired.
Why? Because those layers of bark are dead. Dead bark does not grow. For decades, you will see the brownish exposed inner surface.
I have never ripped up any of your Betula pendula for comparison.

Want some? You harvest the whole tree and you use the whole log, bark included.
Read how the birch-building cultures of eastern North America went about it.
Try to pick North American authors while you're at it. Hmmmmm?

 

[petrochemicals]

If you are rude enough to peel the outermost layers of bark from one of our paper birch (Betula papyrifera), the damage you do is never repaired.
Why? Because those layers of bark are dead. Dead bark does not grow. For decades, you will see the brownish exposed inner surface.
I have never ripped up any of your Betula pendula for comparison.

Want some? You harvest the whole tree and you use the whole log, bark included.
Read how the birch-building cultures of eastern North America went about it.
Try to pick North American authors while you're at it. Hmmmmm?

You must have yellow birch and similar variaties in the States Robson, in young trees you get one layer and if you remove it all there is is the inner that dries out and cracks ? So yep in the uk you have to harvest the hole tree and if your lucky get a nice piece off it. But most you will get some fissures in it that crack the minute you curve the bark.

Well you live and learn.I thought the idea with the paper b8rch was the brown layer developed back to white and the bark thickened once more.

It must be something to do with the climactic difference between UK and Scandinavia.
Maybe more virulent funguses in Uk or something.

In Scandinavia (and Finland) we use birch as a hedge plant, and ornamental trees, and prune them quite heavily without them dying.

Was Birch bark used to make stuff from in UK in the old days?

Maybe its just the thickness of the bark due to growty speeds, most birches i see have exploded out of there bark into fissures etc. Although i cannot remember ever seeing large areas of birch in the uk, either oak or evergreen seems to be what i encounter most, with mixed deciduous areas containing a variaty, with birch included. Suppose with birch being a pioneer species it hasnt got much hope, other than on the side of tracks.

I dont know about use of birch bqrk for stuff in the uk, i know it was used much in scandinavia. As for hedgerows in the uk hornbeam is used alot as well as hawthorn blackthorn. Hornbeam being the rubber stuff it is you can virtually cut it through and it will fuse and grow back as good as new, and it also keeps its leaves over winter.

 

[Janne]

Small damage (mechanical, temperature, maybe fungus?) is important to create a burl.

 

[GGTBod]

First day here and I already learned a great lesson. Thank you @GGTBod

Thanks mate i am glad the wise words never got lost in the comedy of my ranty sweary madness

 

[GGTBod]

Your beard would have broken the fall.

wouldn't that be awesome if it did, just wake in the morning to dew on the beard from the torn tarp and a pile of kindling

 

[Robson Valley]

According to the standard textbook: Trees In Canada, (Farrar), there are a dozen species of Betula in Canada. Yellow birch distribution is limited to Eastern Canada.
Paper birch in the west has the superior bark.
Study the aboriginal peoples referred to as the "birch-building societies." These are the First Nations in eastern North America for whom the birch is the untimate multipurpose
plant. Burls are infected diseases, a sign of ill health ( same for people, yes?).

The equivalent in the far west where I live is the Western Red Cedar. Use Hilary Stewart's text, Cedar, for direction.

In anycase, WRC can withstand far, far more bark stripping than any birch can (fact.) Even plank wood splitting!
Such trees are still alive today, labelled as "culturally modified." The techniques are still taught to school children on Haida Gwaii.

 

[Janne]

GGTBod almost got a Culturally Modified Birch on his head.


I am not dure if it has been 100% proven exactly what causes a tree burl to form. I imagine it is multi factoral.

It is a benigh tumor.

 

[petrochemicals]

According to the standard textbook: Trees In Canada, (Farrar), there are a dozen species of Betula in Canada. Yellow birch distribution is limited to Eastern Canada.
Paper birch in the west has the superior bark.
Study the aboriginal peoples referred to as the "birch-building societies." These are the First Nations in eastern North America for whom the birch is the untimate multipurpose
plant. Burls are infected diseases, a sign of ill health ( same for people, yes?).

The equivalent in the far west where I live is the Western Red Cedar. Use Hilary Stewart's text, Cedar, for direction.

In anycase, WRC can withstand far, far more bark stripping than any birch can (fact.) Even plank wood splitting!
Such trees are still alive today, labelled as "culturally modified." The techniques are still taught to school children on Haida Gwaii.

What and where do you think the birch in the link are from ? Incedentally it looks like a bad espousement, as a comment by someone who knows alot more than me states ringing the tree is a good way to hurt it, you only make the vertical slit and the horizontal banding nature of the birch bark alows the peeling.


http://elfshotgallery.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/harvesting-birch-bark.html

I know it says uk, but its cot canada slapped left right and centre. I have never seen a birch yield bark like that, (most green birch wood i have come across are felled trees in piles of logs, or the occasional wind blown) maybe i was doing it at the wrong time of year (ray didnt tell me that). Also the birch in the link are very small diameter, but have some good bark on them, iven never seen that either.

EDIT

And what species, ive got to say paper birch as they are smooth even in the big diameter. The road markings dont look uk either, if they where uk they would almost always be raised 3D bulges on the white line.

 

[Robson Valley]

Betula pendula must be vulnerable to burl (cambium defect/disease). I haven't seen one on papyrifera in the last 60 years in the forests.
Pine and spruce burls by the hundreds incorporated into house features. That's quite a sight to behold.

First Nations don't pull dumb stunts like ripping off strips of bark to make drinking cups. They take the whole log for many purposes.

Western Red Cedar burls are rare. I carved a 2" thick slab of it some years ago.
Grain running in directions that I did not know existed. Nightmare.

 

[Robson Valley]

I doubt that's paper birch. The surface on stems that size should have already begun natural delamination if it was paper birch.
I'll reserve my judgement on recovery, which won't happen, for another decade. Any bark stripping that deep leaves the stem vulnerable to
microbial and insect invasion.

You can, if you wish, commission the construction of a genuine birch bark canoe. Start saving your money.
What you will see is no wilful stripping of bark.
Instead the entire tree must be harvested for all the wooden parts, as you know,
that go into the construction of a canoe.

 

[Joe tahkahikew]

Much of the forests to the east have been logged out for good timber. The big birch we used to for canoes has mostly gone the way of all gone for paper pulp or other uses. Now if you want big sheets of knot free birch you have to search really hard and it is difficult to get. Plenty though I guess for birch bark containers and other stuff. Many of the traditional Iroquois and other eastern woodland tribes used big sheets of birch and slippery elm to make house covers. But the loggers got rid of most of that too. In my youth we made many such temporary shelters from this.

 

[petrochemicals]

Much of the forests to the east have been logged out for good timber. The big birch we used to for canoes has mostly gone the way of all gone for paper pulp or other uses. Now if you want big sheets of knot free birch you have to search really hard and it is difficult to get. Plenty though I guess for birch bark containers and other stuff. Many of the traditional Iroquois and other eastern woodland tribes used big sheets of birch and slippery elm to make house covers. But the loggers got rid of most of that too. In my youth we made many such temporary shelters from this.

That is terrible joe, are they replanting or are they raising beef on it ? Do you have reservational land or rights to the land, if you wanna keep the forests youll have to make them pay off in some other way, maybe wild meat of some kind.

 

[Joe tahkahikew]

Sorry for the delay in answering.

The forest is mostly replanted with commercial trees or left to regenerate. Cattle of the kind they have further south would need grass to eat. But it gets too cold here for grass to grow outside of summer and the cattle would freeze to death in our winters - already the temperature drops to freezing.

We have few, if any native reserves like you see in the USA, but we have rights to hunt & trap, but that doesn't mean that our ancestral hunting grounds will have forest and be good for game. For example my grandfather remembers when he first had to register his trap lines. No problem the man from the state said. Two years later the trees on one of his trap lines were taken for lumber by a contractor who'd bought the timber from the government. There were that many fallen & broken trees the lumberjacks didn't take or want, he was unable to travel his traditional through the land and use the trap-line anymore.

Enjou


Joe

 

[petrochemicals]

I know you have bad winters, worse than texas or scotland. But I've seen the bison (wood bison up your way? They would obviously migrate in the winter I suppose. Do you have elk or moose or karibu, heards of reindeer roam norway.

But if you are going to have natural lands they are going to have to pay, and a bit of trophy hunting and safari will not save them. I have often thought of the wilderbeast in Africa and there great numbers and migration. How long will they last without being fiscally beneficial. I believe the buffalo of old where of greater numbers. The same goes for all wildlife lion grizzly, they all need a habitat. If you could take 25 % of wilderbeast that would provide a lot of meat. The number of predators may drop, but nature is like that, populations crash due to rains failing, or disease or weather, and then recover. I know the US shot the buffalo to starve the natives, but why did they replace them with cattle and fences? The aussies practice similar open pasture, cattle and camel round ups, it works well there, so if we want natural environments that's what we will need to do, the wilderbeast will not survive in little pockets.

There must be a way of keeping forests too and making them pay off without chopping them down.

 

[Robson Valley]

The only substantial wild herds of bison are found in Wood Buffalo National Park.
Both the Plains and Wood Bison are found in Elk Island National Park, separated by 10' heavy fences and highway 16 through the middle.
Side by side, they really do look different.

The latest establishment is a group in Canada's Banff National Park.
Otherwise, there's no real migration opportunity because of fences.
They are most durable animals when it comes to winter survivorship whether that's across the valley from me or Yellowstone.

I have been buying a side of 2 yr old bison to eat each November. 16 years now.
The ranch is just on the other side of my village.
They don't get more than maybe a square mile to run around in.

There isn't enough forage as understory in the Boreal Forest Biome.
They need far more than woody shrubs ( of suitable kinds) to graze on.
Mixed Aspen Parkland, then Grassland Biomes suit bison the best.
Possibly 60,000,000 of them at the time of European contact.

Latest news here is that the trophy grizzly bear hunts will be phased out over the next 2(?) years.
Nobody know how that's going to screw over the grizz population biology. Why?
The mature boars in prime habitat do their best to kill off younger bears.
All this will do is push a larger number of younger bears down into wildlife confrontations with people.
They are a direct threat to your young children, waiting at the vatious country school bus stops.

 

[Janne]

They are a direct threat to your young children, waiting at the vatious country school bus stops.

Meals waiting for Wheels?

Joke aside, they will change the policy after the first attack.