Adaka Festival: Birchbark basket

Of all the classes that I looked at, the class in making a birchbark basket with Christine Sam may have been the one I was most eagerly anticipating.

I remember going to my grandmother's house as a child, and, among other delights, she had two birch trees in her backyard. I was sent out to collect birch "faggots" — tiny thin branches that littered the ground under the trees after storm — for starting fires. I remember being fascinated with the soft white papery skin that one could peel off of those trees, and for a long time I was under the misapprehension that this was "birchbark." I'd read about birchbark canoes in "Last of the Mohicans" and had always wondered how a canoe could be made from that papery stuff and stay afloat.

Now I know better.

Among the First Nations people, birch bark is harvested with ceremony and respect in May when the sap starts running. A VERY shallow cut is made in the tree, just 1/8" deep, fully around the circumference in two places, then a vertical cut is made connecting the two circumference cuts. The entire rectangle is then gently and carefully peeled off of the tree. If the cut is any deeper, it will remove the lifeblood of the tree and kill it.
About harvesting birchbark
More about harvesting birchbark

Birchbark is sort of magical. Like honey and and spider silk, we cannot create it, and there really is no substitute. It's pliable and waterproof, and it is at once soft and strong and feels alive in the way only natural fibers can feel.

Fortunately, Christine Sam provided the sheets of birchbark for us. The trees she found must have been really large, because they were big sheets, maybe 12" x 15"! I was surprised at their size.

Getting our pieces of birchbark ready

The pattern she made for us to use was a "new design," she said, with two straight parallel sides and two sort of bulging sides. For latecomers to the class, she had smaller pieces of birchbark and a smaller pattern that was a simple square. All her patterns were made from cereal box cardboard. I was fortunate to get one of the larger pieces.

Folding the basket

We traced the pattern on our pieces of birchbark, and then cut it out with scissors. It's kind of like cutting out cardboard, but it's not quite so tough for the thickness.

After cutting out the pattern we warmed the birchbark over a hot plate! This makes the bark pliable so that it can be folded easily without cracking.

Origami principles apply.

We folded our baskets, and held the folds together with clothespins.

Christine did not have enough willow for everyone, so several of us went out of the Kwanlin Dun Center down by the Yukon River and searched for straight willow branches that we could use for our baskets. Of course, having a big basket made the search that much harder. Some people didn't know what willow looked like, and were trying to cut alder branches. I guess willow is time-honored and flexible.

We brought our willow branches back and then poked holes in the bark about every 2cm or so. You want enough holes to make it strong, but not so many that the bark is weakened.

Starting to stitch the basket together with spruce root.

We did not have to gather and prepare our own spruce root, which is a time-consuming process. I would like to do it some day, just to know how to do it. The best roots are long-running roots. As told to me, you have to dig them up, throw them on the fire briefly to get the dark outside loosened, then run through crumpled tin foil (or scraped with a knife). The root is then soaked in water to soften it, and split. When used for sewing or lashing, the curved part is on the outside so it's nice and smooth.
— How to gather and prepare spruce roots (traditional)

Once the holes have been poked, it's really simple (and fun) to lace the root through the birchbark, wrap it around the willow switch to stiffen the structure, and continue. Of course, I did it wrong to start out with, but Christine soon set me straight.

The shapes are interesting, too. The square pattern can make a low, wide, shallow basket, or one that is taller and narrower, just depending on how you fold it. Like I said, origami principles apply.

The baskets are so simple, and so lovely.

My finished basket. It's pretty large, and has such a graceful shape.
I love it, and hope I can get it home in one piece!

Moosehair tufting;
porcupine quill tufting at flower center

Birchbark has been used for so many things. It's relatively quick to make (faster than ceramics or basketry) from readily available materials. (In fact, they are so quick to make, it was one of the reasons Christine sent us on our willow hunt, just to slow us down a bit!) And when the basket is worn out, it can be returned to the earth.

My basket has one small crack in it along one of the folds, and Christine clucked and shook her head. They are not bad cracks, but she said, "See these diamonds? That bark is not so good, it cracks. Better to have straight lines on the bark." She added, "Must've been my husband who collected that piece." She also said that the tourists really like the lichen that grows on the bark. "They pay extra for that," she remarked. Indeed, her baskets command healthy prices: I saw one similar to mine in the gallery with a $140CA price tag!

Since we ended the class a bit early, there was time to walk around and see some of the other classes that were going on. Moosehair tufting is an interesting art that some people really love and have an affinity for. Imagine just taking a clump of hair, or a few porcupine quills, and then sewing the centers down so that the ends pop up. It's kind of like making pompoms, but you have to trim the pompoms to shape.

Ravenstail weaving

There was a class in making a kitchen knife, and people were busy making handles for their knife blades. It seemed like it was a pretty popular class, taken by both men and women.

There were classes in tooling copper, woodcarving, making a cedar hat, making a drum, making cedar rope, leather painting, stained glass, traditional design, and ravenstail weaving. This last craft I'm going to have to investigate because it looked both complicated and interesting.

It appears to be a combination between braiding and weaving. I love that it can be done without a loom, per se, and with very simple materials.

The pieces that are made are fairly small, but they are sewn (I guess) together almost like a patchwork quilt in order to make larger pieces, like aprons and capes. I'm itching to try it.

Crafts like these have been nearly lost.

While Canada appears to have done better with its First Nations peoples than the United States has, they are not without blame for some misdeeds. During the early part of the 1900s, native children were forcibly removed from their families and sent to Indian schools, ostensibly to educate the youth for their "betterment." (This is also what happened in Australia; if you've not seen the excellent move "Rabbit Proof Fence," it is about just this practice.) Unfortunately, the loss of family ties and culture was devastating, especially for a people for whom family is so important.

It's really hard for us to comprehend the ties to the land and family that the native people have. Some of the universal comments were: "I learned this from my grandmother," or "My auntie showed me how to do this," or "My grandpa told me this story." Identification by clan and tribe is important. We have lost this history and identification. It's just not valued in our heritage.

They are so in tune with the change of the seasons, the migrations of the animals, the growth of plants. They know when is the best time to harvest or hunt or fish. They know that if they do not work in the light of summer or fall, that they will go hungry and perish in the dark frozen nights. Children learn the value of work and have responsibilities. If everyone does not do their part, the family does not do well. Real responsibility is learned.

Respect for the land, and for your clan, and for your elders is just engrained. I read what one elder said about discipline: "There was never any problem with discipline, because that's not how we were raised." It seems that it didn't even occur to children to "misbehave," partly because the followed the good examples of their parents and relatives. Also, it's hard to hide bad behavior in a village where everyone knows what you are doing.

I have deep respect for these First Nations people. I think we could learn so much from them.

Discussing the merits of some of the boats: L to R: birchbark canoe, kayak, moosehide boat

Walking around at Adaka was invigorating and heartwarming to see the knowledge being shared and problems discussed and solved. It was so much fun to see the boats coming to life, and to walk around and see the other crafts that were being done.

The Maori put their final touches on their dugout boat. They explained that this design was a fusion of Maori and First Nations design and was for this launching ceremony only. It would be removed when the boat was "home" without destroying any part of the boat. They also had wood carvings that were going to be placed on the prow. 

"Joe" gives a talk on the making of the birchbark canoe.