The Canoe Birch 143 



small, flat, and sharp-pointed. The fruit ripens 

 in autumn, when it falls apart. The seeds them- 

 selves are winged, the nut narrower than the 

 filmy wings on each side, which help the winds to 

 carry them far and wide. 



On the canoe birch the bark is of many colors 

 from dark red on the twigs to a beautiful 

 creamy white on the trunk; nearer the ground it 

 is almost black. The inner bark is orange-colored 

 and easily stripped from the trunk. Thin sheets 

 of it give to the woodsman a sheet fairer and more 

 fragrant than the finest papers made by man. 



The wood is light and hard, with a reddish 

 tinge. The lasts used for making shoes are often 

 of birch. Shoe pegs, too, are made of it, and 

 many articles in daily use, from small spools to 

 school desks and church pews. 



Valuable as the wood is, it is the birch bark 

 for which the tree is famous. It was the one tree 

 the Indian could not well have done without. 

 Broad sheets of this light, strong bark gave him 

 his "wigwam." His fires were kindled with 

 strips of the outer bark and kept burning with 

 the wood of the same tree, a wood that, green 

 or dry, will always burn. 



