I just thought you ought to know,  I only harvest bark from trees that are already dead.  I took a course with Salt Spring Island basketmaker Joan Carrigan last fall, and I got the idea to harvest bark this way from her: all the cedar bark she uses in her work comes from trees felled on her friend's woodlot.


Stripping the bark off of a live tree in order to make my work would be like doing experiments on lab animals: in this place and time it's unjustifiable, extravagant.

This birch log near my home, pictured above, was felled a few years ago, but lots of the bark is still in good condition, perfectly adequate for the work I'm doing now. I'll interrupt its natural process by turning it into baskets for a few decades; and then someday, it will hit the compost pile again.