ASIKKALA: In his rustic cabin in the forests of southern Finland, 87-year-old Erkki Pekkarinen carves delicate strips of birch bark with his knife, before intricately weaving them into beautiful objects.

“I started practising at the age of 10. You could say that for 77 years I’ve been fiddling with birch bark,” Pekkarinen said.

While wood is generally perceived as a robust and inflexible material, Pekkarinen insists that, with the right technique, birch bark can be used to make “anything you can imagine”.

His art gallery in Asikkala is filled with a myriad of objects constructed of nothing but strips of birch bark woven together without glue or nails. When properly processed, the cardboard-like honey-hued bark from the black and white boreal tree can be effortlessly cut and flexed.

Pekkarinen has crafted everything from detailed wooden jewellery and handbags to small toy ducks and backpacks. His piece de resistance is a full suit, complete with a hat, briefcase and shoes.

It creaks and rustles as he puts it on but it is surprisingly flexible when Pekkarinen walks around the cabin, which is brimming with his wooden artwork Born in the eastern Finnish town of Lieksa, Pekkarinen says his interest in bark dates back to his youth when he worked as a lumberjack. “I liked to spend my time at the logging camp crafting all kinds of things. There was plenty of free time back then,” he says.

He recalls birds gnawing through colleagues’ cotton backpacks to steal their lunch while they were felling trees but his own food remained safe in his sturdy bark rucksack.

Full bark suits may have been rare in the Nordic country’s past but the age-old tradition of weaving birch bark into everyday items dates far back.

Published in Dawn, December 6th, 2023