so in the picture I shared the tree on my right side is yellow cedar which usually only found in high elevations in the pacific coastal mountains where coniferous trees are grown or where cedar can prosper in the rich soils of British Columbia or Alaska at the highest points of our coast that is verily known to grow to gather this type of bark you would need to know kind of what it looks like on the outer bark and the way the bows separates’ from the red cedar bows its slightly different n has a very strong distinctive smell to the yellow cedar as to the red cedar has its own very unique smell to it as well. So by part in saying it took me a while to gather enough knowledge to where it grows n how to harvest n use this material in my art or my mothers art we do, we found it is very layered n denser compared to red cedar as it had shorter grains that made it come off the tree a lot different from red cedar n using it we found we had to boil the yellow cedar bark n let it soak for days to make more pliable n susceptible or it would break or part too early n making strands or plates. So boiling the bark was allowing us to be able to make yellow cedar hats or baskets.
so the time of year to harvest cedar bark is in the mid spring when the sap starts to run inside the inner bark n the tree which make it come off the tree in 30 to 40 foot strands ranging from a foot wide to half a footy wide to ensure the tree will survive the newly open part of the tree eventually these trees become culturally modified tree or CMT .. the forestry or logging company cannot log these trees as they are a trace of where culture is or was practiced.
there were three of us who gathered our yellow cedar … we picked enough and only enough to last us the year so sparingly got the yellow cedar bark which is about 4 forty foot rolls of bark.
