By Ava Rosette-Jules
North Thompson Museum Summer Student
Birch bark baskets have been made by Native Indigenous people for quite a long time and hold considerable importance in their culture.
They can do many things, hold the berries you’re going out to pick at your favourite berry picking spot, or they can also be something you keep or wear with pride. The baskets are very light and easy to carry around with you wherever you go.
Birch bark baskets can be made in many different sizes and shapes depending on who made them and what their personal style is when making them. The bark is gathered during late spring or early summer (which is when the bark will easily come off the tree)and you do not have to work very hard to remove it. Simply make one cut through the tree to receive your bark in the length that you want, and in that way you do not have to make any more cuts. The bark should easily come off the tree if you start harvesting in the right time period.
If you try to harvest the bark at any other time it will not come off the tree, then you would have to cut it off, and this would damage the tree.
A rim will be needed for your basket, but don’t worry about what specific thing you need for a rim as you can use anything such as a sapling, or a split stick. Whatever will bend around your basket and isn’t too delicate to work. You will also need to make a strip of bark to reinforce the rim.
The next step is to gather cedarwood roots to sew together. To pick out the cedar roots you want to find a root that is about the thickness of your finger, and you must split the roots two or three times down the center of each root.
The very last step is tracing out and cutting the pattern for your basket, then sewing it together, and finally, finishing your very own birch bark basket.
If you wish to decorate your basket use water birch or chokecherry birch.
If you would like to see some baskets made from ‘back in the day’ in their prime, stop in and see us at the North Thompson Museum & Archives, 343 Lilley Road in Barriere. The museum is open Tuesday to Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
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