I Blame Ray Mears - narrowly escaped widow maker

[Janne]

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.

It is sad in a way, but unavoidable. We need to harvest trees and mine minerals, ores and oil.

It is natural to want your surroundings / ancestral lands to be intact, but it is just not possible.
We must ensure though the forests are managed and the taking f the other resources done in as gentle way as possible.

Have you guys thought of doing eco tourism, for example you taking a couple of people canoeing, hiking, fishing?

Eco tourim is in a huge expanding phase now. And if well managed, does virtually no harm to the environment.

 

[Robson Valley]

It's so easy to dismiss wildlife encounters as things that happen in the middle of nowhere. Wrong.
Cougars in the village have been just as big a concern as young grizz along country roads.
It's dark before and after school for a couple of months, not many kids walking to school any more.

Logging is a very expensive proposition for both roads and equipment. But it happens.
Understand that there's absolutely no point in harvesting unless you already know of a market for those logs.
Replanting is the law and your efforts will be inspected for the next few years as well, before you see the last of your money from timber sales.
I have yet to hear of anybody replanting birch. The twigs are so sweet, I'd assume that everybody from mice on up will have a nibble.

As Joe points out, you have to go further and further on foot to find good birch.
Actually, I saw a piece of pretty good bark just last week. Maybe 36" long by 24" wide.
The rest of the log was going into the wood stove.

 

[Janne]

What will you do with the bark?

In Sweden the replanting law has been in force since the 60?

In Europe forests have been managed incredibly well since late Middle Age. There is virtually no Virgin forest left, except in Poland in the White Tower Forest (Bialowieza Puszcze) and further east.

The first Forestry Schools were established in German lands, then Russia.
Forests have been one of the most important resources we have for Millennia.

The only Birch plantations I am aware of are the Masur Birch plantations in Karelia in Finland (plus Russia?)

 

[Robson Valley]

That birch bark wasn't mine. Very thick and curled up like a scroll. Of no use to me. I have used thinner pieces as inlay in a few wood carvings.
Nobody here fools around doing a little origami with birch bark. The patterened biting art form, yes but the birch bark isn't local, far as I know.
You can do everything that RM did and a whole lot more by following ch 13: Barkcraft (Wildwood Wisdom by Ellsworth Jaeger).

Reforestation in BC is well above bilions of seedlings. It's a fiber crop. No more, no less.
The growers use electric bicycles to get around in the greenhouses. Walking wastes the working day, those places are so big.

The normal forest fire cycle here is 70-100 years. 100km west of me is a "lightning shadow" of old growth western red cedar forest, now protected.
It's called "The Ancient Forest." Very good cedar plank walkways all through part of it. New species discovered in there.
It has not been burned in the last 4,000 years.

 

[Joe tahkahikew]

Do you have elk or moose or karibu, heards of reindeer roam norway.

We have Moose - in Europe they are called country they are called Elk. We have vast herds of Caribou (European = Reindeer, which roam much of our northern lands from the tree line to the far north on the tundra. In the West there are woodland Caribou -0 but someways off where we hunt & live.

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.

So land must make people rich? It doesn't make us rich, nor do most hunters or non hunting 1st nations folk up here want to get rich - just to live.. When we were encouraged to sign government treaties we were promised we could carry on and hunt as we always had. (Hunting = forest) No one mentioned that someone else could buy the forests, chop them down, sell them on and make our land impossible to hunt over. The forest and lands were once ours to use as we saw fit, now folk from cities tell us it is theirs to do what they want with. We've been promised our right to hunt over our traditional lands, but the government sold additional licences to white hunters from other places and puts more pressure on wild game..

I don't understand what you mean about wilderbeast. We don't get them up here. Like I said, cattle would starve up her. No grass!

I hope you understand my reply.

 

[Joe tahkahikew]

It is sad in a way, but unavoidable. We need to harvest trees and mine minerals, ores and oil.

It is natural to want your surroundings / ancestral lands to be intact, but it is just not possible.

It was possible when my grandfather signed treaty (number 13 I think). We were guaranteed our rights to live off the land. But I guess the folks who wrote these treaties were pretty foxy with their promises and words.

We must ensure though the forests are managed and the taking f the other resources done in as gentle way as possible.

Perhaps if you managed your forests better you wouldn't have to come up here and take ours from under our noses? Up here forests are not managed. They are simply logged out and just dead fallen trees left where they fall Every year the forest roads creep ever northwords

Have you guys thought of doing eco tourism, for example you taking a couple of people canoeing, hiking, fishing?

Yes, I have sometimes been a canoe guide, hunting guide. fishing guide as have several Dene folk. But we mostly live in remote communities and tourism such as this cannot support enough income for maybe 2000 folk in small area. Our nearest village at the moment is Ft Smith NWT a 10 hour drive over dirt road only passible after the road freezes. Otherwise plane from Edmonton To get to where we have our regular home from Ft Smith you would have to charter your own plane. - some of the places we go to you can only get to by canoe or sledge in winter and we often found that many folks from cities and further south just cannot put up with the hard travelling conditions. (Many of our canoeing rivers need long portages. At least two sections of river we hunt on have 50 mile trip between camping places and two portages with two hour carry - carry canoe and equipment around obstacles - which are hard work and many city folk who sit in office cannot cope. and in winter the temperature drops to minus 40c and the wind is fierce.) Hiking?? Our forests are not like the forests in England 0 ours you cannot walk through with ease. Fishing is good up her. Easy to catch Lake troute at 24lb!! - I give to dogs!

Eco tourim is in a huge expanding phase now. And if well managed, does virtually no harm to the environment.

I agree and I've met some nice Non 1st nation people, including English folk sharing our land with us!!

 

[Janne]

The negative with replanted firests id the same age if the trees, plus same species. Makes it somewhat boring, and not wildlife friendly.
I have seen that in Sweden they let non profitable tree species stand, and only harvest selectively.

In the old days the harvested areas looked like hell. Churned up soil, rocks, desolation.

If anybody has seen Ax men on tv - just that. Destruction.

 

[Laurentius]

So land must make people rich? It doesn't make us rich, nor do most hunters or non hunting 1st nations folk up here want to get rich - just to live.. When we were encouraged to sign government treaties we were promised we could carry on and hunt as we always had. (Hunting = forest) No one mentioned that someone else could buy the forests, chop them down, sell them on and make our land impossible to hunt over. The forest and lands were once ours to use as we saw fit, now folk from cities tell us it is theirs to do what they want with. We've been promised our right to hunt over our traditional lands, but the government sold additional licences to white hunters from other places and puts more pressure on wild game..

I don't understand what you mean about wilderbeast. We don't get them up here. Like I said, cattle would starve up her. No grass!

I hope you understand my reply.

I am a naughty boy, I have access to a rather small piece of land that nobody else but me can access, technically it belongs to the City Council, but because nobody can get there it has effectively been abandoned land for decades. My mission is to rehabilitate it, the same way as conservation volunteers are doing further along where it is accessible. Nothing worth hunting there unless it is rubbish that has been dumped for all that time who knows what I may find, an unexploded bomb, a body? Well so far old boots, plastic bottles a plenty, rusty watering cans and buckets, and a wheely bin. What does it have to offer me? Elderberries and Blackberries.

 

[Robson Valley]

Replanted forests here are a fiber crop. Same as wheat. Let it grow, cut it down, replant, do it all again. TFL = Tree Farm Licence.
Even aged stands are so easy and economical to harvest. Our natural fire cycle makes certain of that.

There is so much crown land here that there are natural mixed forests all over the place, interspersed with harvested patches.
Mixed species forests normally have greater species diversity. Not much for niche structure in a monoculture = one tree species.

Mixed forests here represent an economic puzzle.
Is there enough species volume of interest to make the whole cut worthwhile?
A lot of the time, the answer is no, so the supply of useful birch is assured.
At least until the next fire.
The seral stages after a fire eventually have pine replaced by spruce across the interior of BC (Nechako Plateau.)
Thinned and free-to-grow, that's fiber value.

 

[Janne]

Laurentius, plant some wild toses for the hips. Some wild apples. Damsons, plus maybe those seeds that a nice mod gave away?
Plus Sloes.

The prickly bushes I would plant on the perimeters. Protects from possible intrusion into your own Secret Garden!

RV, same as in Sweden. Fibre plantations. But we like to add the possibility of hunting. Deer, elk ( moose to you) and the Same like their Reindeer...

You know that loads of Swedes went to Canada to work in forestry in the 50’s and 60’s?

 

[Robson Valley]

Our moose is a creature of "edge". Not open ground, not forest, edge.
One of the best things to happen was logging to create edges. Our elk like open ground (aka valuable grain crop fields.)

Moose thrash the Hello out of smaller birch and browse the tops so they really broom out.
The same individual trees get worked over every year.
Can't reach the twigs? Bull moose can be 7' tall to the shoulder. The just lean on the trees and knock them down.

Birch trees 4" - 8" DBH are the best sap producers. Thriving niche businesses.
Maybe they think about planting groves of birch but a 4" trunk is many decades in coming.
I have a couple of model birch bark canoes, maybe 60(?) years old.
I have an owl, a glue-up of many shredded strands and panels of birch bark, very delicately made (Russian?)

The Swedes came for the forests, the Italians and the Chinese came for the railroad. Ukranians came for the farm land.
The Poles came to escape the horror. They have all made enormous contributions to our economy and continue to do so.

 

[petrochemicals]

So land must make people rich? It doesn't make us rich, nor do most hunters or non hunting 1st nations folk up here want to get rich - just to live.. When we were encouraged to sign government treaties we were promised we could carry on and hunt as we always had. (Hunting = forest) No one mentioned that someone else could buy the forests, chop them down, sell them on and make our land impossible to hunt over. The forest and lands were once ours to use as we saw fit, now folk from cities tell us it is theirs to do what they want with. We've been promised our right to hunt over our traditional lands, but the government sold additional licences to white hunters from other places and puts more pressure on wild game..

I don't understand what you mean about wilderbeast. We don't get them up here. Like I said, cattle would starve up her. No grass!

I hope you understand my reply.

I understand your reply

Land must make people rich is the wrong angle for africa, its the pressures of the population in africa,thats where im refering to the wilderbeest. Or the other animals they have there. Land to people who have nothing but a corrugated metal shack is easy growth territory. Kick the lions off kill the giraffes put some cows in and they have themselves some money. Namibia harvests wild meat and sells it to south africa, so if these elephant areas and giraffes are going to survive, we really better start eating them. Sane goes for the amazon, if thats not going to be turned into cqttle ranges.

I suppose in canada, its rich enough where people do no want like thoes of africa, and they do not need to struggle. Buts thats the point. Canada got rich by using the land and burning fossil fuels, so thoes in africa will follow thoes in china who followed us in the west. The yangzee river dolphin in china is now extinct. If theres a market for the wood theres obviously someone who needs it. Maybe more environmental mindedness would reduce use, but while you can make money off it people will, its all part of sustaining the quality of life we have in the west. Its a recourse that people can make money off and its gonna happen one way or the other.

I remember you saying about yuppie trackers you use to find lost people, so you must have tourism, but like africa, the pressures will overcome tourism. Tourism only survives if its in an area you do not measure in sqkm, or numbers of people go into large figures, the safaris of africa do not bring in enough to sustain there use, so conservationists now advocate shooting rhino. Robson menti9ned birch sap, im sure birch syrup would be a big seller in the states so that would be a reason to keep 5he birch. They take 1/4 of the moose population in scandinavia every year as hunting (al5hough it does not sound like hunting as 100000 animals get taken a year, sounds a bit commercial) so that is a good reason to keep the land as it is there.

As for what the governments do to the populations, is not really great, like in england 2here the land is largley inaccessable. It sounds like you got a bad deal.

 

[Janne]

Sweden. Around 100 000 moose are shot each year in Sweden, between 1/3 and 1/4 of the population. Figures the same since many years. Sweden has the highest number of them per area in the world. Means the hunt regulations are perfect. What to shoot and where.

I used to belong to a hunting team. We had moose meat in the freezer, plenty. Makes nice hamburgers, moose.
Moose are the reason Volvo and SAAB were so strong and safe.
No fun getting a moose into the car through the winscreen.

We learn how to hit them. Rear half. No head that will trash around and crush you. No head with broken horns that will trash around and impale you.
Sounds gruesome, but that is the reality. Moose like to stand on the roads and lick the salt wintertime.

 

[Robson Valley]

Canada didn't get rich. We have enormous wealth in all things like minerals from asbestos to diamonds and uranium , animals and forests.
I have seen 1" thick slabs of gem stone chevron amythest, bigger than my 2 hands together.

Our social and economic development was screwed over and stunted with smallpox by one of the world's greatest resource hogs,
the Hudson's Bay Company (est 1671) from England. It's all in their meticulous records for anyone to see.

We have (and had) stone age people, the likes of which you have never seen in a thousand years.
All of a sudden, they were expected to jump into the iron age.

All of these things have led us into a modern social quandry to alleviate the inequity and sufferings in our recent past.
Don't spit into the fan.

 

[C_Claycomb]

LOL. I read that last sentence that it was "they", the bears, "waiting at the va(r)ious country school bus stops." I thought that demonstrated a truly remarkable determination.

As I understood it, you can still hunt bears for food, just not for "trophies"?

 

[Janne]

Unfortunately we can not fix our forefathers (and foremothers) mistakes. But we ( "white people") take steps to ensure in original people gets a cut of the profits of what we exploit, a good education, maybe in their own language,, recognition and support of their culture.
Sweden did some really, really bad things to the Same, until quite recently. I am talking my dad's generaation.
Phusical destroying their holy relics and implements. Force learning of Swedish. Murders. Cutting down vital forest areas. Non treatment of Veneral Diseases.... the list is longer, but I am too ashamed to mention them all.
But now we have changed and realize the value of them. The richness of their culture. The importance of their culture for the landscape.

Today, they are heavily supported in every way from the Parliament in Stockholm.

Most of what I know "bushcrafter" vise I learned from them. Dad 5 %. Same 95%.

Canada has adopted lots of things from Scandinavia, I am sure they can look into how we treat our "natives"?
( I hate the word Native, but use it as it encompass all the northern Scandinavian original people groups. Forest Same, Coast Same and the Kvens.)


BTW, it is OK to be ambushed by a bear, waiting for the schoolbus, as long you are not the "fat and slow kid"...

Canada didn't get rich. We have enormous wealth in all things like minerals from asbestos to diamonds and uranium , animals and forests.
I have seen 1" thick slabs of gem stone chevron amythest, bigger than my 2 hands together.

Our social and economic development was screwed over and stunted with smallpox by one of the world's greatest resource hogs,
the Hudson's Bay Company (est 1671) from England. It's all in their meticulous records for anyone to see.

We have (and had) stone age people, the likes of which you have never seen in a thousand years.
All of a sudden, they were expected to jump into the iron age.

All of these things have led us into a modern social quandry to alleviate the inequity and sufferings in our recent past.
Don't spit into the fan.

 

[Laurentius]

Laurentius, plant some wild toses for the hips. Some wild apples. Damsons, plus maybe those seeds that a nice mod gave away?
Plus Sloes.

The prickly bushes I would plant on the perimeters. Protects from possible intrusion into your own Secret Garden!

RV, same as in Sweden. Fibre plantations. But we like to add the possibility of hunting. Deer, elk ( moose to you) and the Same like their Reindeer...

You know that loads of Swedes went to Canada to work in forestry in the 50’s and 60’s?

You have read my mind, this is pretty much what I am doing, I have left the brambles on the perimiters. There is one small section that borders a farm, and I don't really want the farmer to see what I am up to as we are not on the best of terms.

 

[Robson Valley]

I think that there's a general consensus that the Turth and Reconciliation Commission is moving in the right direction.
I expect this will take a couple of generations.

The Haida wait for nobody.
With suitable ceremony, they told the federal government that they didn't need the name, Queen Charlotte Islands. They gave it back.
That's how the islands, some 150 of them, becames Haida Gwaii again.
Now they travel the world recovering the bones of their ancestors, plundered by museums in the aftermath of Smallpox (90% die-off?).
Very successful and respectful repatriation project.

Laurentius: Nice to use the veg to underscore your expectation of privacy!

 

[Janne]

Yes, I have read about their quest to get back their ancestors.

Did the various tribes lose their religions or were they able to preserve it, despite our tries to make them worship a Jewish guy ?
The T&R Commission, is it active in Quebec too? The Frenchies had a different approach to the "natives" compared to the Brits in their other colonies.

I have only been to Canada twice, short visits to Montreal. Next month a short visit to Toronto. I know zilch about Canada. I know you make the best Maple Syrup and MS cookies though.

 

[Robson Valley]

They were jailed for potlach ceremony for a long time. Part of the cultural extirpation by the feds.
Smallpox, germ warfare, was vey effective. Whole clans and villages disappeared.

The simple brutality of the residential school system was expected to cleanse the kids of all language and culture.
Even the feds now admit that it was "cultural genocide".

Most tribes have pantheistic collections of legendary beliefs. There's no line between reality and the supernatural.
Transformations have always been considered normal. You would see this if you watched dances using huge articulated transformation masks.