Cedars - the sequel

My friend, fiber artist Melinda West, sent me some additional pictures of yellow cedar, so I thought I would continue the thread I started yesterday with the Tale of two cedars. She also forwarded me a link to fiber arts magazine that showcases fiber art constructed from a mixture of yellow and red cedar.

This is the fallen yellow cedar from which she stripped bark on our incredibly steep hike up to Summerland.

fallen yellow cedar - Mount Rainier

Melinda exposes yellow cedar inner bark

I mentioned in my previous posting that yellow cedar occurs in mountains of the Pacific coast. It ranges from Alaska to Northern California. Some sad news is that stands of Alaska Yellow Cedar are dying from root freezing due to global warming. Even though yellow cedar thrives in mountain temperatures, they are being killed by severe cold snaps early and late in the season. This is happening because of the absence of an insulating blanket of snow due to late snow fall and early snow melt resulting from climate change.

Yellow Cedar decline in Alaska

To close this sequel to cedars, I want to share a wonderful Nootka legend about the creation of yellow cedar or Nootka Cypress:

One day the trickster Raven encountered three young women drying salmon on the beach. He asked, "Aren't you afraid to be out here alone?'  "No", the women replied.  "Aren't you afraid of bears?", he asked. "No!!"  "Wolves?" "No!!"  Only when he asked about owls did they admit that they were frightened. For a joke, The Raven hid in the forest and made  owl sounds. The women were so terrified that they ran up the mountainside. When they ran out of breath the three women turned into Nootka Cypress trees. According to the Nootka, this is why Nootka Cypress grows on the sides of mountains and explains why the bark is silky like a woman's hair and the young trunk is smooth like a woman's body.