Tamarack Trees

These interesting deciduous conifers are the among the fastest growing trees and can live for 200-300 years.  Fond of the swamps and lowlands that would drown many other species, they are also unusual because they lose their needles in the fall and grow them back in the spring. On a previous property, the edge of our newly cut field was framed by tamaracks that flamed into a deep burnt yellow in the autumn.  Spring colors were also lovely, the fairest greenish-yellow that caught the sunshine. The trees look scraggly most of the time, but this means their needles tend to get more light and have a higher chemical exchange during the growing season than more dense leaf-packed or needle-heavy trees. They are very efficient energy producers!

Tamarack trees survive the winter marvelously because their cells dehydrate (spruce and some species of birch do this as well), so ice formation will not actually damage the living tissues. This means the tamarack can survive in very harsh environments, right up to the Canadian tundra. Their name is from the Abanaki language and means “wood used for snowshoes.” Pulpwood for papermaking, post and telephone poles are just some of the other reasons this wood is harvested. 

While the trees provide cover for wildlife, very few species actually eat it, although grouse enjoy the buds and needles and porcupines will go after the softer inner bark. Humans can harvest the spring needles and eat them after boiling them. The inner bark of the tree can be scraped, dried and used as an edible flour (although internet articles suggest it has an “acquired taste”.) tamarack bark can also be boiled and gargled to relieve sore throats, and as a tea, it can help with diarrhea and fluid retention. Applied as a poultice, it can relieve and heal burns.

In Lapp and Siberian culture, the tamarack stands as the image of the World Tree, the center of universe and the mystical image connecting the Underworld, Middleworld and Upperworld of visionary journeys. (Oak and ash trees are two other species that are often imaged as World Trees.) Shaman drums were lined with the wood of this tree and burning it was thought to ward off evil spirits.

We have relatively few tamaracks our property—it is easiest to spot them in the fall when their color turns.  As a child, I recall my father becoming very concerned for these interesting trees when they turned color and lost their needles in the fall.  He was quite sure they were dying, but soon learned they were only napping through the winter cold. Perhaps that was the moment when I began to feel compassion toward living things—watching my father’s face as the trees shaded into gold, and his later delight in their rebirth. The writer and artist within me appreciate the rhythm of the tamarack—the need to “dehydrate” for a time, to rest; the creative need for “space” around useful productivity; and the outlandish burst of color as the darkness builds in the North Country. I shed what is no longer needed.  I also trust that the new needles of inspiration will unfurl when the creative cycle begins again.

Crow-caw cloudy skies,

cut through with towers of gold,

the Tamarack blazes.

Ice on the swamp waters,

collaring the tree trunks in glass.

The deer leaves V-runes

in the first soft snow.

Call me, ancient cycles,

into dehydration

and stillness.

My heart will not burst with

cold

but restfully wait

for the inevitable

yellow-green burst of spring.