Cedar Bark Fire

On our last mountain trip, Kelly gathered cedar butts (ends) from the logging slash piles for use at home (kindling).  While we were there, Ham Henry and I got an impromptu lesson on making fire with cedar bark.  Kelly knows that I want to become equally resourceful and not depend on him so much.

Pacific Northwest Indians depended on cedar trees like Kelly’s Ojibwe tribe depended on birch trees.  We both enjoyed reading/skimming the book “Cedar” by Hilary Stewart.  This book is about people of the cedar, as well as uses and how to process the wood, bark, withes, and roots — it is amazing what can be done with cedar.  The last chapter talks about spiritual realms, beliefs, taboos, rituals, healing and prayers.  If done correctly, it is possible to remove bark from a live tree without killing the tree.

For our fire demonstration, we used old bark.  Let’s see if I can explain it. You take the bark, break it in the middle and pull off the inner part.  Then you take both ends of the inner part and twist it in opposite directions using in a circular motion.  When it starts to break up, rub it between both hands until it gets nice and fluffy.  When you get a nice pile of the fluffy stuff use a flint and steel to put sparks into it.  If it is windy, like our day was, then use a small piece of char cloth on top of the tinder bundle.  For instructions how to make char cloth, click here.

Kelly carries flint, steel and char cloth each time he goes to the mountains.  He said this little bundle (shown in the center of the plank –top left of bottom photo) could be folded up, secured with twine and carried in a pocket.