Some of the most beautiful assemblages of wood in high latitudes on this
continent consist of the Canoe Birch. It is seen in Massachusetts and
Connecticut only in occasional groups; but in the States of Maine and
New Hampshire, on the sandy river-banks and diluvial plains, it forms
woods of great extent and unrivalled beauty. With their tall shafts
resembling pillars of polished marble, supporting a canopy of bright
green foliage, they form one of the picturesque attractions of a
Northern tour. Nature indicates the native habitat of this noble tree by
causing its exterior to display the whiteness of snow. The foliage of
the Canoe Birch is of a very bright green, and exceeds that of all the
family in the depth of its golden tints in autumn. We never see in the
foliage of the birches any of that glaucous or pea-green color so common
in the maples. The leaves of the Canoe Birch deviate from the ovate form
and approach the heart shape. Its bark is almost purely white, and
attracts the attention of every visitor of the woods. The clean white
shafts of a Canoe Birch wood, towering upward among the other trees of
the forest, present a scene with which nothing else is comparable. The
uses which have been made of the bark of this tree are so numerous and
so familiar to all that it would be idle to enumerate them. Indeed, it
would be difficult to estimate its importance to the aboriginal
inhabitants of America.