Catching the drift
Living amidst a sea of trees, most Yukoners might take wood for granted. But imagine this: a spruce tree toppling into the Yukon River might eventually wash up on a gravel beach along the Bering Sea, where it is spotted by a Yup'ik carver, who has been scanning the beach all season for just such a piece. At home working with adze and crooked knife, he shapes it into a bowl, which might now hold seal meat or blubber.
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Almost 1,500 years old, this fragment of a wooden bow was carved from driftwood.
(photo: Claire Alix)
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Every year, trees which have fallen into the Yukon, Kuskokwim, Mackenzie and other northern rivers are washed out to the Arctic and Subarctic coasts of Alaska and Canada. For thousands of years, people living far from tree line have depended on this wood, an unreliable resource which can be abundant in some years and scarce in others.
"In southwest Alaska people would sing to bring back the driftwood," explained Claire Alix, a researcher at the Alaska Quaternary Center. "They called for the return of the wood like they would call for the return of the seals."
In the old days, the Arctic peoples relying upon driftwood might never have seen a growing tree with their own eyes. Today, driftwood is still used by Eskimo, Inuit and Inuvialuit in Alaska and Canada. They may use it for carving spoons, masks and other ornamental pieces, or burn it to help heat their homes. Driftwood is used for smoking fish and for warming up their steambaths.
During a December lecture for the Yukon Science Institute, Alix described how many northern archaeological sites are filled with wooden items. "In late-prehistoric cultures, wood composes 12 to 55 per cent of the cultural artefacts from both the western and eastern Arctic," she said, adding that well-preserved wooden products have been found even in sites dating back to 2500 BC.
Driftwood can travel great distances when it is frozen into the ice, even drifting across the Arctic Ocean. "Driftwood can take a minimum of five to six years to travel from the Chukchi Sea to Fram Strait northeast of Greenland," said Alix. "The trajectory of the wood is the same as the trajectory of the sea ice."
The origin of a piece of driftwood can be determined through the science of dendochronology, the study of tree rings. Factors such as precipitation and temperature produce specific patterns of tree growth in a region. This local "signature" can be used to identify the patterns of tree ring widths in a piece of driftwood, and determine the region where it was once a living tree.
While her doctoral work focussed on wooden artefacts from Thule sites in the North American Arctic, Alix is now studying Yup'ik communities along the Bering Sea in southwest Alaska. More than anywhere else in the Arctic, Yup'ik people have always relied on driftwood, which comes from the interior forests of Alaska and the Yukon, floating west down the Yukon and Kuskokwim rivers.
Every spring, a month or so after the ice breaks up on the rivers, Yup'ik peoples begin scanning the beaches, looking for fresh supplies of wood. "People in these regions are always checking for the winds that are good for bringing in driftwood, which seem to be the same conditions that are good for salmon," said Alix.
The driftwood washing up on the beaches of the Yup'ik communities--mainly white spruce, cottonwood and willow-is still important for people there today. The men do most of the carving, and carefully choose wood to suit specific projects. For example, bowls are made out of mimernaq or stumps.
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This large spruce log, washed up on beach near Barrow, Alaska, can be a prized find in Arctic regions.
(photo: Claire Alix)
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Alix compared their selection process to that of a European craftsman choosing the right woods for making a violin. She compared teggaq, used for making hunting bows and sled runners, to compression wood, while unarciaq, used for making fish traps and the sides of bent-wood bowls, can be compared to highly prized resonance wood.
Straight-grained and free of knots, unarciaq comes from trees with regular growth rings, and Alix said such trees are as rare in the boreal forest of North America as they are in the Swiss forest of Europe.
To add to the challenges, a beautifully shaped piece of driftwood might not be suitable for carving by the time it washes up on an Arctic beach. Some have been attacked by wood borers; others have spent too long in the water.
"From the technical side, driftwood is also interesting," explained Alix. "Some ends up being perfectly seasoned while other pieces are waterlogged. Spruce has a maximum of 18 months of buoyancy and then it sinks."
