Tag Archives: Maskwi

Birch Sap

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On an early-morning amble through the decommissioned shale pit near our house today, I noticed a cloudly icicle hanging from the cut end of a tree. The maskwi (white birch) had toppled over sometime last year and I cut it in the winter so I could use the path. I didn’t bother severing the trunk from the ground, so it was still alive. The temperatures had fallen to -5C overnight, so the sap that was rising froze as it dripped.

I broke off a piece and popped it in my mouth, and there was the faintest sweetness there. Collect enough and boil it down and a sweet syrup can be created.

I have never seen this before, a sapicle. I’ve seen lots of maskwi stumps, but it must have been the angle that the trunk was leaning that allowed this sweet phenomenon to occur.

Every time I go for a walk in the forest next to our house, I see something new. Every time. You might think that’s an exaggeration, that I can still find something new here after 60 years, but I do, and it still surprises me. Something as simple as some dripping sap can connect me to the gifts of the earth and the power of the sun and the magic of walking slowly and looking with newly-opened morning eyes.

An icicle made of sap hanging from the cut end of a maskwi/white birch tree, with other trees standing behind it.

Post-Fiona Maskwi

Updated my page documenting the healing journey of the maskwi (birch) trees that were first harvested in July 2021 by my friend Kay, an amazing Mi’kmaq porcupine quill artist who uses the bark as the backing for her pieces.

The trees seem to be doing very well, the dark bark starting to peel off on some of the trees revealing a lighter layer underneath.

Dark bark coming off, lighter layer underneath

Storm Fiona was not kind to parts of our woodland, but the trees I have been documenting all survived in the midst of severe damage all around them. Birch are bendy, and they seemed to whip in the wind better than the white spruce that toppled all around them. Before Fiona, the “group photo” had been easily accessible along a trail we have had for decades; this time I had to climb over and under piles of trees to get there, the trail completely buried. The devestation remains breathtaking.

It’s difficult to capture, but this was a stand of towering 60-year-old white spruce, all felled by Fiona.

If you live in Mi’kmaki and are settled on land that has white birch, I hope you will consider allowing a harvest to take place. It is a different aesthetic, to be sure, and some people who see the trees near our house think they have been damaged or vandalized. I have, unfortunately, had some uncomfortable conversations with people about why I would allow the trees to be stripped, how ugly they look now.

I think the trees look beautiful, and the ceremony used to harvest the bark is a lesson to all who take from nature. Offering tobacco and a prayer to the tree is part of the bark harvest, and a relationship is formed between the harvester and the trees. I can’t imagine someone getting ready to mow down a bunch of trees in a huge machine making an offering to the trees they are about to destroy.

Where some see vandalism, I see justice, respect, and 12 millennia of history.

A Flock of Robins

Just now, as I was looking out the living room window trying to decide how to spend this day, a flock of robins bounced down our lane. Two, then three, leapfrogging over each other. Moving from the red dirt road to the green grass, all of it covered with leaves from the white birch, the maskwi.

I counted seven in all, running and hopping, turning over leaves that were nearly the same colour as their beautiful rusty breasts. They were finding little earthworms and the ancient sowbugs, tiny crustaceans that walk on earth.

As the last robin hopped out of my view, I was still undecided as to what I should do with the rest of this day, still fresh and new, but my robin friends certainly reminded me to walk lightly on the earth and appreciate whatever I find. The sun is finally up and the maskwi are glowing in its light.

Maskwi

I’ve added a page to my site to track the regeneration of birch bark trees that were first harvested in July 2021. I’m told it will take about five years for the white bark to remerge, so I intend to photograph the trees every six months to document that process.

It’s been interesting to watch the bark change from a light soft leathery feel to dark and hard. The trees did not bleed and I didn’t notice any difference in the leaf drop in autumn. While the trees probably wonder where the bark went, they seem to be just getting to work and growing more bark!

I believe some of the harvested bark is included in quillwork pieces that are part of the exhibit called Matues Revisited that is on until March 13, 2022 at the Mary E. Black Gallery in Kjipuktuk/Halifax, Nova Scotia. I told the trees this news, and they nodded and swayed in appreciation.