Sitka deer;
Top of the morning to you sir, I hope that this Wednesday finds you and your fine family well.
As you know we're a bit of a semi-desert down here and as such there's very few paper birch trees.
Now not that far north of us in the Shuswap where we've got family the paper birch is common enough that it's sold for firewood, but down here it's rare enough that I've almost got the handful of paper birch trees that I'm aware of named.
What we do have however is this birch - the water birch so this says. For years I called it Black Birch, but I believe I was in error doing so as they're not here but the water birch is.
https://www.for.gov.bc.ca/hfd/library/documents/treebook/waterbirch.htmWhen the fire ripped through the mountain up behind the house last year there was a pretty good sized water birch scorched and killed with easy access, so I picked it up last fall and it's been seasoning ever since.
It's pretty light though Sitka and I suspect it won't be much better than Doug Fir as far as heat units goes.
We occasionally get orchard wood for firewood and for sure it feels lighter and softer than apple or cherry, but to be clear I didn't do a side by side test or anything resembling a test truly.
All the best to you all as we head into the fall and hunting season Sitka.
Dwayne
