My intrigue with tree sap began unknowingly many years ago in my Australian childhood. Fascinated by the shiraz-colored sap that oozed from Jarrah trees, I would take a stick to the sticky fluid. Bursting bubbles of crystalized sap and scraping away at the giant trees seemed like a satisfying pastime for an Aussie kid who enjoyed being out on the farm with her grandfather.
Move full forward to my Alaskan life and the renewal of my commitment to play with the sticky amber fluid that drops like slow tears from the awkward-shaped spruce trees I have grown to love in my new home.
In my work with teachers, I formed a working relationship with the Store Outside Your Door, a philosophy and series of videos by the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium. We did a workshop on botanicals and ethnobotany at Twin Bears Camp, and Marcia Anderson brought a book with her that I had yet to come across. Entitled the Boreal Herbal by Beverly Gray, this book confirmed research I had put together on plants and their purposes up here in the interior of Alaska.
Gray includes a section on trees, and I read of the potential found in spruce resin. So, I set out in early spring to harvest my first resin. One can harvest resin in the winter, but spring with milder temperatures is a much better option due to the challenges of being outside for long at twenty below or colder.
Spruce resin and I have not always had a harmonious relationship. When Dan and I built our first log cabin together, my role was to peel logs for the cabin walls. I stripped bark diligently, and resin, like it or not, attached to me as the out bark of the spruce trees peeled off. By the end of each day, I had pitch over my clothing and arms. My rustic pot of hot water, soap, and flannel did little to relieve my skin of its tar. I often fell asleep in our canvas tent, worn out from physical work and sticky.
Many years after I helped build that cabin, I learned that peanut butter does wondrous things when applied to skin covered in resin. When smeared liberally on skin plastered with pitch, the high oil content interacts with the resin to lift it, leaving the skin pitch-free albeit greasy.
My first resin harvest took hours as I meticulously pulled off jewel-like amber beads from the trees around my home. Spruce resin is naturally occurring. It can happen from wounds to the tree’s inner cambium layer, but sap also appears where knots in the tree form. Animals using the trees, such as woodpeckers and squirrels, can also cause the resin to run.
While my first patch of resin salve was a work of art, I reflected that I could speed up the long hours of harvest.
I knew that it would not harm the tree to knock the sap off it and that scraping the resin would not hurt the tree as long as I did not pierce the bark or peel it off over a large area. I observed that often an outer piece of bark was lifting due to resin running all over it and that I could pull these pieces without harm to the tree.
With these observations in place, I began a slightly quicker process for harvesting resin. I use a tool touted as an avocado pipper to help pull resin from the trees. It has a nice rounded handle and a dull, rounded blade. This tool allows me to chip away at solidified resin. I use the device in one hand and then hold a ziplock bag under the area of the tree I am working on to capture the sap. I also pull bark saturated in resin that is lifting off the tree. You can see examples of that in the video below.
By designating a pot just for resin salve, I can cope with the plant material being less than pristine. My resin pot has rugged ridges of resin left from previous batches, but it works to amalgamate the oil and resin. I used to add beeswax to help solidify my salve in the resin pot, but now I do that last step in a clean double boiler. You could also microwave the final recipe ready to be poured. I did this because folks who like to buy natural products also like sanitary products. I was puzzled when a customer brought back a salve and stated, “It had bits in it.”
Taken aback, I tried to explain that I had harvested from local trees and then added oil and beeswax while trying to filter out plant debris. I learned that a clean look to my product is better. My processes are clean, but plant material and tiny bits of plant material concern some consumers, and I need to acknowledge that. Therefore, it has been a good practice for me to filter my salves further. I also believe that by videoing my work, I can show why I have “bits” in my balms and perhaps connect more people to using plants for medicinal, cosmetic, and healing uses.
My spruce resin salve is my favorite product. Every part of this process is enjoyable to me. My product connects me to my deep love of Alaska and the places I visit that are part of my home. Resin collection is a part of the life that I lead up here.
I collect resin on my property often. This makes sense. I have twenty acres, and I know which trees produce sap. So I make my rounds in the summer, fall, and spring to collect from trees on my land. I will collect resin in winter if I run out, but this is a more challenging process, not because of the collection but due to negative temperatures. My hands get cold quickly, and I find it challenging to kneel in the snow for too long.
A favorite place where I collect resin is near Mineral Lakes. Big old white spruce trees have grown up by the river there—my family hikes down from the road, a pleasant half-hour hike. Depending on the time of year, we pick Labrador Tea, berries, or Coltsfoot on the way down or back. I love to fish for Northern Pike here, and a large Pike is often waiting in the reeds. The water is clear, and everyone comes home with a fish on a good day.
Mineral Lakes is one of those first fish memory places we have for our community. My daughter joined the ranks of kids who caught their first fish in this spot. The rich waters of Mineral Lakes ensure rich feeding and breeding grounds for many of our local fish species. Tiny pike and grayling shelter in the mouth of the river brings much joy to our youngest anglers and their parents.
I will fish for a while, a big Northern on the line is so much fun, and we enjoy fresh fish despite the bones. We use ugly stiks that are easy to carry down to the mouth of the lake. Then, once I tire of fishing, I head to the trees. I love these big white spruce trees. The river runs through, making a pleasant bubbling sound as it courses forward. I hear the occasional eagle, numerous waterfowl, the sound of a child reeling in their first fish, and then my little tool chipping and scraping the sap.
Horsetail grows in multitude in the shade of these solid trees, so helpful to keep mosquitoes at bay. We throw handfuls onto a fire, the smoke causing a deterrent for these ever-constant insects.
I lose track of time working with these trees, enjoying the peripheral sounds and the quiet of the boreal forest. I carry a pistol, I am silent as I move from the stream, and the kids and I enjoy this peaceful time. However, quiet could mean that a bear and I could be surprised by each other’s presence. While I have seen signs of bears down at Mineral Lakes, I have never run into one.
My spruce resin salve serves medicinal purposes for our household. We use it on cold sores, to relieve joint inflammation, and as an inhalation in steam to clear congestion. Dabbed on one’s temples or wrists, it has an invigorating aroma that connects one to the natural world, even on the coldest days in Alaska when it is challenging to spend time out of doors. Beyond the practical applications, Spruce Resin Salve represents my bond to the Boreal Forest and the time I spend foraging.
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