bircra: Bikeshorts made from birch bark, as worn by (a) Hiawatha when canoedling & (b) Finnish poets who wish to maintain a sense of the sauna as they do Lapp after Lapp in that velodrome in the snow.
Hah. This should interest at least Geof who is a birch-bark freak if there ever was one. As far as I know, though, the only wearable items made from birch bark are hats and shoes:
http://www.narvasoft.fi/vkm/VKI0439.JPG
Anyway, your intuition hits pretty close. Although bark-wear is no longer used up here, except maybe for historical re-enactments and such, I hear the hats are still worn in Russian banyas, to protect the head from the excess heat. In fact, there's a Finnish artist and photographer, Sami Hyrskylahti, who lives in St. Petersburg and is known to wear one during his Sunday bathing sessions. To wit:
The cap is barely visible here, but take my word, it's a real one. He even takes it with him when visiting Finland--at least he did when I last saw him, bathing in a poet friend's sauna.
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Hah. This should interest at least Geof who is a birch-bark freak if there ever was one. As far as I know, though, the only wearable items made from birch bark are hats and shoes:
http://www.narvasoft.fi/vkm/VKI0439.JPG
Anyway, your intuition hits pretty close. Although bark-wear is no longer used up here, except maybe for historical re-enactments and such, I hear the hats are still worn in Russian banyas, to protect the head from the excess heat. In fact, there's a Finnish artist and photographer, Sami Hyrskylahti, who lives in St. Petersburg and is known to wear one during his Sunday bathing sessions. To wit:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/hyrskylahti/2174381693/in/set-72157601648161389/
The cap is barely visible here, but take my word, it's a real one. He even takes it with him when visiting Finland--at least he did when I last saw him, bathing in a poet friend's sauna.
dersers--whatever THEY are
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