Sturdy Basket from Brittle Bark

While I am not opposed to using bark from a living tree under the right circumstances, fresh bark isn’t easy to peel year-round, and with the abundance of downed trees in the temperate rainforests of the Pacific Northwest; I wanted to see if I could make a field-expedient sturdy container using dead bark.

It was easy to get a nice semi-circular section of bark from a dead hemlock, but when compared with fresh peeled living bark, it was obviously very brittle. For reinforcement I wrapped it up with some trailing blackberry vines and used them to cap the ends. While working on this I realized that this might be an easy solution for a crawfish/minnow trap by simply leaving it round and adding a funnel to one end. A project for another day perhaps.

I two-strand twisted some of the vines for a handle strap and the whole thing ended up being very sturdy. Adding leaves keeps the rotten bark off of whatever you might be gathering, and keeps things from falling through the holes in the end. I filled it up with rocks, gravel, and sand and shook it up and tossed it, and it held up great with only a small crack. I didn’t get a good shot of it, but the two woven caps are secured together underneath the basket to make sure that they don’t come loose and fall off. The entire vine portion could probably be refitted to a new piece of bark without too much trouble if necessary.

It would be easy to add a couple of leaves and vines to close it up to travel with once you fill it with whatever you gathered.

The whole project only took about forty minutes and the materials are available year round, with only deep snow being the exception, but I imagine it wouldn’t be difficult to use cedar withies as a substitute if the vines were inaccessible. With a few minutes spent gathering materials, this would be a very easy campfire project, as you don’t need to use sharp tools or the ability to see fine details while you’re putting it together.

As you can tell, I prefer the quick and dirty approach and “good enough” usually works for me, but I’m sure someone with an eye for aesthetics and more patience could make a much nicer version.

Materials Used:

Western Hemlock Bark (Tsuga heterophylla)
Trailing Blackberry Vines (Rubus ursinus)

Entertainment provided by Dryocopus pileatus

Knife: Mora Garberg Stainless

Music: Fredji – Endless Nights
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KePN7-dF_lw