Trees worth knowing

Worth knowing

• White birch. The bark lights wet and it is the best tinder there is.
• Black spruce. The dead low branches under it stay dry in rain, and the resin burns.
• Balsam fir. Boughs for a bed and a roof, and the bark blisters carry a sticky sap.
• Tamarack, called juniper here. Hard, heavy, slow to rot, good for a post in the ground.
• Alder. Wet and poor for firewood, good for smoking fish and for a quick pole.
• Dogberry, the mountain ash. Feeds the birds and tells you where the wet ground is.

How

1. Take dead wood standing off the tree, never wood off the ground.
2. Peel birch bark from dead trunks and downed birch, not off a live tree you want left standing.
3. Cut fir boughs for a bed from the underside of several trees so no one tree is stripped.
4. Split anything damp down to the dry core before you try to burn it.

Watch for

Notes

One birch and one dead spruce will get you a fire in the rain. Learn those two before anything else.