WW: Cedar bark harvest

(Encountered this cedar while walking along the bay a few weeks ago. The distinctive scar is symptomatic of bark collecting by local indigenous persons in search of raw material for making baskets, clothing, and other practical items. And this time, if you look closely, you'll also see that someone has sketched a rough cartoon of an aboriginal man in charcoal on the debarked surface. Perhaps a portrait of the bark-harvester himself?

I've happened upon cedars like this in remote places since I was a kid. Always gives me a certain satisfaction to know that the First Nations are still out there, still being themselves, in the face of everything.)

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

WW: Climate disruption on the North Pacific

Salal (Gaultheria shallon)


Western red cedar (Thuja plicata)

(A particularly disturbing consequence of global climate disruption is the rapid perishing of species unique to the North Coast.

Because we have until recently had a specifically regional climate, a great many types of plants and animals have evolved to live only here. [Or here and and similar places they've invaded, such as the UK and the South Island of New Zealand.] These species have become emblematic of this place and the human cultures that developed here.

Like the disappearance of our starfish and the dying crowns of our bigleaf maples, watching these symbols of my homeland suffer and die in the arid blast-furnace heat of the new "normal" is heartrending. Other key examples are the salal and Western red cedar pictured here.

I saw several abnormally hot, dry summers in my youth, but the salal and cedars never died.)

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

WW: Aboriginal hole

(Found this giant old cedar stump on the beach some time ago. The hole has been a matter of conjecture ever since. It's clearly not the work of an animal; too clean and too conical.

But the clincher is that remnant of charcoal.

Only one culture I know around here did that, and they gave it up when they got steel. Until then, to determine whether a trunk was sound enough for construction, they gnawed a shallow pit in it with their knapped adzes, kindled a tiny fire inside, then deepened the test hole by pecking out the charred wood.

But the arrival of crosscut saws made it economical to fell first and ask questions later.

Is this stump old enough? Well, it's a stump, saturated with preservative resin, and has been pickling in a saline environment since it washed into the bay a long time ago.

And I haven’t come up with a better theory.)

WW: Old growth stump

 

(Western red cedar. About 7 feet in diameter and 15 feet tall. The notches are for the springboards they stuck in to reach the narrow part with their crosscut saws. This stump is about 100 years old; the tree was about 700 years old when cut.)

"Pioneers all we are bound/To root-hog or die on the Sound"

I had a lot of fun building this structure, which is about a foot and a half long by a little less wide. It encloses an electrical riser at the zendo. Any Old Settler will instantly know it for a split shack, also known as a slab (or slap) shack, or shotgun shack. It's what we lived in before there were trailers.

At its most elemental, the split shack is pole-framed, eight feet by ten, and sided in "splits," rough cedar boards froed directly off the log without benefit of saw. These were free for the taking, especially if you lived on the bay. Where nails were scarce you could knock it up with whittled pegs and an auger, or notch the splits and sew it together with rope, First Nations style. (This is basically just a hillbilly longhouse, anyway.)

Because splits come away thicker at the bottom than the top they impose slightly asymmetrical lines on the whole, for a touch of whimsy, as if brownies lived inside, or maybe hobbits.

Cabins of this lineage also usually had at least one window, in front, opposite the front door. If there was no glass, it was "glazed" with greased rawhide or paper and protected by a wooden shutter. Even glass windows were as likely to be bottle bottoms as plate.

I believe the various names originally referred to different cabins, though they're used interchangeably now. The derivation of "split shack" is obvious, but "slabs" were the round sides of logs ripped off by the head saw as they were squared for milling. As a waste product, slabs were cheap or free; in my day, it was common for families to order up a truckload from the local mill and make one of the kids (I'll call him "Robin") buck them for firewood. I'd bet even money that a true "slab shack" was sided with those instead of splits, and that the term "slap shack," as in something just "slapped up", is just a mutation.

As for "shotgun shack," I know why it's called that (because the front and back door are sited in such a way that you can fire a shotgun straight through without hitting anything), but I have no idea why it's a selling point. Seems a better plan would be not to shoot at the house in the first place.

By the way, the gravel this enclosure is bedded on came from the very beach I grew up on. By purest coincidence, there was a bucketful of this in the house, left over from a large philodendron my grandparents brought with them from the bay. This finally died during the years the house was locked up, and when I liquidated the remains, I kept the gravel the pot was lined with, just in case. The decision to put the two together made itself.

And it really wants a stove pipe. The oversight just glares. But the thing's supposed to be unobtrusive, and not attract attention to itself, so I didn't put one on. But it took all my determination.

Because it ain't home until it has one.