DEH CHO - If you're considering making a spruce root basket, you might want to clear a minimum of a week on your calendar.

Phoebe Punch uses a pair of scissors to trim a spruce root basket during a workshop she ran at the Open Sky Festival. - Roxanna Thompson/NNSL photo

Patience and time are two of the things you need in order to be successful, said Phoebe Punch. Punch, a resident of Trout Lake, has been making this kind of basket since the mid-1990s.

"You can lose your patience after a certain time," said Punch.

"You just have to keep on going."

During the Open Sky Festival in Fort Simpson, Punch ran a two-day workshop on spruce root baskets for interested festival goers.

Starting their baskets with roots that Punch had already prepared, the participants were able to skip one of the most labour-intensive parts of the craft.

As the name suggests, the baskets are made from coiled spruce root. The coils are stitched together in a way that makes them watertight so they can be used as water carriers, as drinking cups or as cooking vessels.

Before you can make a basket, you need to harvest some roots. The best harvest season is early spring, said Punch. The roots are easiest to peel at that time.

In Trout Lake, Punch harvests her own roots from wherever she finds a good location. She said she is careful to move around so the trees have a chance to regenerate.

It's best to collect where the moss is thin because if the roots are too far down they're challenging to reach, she said.

Punch doesn't keep track of the exact amount of roots it takes to make a basket, but even for a small basket you need "lots," she said.

After you've gathered the roots you still need to peel the bark off, clean them and split them. Using a knife, Punch likes to divide the roots into paper-thin strips. A garbage bag full of roots can take two to three days to prepare.

Even after you've prepared the roots it can take another three or four days to make a basket depending on its size, she said.

Work begins at the centre of the base and the basket is built up in a spiral. An awl is used to make a hole in the coil of roots so another piece of root can be passed through to stitch the coils together.

Making the basket gets easier as you go along.

"Just the beginning is hard," she said.

Workshop participant Deborah Stipdonk agreed.

"I'm having a lot of fun but it takes a long time," she said.

After two days of work, Stipdonk had created a base and was starting on the sides of her basket.

"It's a great way to visit with people. It's very relaxing," she said.

Punch enjoys teaching workshops on basket making including birch bark baskets.

"It's interesting to see how their project turns out," she said.

Punch said she's often surprised because people pick it up easily at the beginning and move on at a fast pace. She learned how to make the baskets from her mother Julie Punch who attended a workshop on the art form.

This was Punch's fourth workshop. Later in the summer she will be in Inuvik to teach at the Great Northern Arts Festival.

Before then she said she has her work cut out for her because she'll need lots of roots.