Take a look around your property or your neighbourhood. Are there any old pine trees? If so, take a look and see if there are long scars low on the tree. The scar will usually start close to the ground and end in an arrow shape at the top, like the photo to the right.

Until recent years, First Nations people peeled the bark from pine trees as a snack food in the months of April, May and June, when the sap is running at its best.

The inner bark, the cambium layer, is a nutritious food full of sugars and carbs. People used to scrape the inner layer into long wet strings and eat it fresh, or dry it in the sun for winter when it would be boiled and mixed with other foods.

A knife was drawn across the bark, then the bark was pulled downward until it broke off. A tree with a scar like that is known as a culturally modified tree (CMT), meaning that the scar was man-made and not the result of another tree falling and bumping against the tree.

Is it good to eat? Matt Begg, local archeologist, says it tastes like the smell of pine, definitely an acquired taste. After a long winter, when food supplies were low, pine inner bark must have been a welcome treat to locals hundreds of years ago.