Birch bark

Yes, I have read that too about sod roofs actually being birch bark roofs or at least that it’s a necessary material for it. I also had bark in mind when making the tannery but that would be rather from oaks.

A reason why I did not add bark yet is the way to bring it into the game. I would consider people cutting it from a birch log used for building or as firewood but it’s not really possible in this game to make 2 out of 1 resource. An alternative might be gathering it from deadwood since I have now specific deadwood lying under birch trees, just for the right look but it could serve for this idea. Problem is here again that it would drop only either firewood or bark. Can be confusing for players.

Not all log cabins have a sod roof and I wanted to add more variants, with solid wooden roof and one with shingles. But this can also be separate houses.

I find it still not fully convincing and also suitable to just imagine birch bark used for construction but let’s continue the idea. Maybe it will turn out as a nice addition. Since it’s not much effort we can test it in a next developing version of the North mod.

What other realistic uses of birch bark do you know that could be interesting in game? A medicine maybe? Or was it actually used for tanning? Or maybe as a secondary recipe to bake bread in the old oven house with bark replacing a small amount of grain flour as we talked about in the picture puzzle. That would add an interesting option in the rather boring bread chain.

if cut from living trees in the forest, the best or only mechanic to bring it into the game would be spawning an invisible resource around birches to let it “grow” in a certain temperature range (spring – early summer) and gathered by a certain profession while clearing a building site doesn’t drop the material. This is how wild honey and furs work in the North. Kralyerg’s fruit foresters use the same mechanic but also plant the trees which we don’t need here I think.

Question is who should do this job. Gatherers from shelters or woodcutters from woodcutter cabins. I would not really like to distract gatherers from harvesting wild food by another resource than firewood but it could be also a new object specialized in birch bark and/or firewood. The woodcutter cabin could become more interesting with a second resource. It seems not much used by players, although it is actually a strong building already.

As building material it would be required by everything with a sod roof as we said, probably including turf houses and goahti. The latter is tricky since it serves as first dwelling for survivors and not good to have to build a gatherer shelter or woodcutter cabin first. That must be solved. Maybe by a Sami style matching gathering object for very early game and also a new even more primitive shelter for survivors because the bark would not be available right at the start in harsh climate.

I’m still not sure about bark as a managed resource but I would like to give it a try. It is not much effort and we can decide then in game if it’s nice or not. I can make a developing version of the North mod where we can play around with such ideas..

While I cannot speak for more northern uses of the sod roof, the structures were widely used in the north of the Netherlands(Frisia, Germanic but culturally more related to the Danes) in the extremely impoverished conditions of the large scale peat-diggers up into the ’30s. While they would use anything to keep their structures upright they were often made of nothing but peat or with only the side walls reinforced by planks or cobblestone. The roofs would be extremely leaky and the atmosphere clammy resulting in very short life expectancies.
I’m sure it would generally be wise to add bark insulation, but not everyone would have the luxury of being able/allowed to use it.:) Many of these used the straw and dry hay from the top of the peat bogs as binding, so that might be another possible substitute for birch bark.

That said; birch bark could also be a substitute inferior textile recourse for paper making.:)

They are horrible dwellings indeed, that required near-constant maintenance to fight the erosion. I have found no evidence in birch bark being used in them though the mixed consistency, besides the peat/sod was varied. It was more a point that the lower end of sod houses would probably be even less consistent and nasty but leave little trace by their relatively temporary nature.

And huh, I though I had seen a direct reference to birch bark being used. But basswood bark and aspen chips are specifically mentioned; around 1750 many experiments with woods and barks were being done to produce paper fiber.:)

Edit: Birch bark as a writing material of itself was widely used though.