so im building an earth lodge to live in. its a maple sapling frame covered with bark, dirt and moss. i am having difficulties with the bark though, as i cant find enough suitable dead bark. does anyone know of good ways to gather the skin of trees? how might i go about gathering live bark? there are a lot of maples, basswood, and elm in my area. i know traditional peoples used elm from time to time but again i dont know how to go about gather it. any advice would be appreciated.
Oh! Elm and basswood are supposed to be the best! You are lucky to have them. And this is the right time of year. Right now while the sap is up! There are devices to help peel trees. Spuds loggers call them and they have metal tips but you can make one with a wood tip. It’s just like a small paddle with a long handle really to help you pry the bark off.
Here is what my book about the iroquois has to say on the subject:
“When a large piece of bark was to be removed from a tree an incision was made through the bark around the tree near the roots and a like incision was made about seven feet higher up the tree. These two horizontal incisions were then joined by a vertical cut. In order to reach the upper edge of a long strip of bark it was often necessary to build a crude scaffolding against the tree. Beginning at the edge of the vertical cut, the bark on each side was loosened from the wood by use of a tapering wedge that was gradually worked in all around until the large sheet of bark came off entirely. This thick bark could be divided into thin sheets by peeling it off layer by layer. If the bark was removed without injuring the sap layer the tree would continue to grow and a new layer of bark would be formed.”
It seems unbelievable that a new layer of bark would form, but I guess you never know until you try. I haven’t tried yet because both those trees are harder to find here. I’ll have venture down to the riverside sometime and look for them.
do you know the best way to make an incision? knife, axe, hatchet, stone? what do you think would work best?
Most cutting tools work just fine. I like saw edged stones or a saw the most so far. I think it depends on the type of knife/wood, and when and where one find the two. I found several western red cedars that I gather several 4.5 feet long by 2 feet wide bark slabs. It just depends, though, because some bark skins easier under certain situations.
From what I have tried, I would recommend something bigger than a knife. I find that like with a hatchet or machete my hand to eye coordination isn’t very good so I have trouble cutting where I want to cut. But they do get through the thick bark. A saw would probably work well and with more control.
I’ve heard that if you remove a ring of bark from all the way around a tree, the tree will die. Presumably this is what happens if you do injure the sap layer… I mention this as, if it’s true, I’d hate you to find out the hard way. ???
It does kill the tree if one removes the bark all the way around. I’ve never used live trees anyway, I’ve always used offerings like dead trees or ones that that fallen over from a storm or erosion.
i took a walk in the woods the other day. thinking about the earth lodge i walked right up to a downed basswood, still alive. it had come down over a trail so i knew it would be taken to clear the path. i went and got a saw and my hatchet. making the horizontal (sp?) cuts was the hardest. i used the saw for that. it was difficult to tell whether i had gone deep enough or not. but i found out later when the bark would tear where i hadnt cut deep enough. next i pounded my hatchet in a vertical line. then started to run my hands through the cut. the wood was wet and slimmy. you could hear it pop right from the tree. some of the sections were at least 3 feet by 5 feet. it will make great roofing shingles. afterward i sat with the tree. i could feel in myself an attitude of thankfulness, not so much a thought but a feeling. this tree is going to help me live. this tree gave its skin to me. and it was happy to do it cause now it was being put to use instead of finding itself chopped up in a mulcher. and it is not only being put to use but put to use in a primitive fashion, in the old way, the way its ancestors remember. i have to believe i am honoring this elder, and this elder honoring me. we have entered into a balance relationship. it is teaching me how to be at balance with this earth. we are both happy, we are both thankful. it is right.
i also gathered sections of its wood for bowls, spoons and fire boards. i also gathered its leaves and was fed. this tree is now part of me. part of my body, part of my mind, part of my spirit.
Your story makes me happy, tree whisperer. I had a similar situation once where a willow tree gave itself to me. I believe that when we allow ourselves to open up to the life around us, the life responds.
all life waits for us to open. and once we realize what destruction we have brought to our brothers and sisters, our mother and father, our relatives are there to comfort us. they have already forgiven our sins, they are there to welcome us back in, that is all they have ever wanted of us, simply to acknowledge them and there right to live.
once we realize that all our relations give freely to us, that we do not need to enslave and imprison them, beautiful things begin to happen. we begin to truly live, we become awake.
A Quick Note on Tree Biology:
Trees translocate nutrients and water up and down the trunk of the tree using two layers of specialized cells: Xylem and Phloem. Together, xylem and phloem are generated by unspecialized cells around the outside of the tree called the cambium. (Think stem cells for plants and you’re in the ballpark.) Cambium grows in six different directions: up and down creating height, side to side creating girth, and inward and outward adding volume.
The cells that grow to the inside of the cambium form the xylem, which transports mostly water. As the tree dies, layers of previous years xylem become dormant, and eventually die, creating the interior wood of a tree. Bonus! The rate that xylem cells grow change depending on the time of the year - they grow very fast and not at all densely in the spring and summer, and slow down in the fall and winter - this is where annual rings come from: the change in density of the cells from the xylem of previous seasons!
Phloem (you guessed it) grows out of the cambium and generally carries nutrients up and down the tree in the form of complex sugars coming down from the leaves, and minerals being absorbed from the roots going into the leaves and cambium. As phloem ages, it also dies, but instead of creating wood, it creates bark. The layer of dormant phloem on the outside of the tree is called the peritinium (I think, I might have to consult a text-book). Some trees have a long-lived peritinium that doesn’t flake much, and has a pretty good deal of stretch to it. This is where you get smooth-barked trees like sycamores and beech trees. Shorter-lived peritinium tend to build layers over the years, and as the tree expands, these layers separate in almost-regular patterns that create the ridges and furrows in bark. (I might have gotten a couple of those mixed up between thin bark and short-lived, blah blah - it’s been a while since I’ve read a botany text book).
So: In summary, as long as you don’t damage the cambium, the tree will eventually be able to re-coup after removing the bark. This is a lot more difficult than it seems, since any tree worth it’s salt has developed its particular style of bark for a good reason: it works. Also, removing the bark from a tree removes it’s primary form of defense against cold (yes trees can be damaged by frost) physical injury, insects, fungus, etc. I imagine it will take an extremely skilled hand in order to pull it off (no pun intended). Best of luck to you in the future, and I’m glad to hear you found a guilt-free source of bark! ;D
~ SW
so the erath lodge is mostly finished, save a few details here and there. my friend got credit for school to help me build it. he made a website that has some pictures on it.
tree whisperer,
this sounds really exciting!
and i just looked at the blog your friend made and it says he’s in minnesota- me too!
and i love how you said this:
once we realize that all our relations give freely to us, that we do not need to enslave and imprison them, beautiful things begin to happen. we begin to truly live, we become awake.beautiful:)
I Minnesota. 
Check out the link in my signature line. It leads to a painting by Francis Lee Jaques, a MN artist, and inclues his biography. (There are a smattering of French names in northern MN - comes from the fur traders, or Voyageurs, who came down from Canada.) His love for nature just glows in every one of his paintings (and I’ve seen a lot of his work, including many originals). The place where I grew up (surrounding the little town of Aitkin) is depicted in many of his paintings. Most of the paintings are located somewhere in Minnesota, either in private collections, at the University of MN, or in the custody of the Jaques Art Center in Aitkin.
silverarrow,
ah yes, i usually go through aitkin about once or twice a year. i hadn’t heard of francis lee jaques before, but his artwork is beautiful- thanks for sharing! perhaps next time i go through aitkin i’ll have to stop at the art center:)
Please do! It’s in the old Carnegie library by the water tower and the courthouse, 1 block away from “the stoplight.” 
(The Victorian house across the street with the turrets [which is now a law office] belongs to my dad, BTW, and he’s painting it right now to look like a San Francisco “painted lady” with bright colors for the siding/window frames/doors/etc.)
minnesota you say, we should take a walk in the woods sometime
tree whisperer,
where abouts are you?
western suburbs of minneapolis