I think the simplest ideas are often the most useful. As I walk through the woods, stump shooting or even when I’m hunting, I gather peeling birchbark. Compressed to a depth of 1/2″ and stuffed into the bottom of my back quiver, it protects the broadheads and reduces arrow noise. When I use a bow quiver, I put the birchbark into one of my cargo pockets.
This is a great source of reliable tinder when I want to light a fire. I also carry an old prescription bottle filled with cotton balls covered with petroleum jelly. It is a simple matter to light one, and then add the birch peelings and progressively larger tinder for a good fire.
Editor’s Note: See our previous tip, Make Fire Starters with Cotton Balls and Vaseline.
Birch bark can be rendered into oil and used as an astringent for skin irritations say from poison ivy, insecticide, fungicide, a leather and wood preservative and a wood stain just to name a few in-the-field uses. https://youtu.be/-lne2kZiUmo
Birch bark will light even when wet. I put some is a jar of water, let it sit for three days, then pulled it out and put a match to it. It took a few seconds, but then lit up and blazed away. It’s super lightweight and compresses down easily, so I keep a sandwich sized zip-loc bag full of bark and two disposable lighters in my pack.
Great points about birch bark. Now that I spend more time in coniferous forests I usually rely on dead dry twigs from the understory as fire-starting material, but in the deciduous forests I roamed as a kid nothing beat birch bark. I’d like to point out another important use of birch bark for traditional bowhunters. Nothing makes a better moose call. All kinds of commercial substitutes are available nowadays, but a birch bark call is the real thing. Ingredients are readily available, they are easy to fashion into a call, and moose always seem to believe them. Best, Don
Insta-Flame. That’s what my Scout Troop and later my BSA Venture Crew used to call birch bark. There simply was no more reliable fire starter out there, especially in wet conditions. I like the idea of using it in a quiver, so you’ll always have some handy. There aren’t always birch trees around. Gray, Yellow, and of course White or Paper Birch have all worked for me!
Curious about Birch bark. Do you remove from dead standing trees? If removing from live tree, if you strip it completely around does it kill the tree?
Hi Steve. Great question! Here’s what I found a Wikipedia, so understand that it might just be someone’s opinion.
Removing birch bark from live trees is harmful to tree health and should be avoided. Instead, it can be removed fairly easily from the trunk or branches of dead wood, by cutting a slit lengthwise through the bark and pulling or prying it away from the wood. The best time for collection is spring or early summer, as the bark is of better quality and most easily removed.
Removing the outer (light) layer of bark from the trunk of a living tree may not kill it, but probably weakens it and makes it more prone to infections. Removal of the inner (dark) layer, the phloem, kills the tree by preventing the flow of sap to the roots.
If not stripped properly you kill the tree. Always just use the curled up edges.
Thanks, birch bark can also be processed to harvest oil from it to me used on wooden handles, wooden bows, etc…
That’s a very practical suggestion, thanks Susan! I’ll do that next time when afield as it give me an instant fire should I be in an emergency.r
Split late winter, early spring cut 16″ birch firewood once on an edge (not necessarily in the middle). When the sap is flowing it will be easy to strip all the bark off, even down to the white wood. Using a knife you can peel off just the outer white bark down to the more orange or yellow inner bark. 1/16″ thick bark is all that is needed to roll up a nice birch bark moose call. Thinner strips of bark from younger pole sized trees will be more limber and can be crafted into baskets or containers that have folded corners. Avoid large branch scars.
Check with the local timber industry cutting birch or the local forestry agency managing birch by harvesting and find out future harvesting areas. Cut birch bark from well formed branch free birch during early June when the prim roses are flowering. Bark will pop off the tree at this time. Make shallow cuts at the top and bottom around the tree and from top to bottom connecting those two cuts. I use a folding hawks bill knife and am careful to cut only 1/8 inch down through the bark. Carefully pry up the bark on this long edge, slide your stiff fingers and then hand under the bark and pop the sheet off. Don’t cut the bark longer off the tree than your intended call or implement length plus maybe one inch. Pack you bark out in bundles laid flat and tied together with string or sissel twine.
Try to harvest your bark away from the road system so folks that might melt easily won’t be offended.
Properly done this will not kill or girdle the tree. A fast growing, healthy birch, dominate or co-dominant within the stand should grow back this bark within 10 to 15 years after harvest. It is not apparent to me however whether this new grown back bark would again be suitable for birch bark harvesting. Select bark that only meets your personal needs or requirements. I like thicker bark off trees larger than 8″ dbh for moose calls. You could make a template out of poster board or other durable but flexible material. I don’t cut out the call with the template but use an ultra fine sharpie to trace the call from the template to the tree. Cutting rectangular pieces of bark is preferable for me at this time because I use the scraps for ornaments, and cut outs pasted on my calls.
My calls are a hobby and quite time consuming. I’ve never taken the time to go commercial. It is a fun craft using a renewable and sustainable resource from the north country.