Basket

Athapaskan birch bark containers serve many uses and are made in many shapes. They are made by softening the cutout pattern with heat, bending it into shape, and sewing with wood or root fibre through holes made with a sharp awl. The use of bark was an important feature of traditional Athapaskan technology, for instance in the manufacture of strong yet light and watertight collecting baskets, storage containers, and cooking vessels, as well as of canoes and some dwellings. A traditional method of cooking was to fill vessels such as this one with food and water and drop in heated stones until the water boiled.

storage

The container made of one main piece of birch bark, sewn at the ends with split willow withes. Around the inside top edge is a straight strip of birch bark, and around the outer top edge is a strip of birch bark cut as a row of triangles with a zigzag lower edge and a straight upper edge. Both strips are sewn to basket by vertical stitches of split willow withes along the top edge; strips darker brown. Handle of braided willow withes attached at top. Bucket shaped with round opening and squared base.