Before we even began our discussion, Marisa Thompson reminded us of the upcoming Think Trees Conference. This locally held annual meeting (Embassy Suites in Albuquerque near the intersection of I25 and Lomas) offers the latest in all things tree. The emphasis at the February 9-10 will be talks on drought, wildfire, and resilience. The early-bird registration fee is available until 16 January.
As we chatted about trees in general Marisa showed us a copy of her recent acquisition of Alex Shigo’s Tree Anatomy. She gave us a link to a review on goodreads. A little digging took me to the business Shigo and his wife founded to print his books and other resources (DVDs, etc now including tee-shirts with ‘pithy’ quotes) which is now run by their daughter. Although his books can be hard to find (at a reasonable price) online, they seem all to be available here.
And, it’s always the right time to thank Marisa for her support of our discussions. Thank you, Marisa!
We began with a video of an hour-long conversation between the author, Lars Mytting, and his translator into English, Paul Russell Garrett. I selected a few clips from different parts of the conversation focusing on Mytting’s intention in creating the story line, his use of language, and his thoughts on what he wishes to accomplish as a writer. I definitely recommend listening to the entire conversation.
His earlier book, Norwegian Wood, isn’t about the Beatles’ song. It is a non-fiction work on chopping, stacking, and drying wood the Scandinavian Way.
Subsequent to releasing The Sixteen Trees, he has been at work on The Sister Bells trilogy. Two volumes are out and there is a similar hour-long presentation for the second book, The Reindeer Hunters. I would imagine there’s also a presentation for the first book, The Bell in the Lake, although I didn’t find it poking around. Two people at the discussion are in the process of reading these two books and recommended them highly, suggesting that they really should be read in order. Having become Mytting fans, they also have read Norwegian Wood and confirmed that it’s basically a technical book. Interesting but definitely non-fiction.
Two tree species figure prominently in the book: flame birch and walnut. In the book, flame birch can be created by a system of metal withes tightened and loosened about the trees over the years. I tried to find instructions for doing this online, to no avail. I’m tempted to write the author and ask. What I found suggested rather that interesting grain is found by chance although examination of the bark can provide clues. One of my favorite videos is a 13 min 58 sec clip entitled ‘Forester looks for Birdseye Maple’ which is apparently about 10 years old and has had 88K views; mostly, I think, due to a surprise appearance by a bear.
Flame birch
These three links are really primarily for the images of flame birch in furniture.
https://irionlumber.com/species/flame-birch/
https://www.bellforestproducts.com/flame-birch/
http://tomsworkbench.com/2009/10/26/species-spotlight-flame-birch/
I also learned that there’s a rather loose use of terms like flame, curly, bird’s eye, etc that are used with varying degrees of precision. One video I watched purported to distinguish among them but was roundly trashed by other people who said this person was just a hobbyist and was using the terms incorrectly. Although there were also some interesting, if somewhat obscure (to me) comments as well. So, here’s the link. I’ve tried to be careful in the links I’ve chosen but the bottom line is that one should always read and watch with a grain of salt. Or at least look at multiple sources.
While the book was not about maple, I did find this interesting website that addressed the different types of grain patterns and included mostly links to instagram posts with examples of the different types of wood. Some hardly look real… at least to me. And I must say that I found many links on how to fake the more interesting grain patterns…
Walnut
I didn’t have this during the discussion but the sixteen trees were walnut. I had thought that a piece of their value was that they had been stressed by the Battle of the Somme but that wasn’t the case. Or, if it was, it’s simply in a sentence in passing. The value of the trees was that they were good walnuts and considered to be of excellent quality. The contract for their sale was also about rejuvenating the forest after the Battle of the Somme although that part didn’t go so well.
Just a bit about walnut wood here.
Taking another tack, I did a search on things that affect wood grain and came up with this very interesting series of videos that are each on the order of 15-25 minutes. The YouTube channel for the first few videos is called The Timber Industry and you can click on that to find at least some of the additional videos in the series. When I played the second video in the series, it had a different channel name and linked to several additional videos in the series. The first one is called Tree Growth and Structure and is quite a nice description of just that. I found the graphics to be really helpful.
And, in case you just want to see samples of wood in general, this is a good reference.
When Edvard goes to Einar’s workshop he finds a catalog to a 1925 furniture exhibition in Paris. While this isn’t the actual catalog, it does provide information about that exhibition, which was the introduction of Art Deco. This link includes a lot of architecture and only one image of furniture but it’s an interesting background piece to the time. This link has much less information and just a couple images but no furniture.
Edvard also finds a book, Anatomie du meuble, which can still be purchased.
Finally, on a non-tree topic, potatoes did figure in the story since the farm Edvard grew up on, and inherited was a potato farm. Although I don’t think this covers the varieties mentioned in the book here’s a description of a number of types of potatoes.
One interesting thing that came out during our discussion was the different connections people had to Norway, so that the book was interesting on a personal level. One person brought up that for at least some Europeans the two world wars were not as distinct as they seem to Americans and that the author did an elegant job of keeping them connected in a way that might seem natural to a European.