Birchbark Trail Kettle Making Demonstration

Remember the birch log this little gnome liked to climb?

I was amazed to see that while the wood was very soft and rotten, the birchbark was not the least bit decayed. That explains why the American Indians used birchbark to make containers and canoes. Birchbark is not only resistant to decay, but it is waterproof. I peeled some of the bark off the rotten log and brought it home. Do not peel bark off a living tree; the tree will die.

I soaked the bark for a while to make it more pliable. But even after soaking, this old birchbark was brittle.


I trimmed a good piece of bark with scissors.


I scored the bark with a nut pick, using a straight edge.


Then I folded all the score marks, pulling the corners out.


I poked holes in the corners with a pin.


I stuck a bit of toothpick into the holes to hold the container together. This doesn't look very neat for a container of this scale, but American Indians held their birchbark containers together using either a splinter of wood or sewing. A large container made like this could be constructed by a hunter in a few minutes, and used to cook soup, as long as the flames of the fire didn't flicker above the level of the soup. My container has a tiny knot hole in it, so it leaks!


I learned how to make a birchbark trail kettle from C. Keith Wilbur, M.D.'s book Indian Handcrafts.

If you would like to learn how to make a model of a birch bark container that you can use to hold liquids, scroll down to the next posting.