Bushcraft Trees: Eastern White Pine

We're here in the land of Eastern White Pine, Latin name Pinus strobus. Let's take a look at some uses. Here's a great key identification feature for the Eastern White Pine, the outstretched arms. They're wind swept and you can tell wind direction that way. The prominent wind direction comes from this way and that's why they're all swept that way. Makes total sense. They're made famous by the group of seven painters and Tom Thompson in particular. Here's a great example of a young Eastern White Pine. It's a very flexible wood, soft. The bark is edible, the inner bark. It's called the cambium layer. So there's the outer bark the cambium layer and then the wood you can actually eat the cambium layer it's not going to taste good but in a pinch it's useful white pine needles almost have a soft look to them here you can see what i mean white pine needles grow in groups of five here you can see what i mean there's a group of five another group of five so that's not one that's five each some pines have two some pines are short some pines are long this one groups of five and long here's a great example of two different kinds of white pine bark younger and older this is a younger white pine obviously not as young as the one i just showed you the sapling but as it gets older it starts to get a little bit harder this one way older than that and gets scaly bark on it super hard this one is smooth and on examples of old pine like this you can see the bark gets very furrowed and you can actually get your hand in there and pull it off or you take a knife and pry it out too sometimes it's hard to get with your hand but the bark has a bunch of uses as well you can take bark off of old trees to lay down on the ground so that you can build your fire on you can actually make a handhold for a bearing for a bow drill here like a bearing block out of this and you can also carve out of it it's very very soft you can make bobbers for fishing little uh spoons whatever just sitting by the fire my absolute favorite use for the white pine is fire you can go from nothing to fire in a half an hour with no tools with just one tree i'm not talking about eastern pine as a whole i'm talking one specific tree when i go camping i like to i'd like to bring cigars sometimes so that means i have a lighter with me maybe you're the same maybe you don't have any gear maybe you're just out for a hike and you need to make a fire or you just want to make a fire with just a lighter and one tree we're going to get a fire going when starting you want to start with the absolute smallest twigs like i'm not i'm not joking don't leave any of them behind grab all of these and you're going to need about a handful big handful of them to get this thing going this is the key to using no tools to get a fire very very small prep so a base is important a good base is very important especially in this snow so that's what i'm doing now i'm just getting thicker pieces breaking them to make a base. Now that I've created a good base on the snow I can start to gather my midsize fuel. I didn't want to do that before I got my base going because I don't want to carry this around as I'm doing it and I don't want to put my dry twigs on the wet ground so I'm just gonna rest them on the base until I'm done. So just something I wanted to say I'm doing this without gloves on and it's cold outside and your hands get real bitter just be careful if you're doing this this really it hurts sometimes when you break it if it breaks right in the middle where you're holding it it hurts lot i've got all my kindling laid out now my smallest in my hand my next size up my next size up and my fuel over here on the snow the fuel really doesn't matter that it's on the snow because it's not small this is how i'm lighting them i just broke the smallest kindling up uh bundle it together and snapped it off so there's a lot of exposed area with any luck this bundle will glow will burst into flames i'm just trying to get the wind to take it in the right spot we're just basically trying to let this generate some heat grow into a bigger flame i'm putting Putting it in towards the wind, see it starting to go, and then just pile all your sticks on right away. There's no need to pussyfoot around, you need to get a fire going. You can see how quickly that fire grew, and you could actually just keep breaking twigs and putting it on and make it as high as your body if you wanted it. It's a good way if you get dunked in the lake. It's very common to see the bark stripped off of a white pine at the top, and that's from a porcupine. A porcupine really likes eating the inner layer of the bark as well, and a lot of the times they'll actually hang out in the same tree where they do that at. a long time so a good chance that if you see a stripped layer of pine at the top that porcupine is still going to be up there and if you've got a 22 on you that's a good survival meal if you're interested in seeing any more videos on trees and their uses let me know in the comments thanks for watching guys take care when snow falls into your tinder bundle that's good