Birch bark or birchbark is the bark of several Eurasian and North Americanbirch trees of the genus Betula. The strong and water-resistant cardboard-like bark can be easily cut, bent, and sewn, which has made it a valuable building, crafting, and writing material, since pre-historic times. Even today, birch bark remains a popular type of wood for various handicrafts and arts. Birch bark also contains substances of medicinal and chemical interest. Some of those products also have fungicidal properties that help preserve bark artifacts, as well as food preserved in bark containers.
Collection and storage
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 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 layer, the phloem, kills the tree by preventing the flow of sap to the roots. To prevent it from rolling up during storage, the bark should be spread open and kept pressed flat.
Working
Birch bark can be cut with a sharp knife, and worked like cardboard. For sharp bending, the fold should be scored first with a blunt stylus. Fresh bark can be worked as is; bark that has dried up should be softened by steaming, by soaking in warm water, or over a fire.
Uses
Birch bark was a valuable construction material in any part of the world where birch trees were available. Containers such as wrappings, bags, baskets, boxes, or quivers were made by most societies well before pottery was invented. Other uses include:
In various Asian countries birch bark was used to make storage boxes, paper, tinder, canoes, roof coverings, tents, and waterproof covering for composite bows, such as the Mongol bow, the Chinese bow, Korean bow, Turkish bows, Assyrian bow, the Perso-Parthian bow...etc. It is still being used. More than one variety of birch is used.
In Scandinavia and Finland, it was used as the substratum of sod roofs and birch-bark roofs, for making boxes, casks and buckets, fishing implements, and shoes.
In Russia, many birch bark manuscripts have survived from the Middle Ages.
Birch bark knife handles are popular tools to be made currently.
In India, birch-bark, along with dried palm leaves, were the primary writing supports before the widespread advent of paper in the second millennium CE. The oldest known Buddhist manuscripts, from Afghanistan, were written on birch bark.
