Birch Bark Torches
Grandfather is making birch bark torches. That means Chogan and Grandfather will be spearing fish tonight. Chogan and Grandfather frequently speared fish at night with the help of torches. Fish are attracted to the torch’s light. When the fish approach the canoe, Grandfather spears them. Spearing fish at night with the aid of a torch or other artificial light is illegal in most states, but torches can still be useful. Ali and Briqlie will be happy to show you how to make a birch bark torch if you are interested. All you need are a few strips of birch bark and some twine.
Cutting Birch Bark Strips
Cutting birch bark strips is the first step in making a torch. The strips should be about one inch wide and as long as the torch. At the left Briqlie is cutting strips using a bone knife. Once she scores the bark, she can bend the strip backward to break it from the remaining bark. Chogan would have used a bone knife like Briqlie, but a box cutter works much better.
Basswood Binders
We now need a binding material to hold the birch bark strips together. Ali could have used cord made from milkweed, but she chose to use the inner bark of the basswood tree. She soaked a small basswood log in a river for two weeks. Then she separated the bark from the log. But what she really needs is just the inner layer of bark. When the bark has been soaked in water, the inner bark can be teased out as Ali is doing in the picture at the right. The inner bark of the basswood tree is fibrous and very strong.
Binding the Torch
Now we need to bind everything together. Briqlie has wrapped her strips of bark inside a bark shell separated from a two-inch diameter branch and now holds the assembly while Ali binds everything together with her basswood strips. Ali places bindings every two inches, since they will also burn as the fire consumes the torch.
Finished Torch
It works! Ali was able to wave the torch without extinguishing it. The reason the birch bark torch works so well is the ventilation from below. A solid cylinder will only burn around the top rim, because oxygen cannot reach the center. With the birch bark torch, oxygen is sucked up between the strips of bark, and the torch burns across the torch top’s entire surface. The torch Ali has at the right measured two inches in diameter and about twelve inches long. It burned for ten minutes.