11/14/2025
WHEN A BIRCH TRUNK falls in the forest—as this one in our Pine Point woods did—the impervious bark lasts and lasts. It sometimes remains as a perfect cylinder on the ground, even after all the wood has rotted out. Nearly one thousand years ago, the old Norwegians discovered this, and found that during winter they could use those birch bark cylinders around their lower legs to keep the snow out. During a thirteenth century civil war, an infant prince was famously skied to safety by warriors wearing these birch bark leggings, called birkebeiners. Still today, famous cross country races in Norway and Wisconsin carry that name, with the racers wearing modern ‘gaiters.’
It is perhaps instructive in our time, in a less positive way, that when the outside of something is completely impervious (to facts, information?) the inside is susceptible to rot.
