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Hailing from Utah in the US, Justin Davies, most widely known as JustinTheTrees, has brought wood culture to hundreds of millions by sharing his adventures with trees and timber. John Orchard speaks with Justin about the concept of species loneliness, the taste of sassafras ice cream and the intense optimism found in bringing people closer to nature.
Where do you call home and where do you feel most at home?
Utah is home. I was born and raised here and have lived here most of my life, except for a couple of stints elsewhere; I lived in Washington DC for college and in Denmark for a little while in my 20s. I live in the Salt Lake City area and I’ve thought about moving elsewhere but one of the things that keeps me here is the variety of landscapes available to me.
We’re nestled between the Wasatch Mountains and The Great Basin, which itself spans across several states, including most of Nevada. I can drive for 30 minutes west and find myself in the Great Basin desert with nothing but Sagebrush as far as the eye can see. A beautiful, desolate landscape. Or I can drive 20 minutes east and be in high alpine wilderness amongst the large Engelmann Spruce trees and Quaking Aspen. Travelling a few hours south and we’re reaching the Red Rock desert and some of the most breathtaking, panoramic vistas and arches. All those areas are home truly.
It sounds like a beautiful puzzle, pieced together. You’ve mentioned some important landscapes and some trees. For many people associated with Woodland Heritage, being amongst trees and working wood are strong sensory experiences. I’m curious how your love of trees and timber took hold.
I think they are intertwined. You can’t have one without the other. My great grandfather, who lived until I was in my 20s, was a woodworker. I remember him showing me his wood shop but I didn't grow up doing a lot of woodworking and it was in my early 30s that things changed.
I was competitively running trail marathons, sometimes running 50 miles. Because of this I spent a lot of time up in the mountains. I've always had, I would say, an artist's Spirit. As a kid I loved writing and thinking about things artistically without realising.
I was on a training run, pushing pretty hard up a very steep hill and I stopped to catch my breath. I noticed this tree. Overlooking the valley. It caught my eye in a way it hadn’t before. I realised I didn’t know what this tree was. I disconnected from my run and took a closer look. I touched it. I plucked some leaves and felt their texture. But I didn’t know what it was.
I experienced this profound feeling, a feeling that years later I learned from Robin Wall Kimmerer’s book “Braiding Sweetgrass” is called ‘species loneliness’. We are meant to have a deep, innate familiarity with the names and natures of the plants and animals around us, but we’ve lost a lot of that in our urban environments.
So I’m home from my run and sit at my computer to begin my quest. I learn it’s a Curl-leaf Mountain Mahogany (Cercocarpus Ledifolius). I’m blown away by what I learn. What makes this tree unique, that they can live for thousands of years despite alkaline soils and very little water, but also I learn the human uses for the tree, from indigenous medicinal uses to making tools and weapons.The timber is so dense it sinks in water and it has a beautiful rich, red toned colour.
This sparked something in me.
There are swaths of trees brought to cities and suburbs because they grow larger, don’t need so much water, or look a certain way. So I’m surrounded by trees that, for the large part, aren’t native to this area.
I realised that I don't know the names of so many of the plants that belong here and I spend most of my time around plants that aren't from here.
So you set about doing something about that!
I like discovering. I've always liked wooden objects. I began to bring deadwood home and cut into it to discover its properties, smells and textures. I began to make small planks. At the time I was reading Nick Offerman’s book “Paddle Your Own Canoe” which encourages handmade gifts. I wanted a Youtube Video about carving a spoon and I fell in love. It was deeply rewarding, fun and I had a bit of a knack for it!
My great grandfather was a woodworker. Both my grandfathers were creative, a bit of a maker and a photographer and my parents too. So this contributed to my headspace on that run in the mountains. But I was also absorbed in the writings of Ram Dass and going through a transitionary time in my life. I was raised Mormon and around this time I had a faith crisis. As a result I was re-contextualising the world and my place within it, my place in nature and the interconnectedness of things. I became more interested in my relationship with nature, rather than just extracting value from it.
Nick Offerman and I share a birthday and I like to think we would be friends in another life. So I’m glad you’ve mentioned him! You’ve obviously gained a lot from those that came before you, whether that’s family or writers. Do you reflect on how you are helping others learn?
I was inspired by so many content creators. I think there’s this reciprocal turning of the wheel, where I hear from people all the time who tell me that I've inspired them to start making, or they got their first carving knife set, or they bought a lathe.
I’ve spoken with people who began watching my videos in high school and they are now going to university to study forestry, or ecology. I’m blown away by this.
Social media and the internet has wrought a lot of bad things upon the world. But the opportunity to influence people for the good is very interesting. Ripples in a pool.
A part of your life is story telling about trees, the timber they produce and its uses. Are you surprised by the interest your stories have generated?
It's been a wild ride for sure! The scale is truly amazing. One of my Tik Tok videos has been seen over 18 million times and 572 million people have viewed my Youtube videos about trees and timber. It boggles the brain!
Most of these people are young. Most of them weren’t looking for content about trees or woodworking. Just like I stumbled upon this connection with nature on my mountain run, these people are stumbling across it with their morning coffee.
Your stories really seem to connect with people. Woodland Heritage and its members want to increasingly connect people to the importance of growing trees and using timber for our future. Why do you think so many millions of people are touched by your stories?
I believe we're really grappling with just how disconnected we've become from our food chain, with our production chain. When I to go back to that concept of species loneliness, we're meant to have a very close, reciprocal relationship with nature. We are meant to be making things a lot more often than we are.
As life has become commercialised there is a gap opening up between us and nature and things that close that gap make us feel something deep within us.
I’ll post a video about a tree, that part of it is edible, or that part of it was used to make a tool. And people will say “I see this tree every day. I had no idea!” There’s a natural connection.
And the introduction of food or taste is fascinating. People can be almost afraid to pluck a pine needle off a tree and taste it. Food is so often connected with walking into a store, or pulling something off a shelf. This can be the only time someone feels safe to eat something.
For younger generations, who may have lived their entire lives far removed from nature, there is a yearning to reconnect. This gives me hope for the future.
Woodland Heritage feels that our nation’s wood culture has really suffered over the years and we’re on a mission to do something about that. At the time of writing the UK is the second largest net importer of forest products in the world. In the UK it’s quite rare to see stories which take people from tree to table, or seed to sawdust, which your stories do so well. Instead, the most common stories about trees in the UK are about protection and conservation. This can mean that the importance of woodland management, felling trees to allow light into the woodland so that new plants and life can flourish, can be misunderstood or neglected. How does this issue play out in the USA from your perspective?
Land management in the USA, like a lot of things, is very regional. So rather than speak for the USA as a whole I can share more about wood culture living in the western US. I live in a state with five national parks. It’s really a big open, wild place.
When Americans think about forest management, they typically think of wildfires. They might think about the lumber industry and they might think about clear cutting old growth forests. Things in American right now are hyper politicised. There is a lot of misinformation and using this for your own means. I think like the UK when people think about forest management they most often think about conservation. ‘Leave no trace’ is a phrase we use.
I consider myself an environmentalist and some of my viewers will try to ‘gotcha’ me, in bad faith. They will say “You love trees, but here you are cutting down trees and using wood!”.
I deeply believe we need to revitalise ecosystems that we’ve destroyed. But I also believe that part of being human is to have a place in those ecosystems. This is something Robin Wall Kimmer also writes about; the idea of indigenous stewardship. For generations indigenous people, rather than ‘Leave no trace’, have had an active back and forth with their environment informed by a deep connection with nature.
States across the USA have a ‘tree’ that they adopt as a totem. You created an amazing series of videos, mini documentaries really, about these trees, their timber, its properties and uses. You then made a literal map of all of this, which each state lovingly made from its totemic tree! What surprising thing has stuck with you throughout that project?
I was surprised by how quickly the project took off, and how broad the appeal was. People really wanted to see ‘their state episode’ and the episodic nature means everyone’s building something together, piece by piece. Again it was really rewarding to see people learn about their state’s tree and the uses for the timber.
I started making the videos for my family and friends, really. An early film was about the Bigtooth Maple and they would watch and say: “When are you gonna tell me about the next tree?!”.
And so it went. I was really drawn to the lathe, especially as I rarely work with trees that have long, clear runs of limber. I can be curious about a tree no matter how scrubby and scraggly small it is! I can find a limb, throw it on the lathe and make something. I often make a vase. I can imbue a little art and blend in tree facts.
I had the idea some years before this. I’ve loved maps since I was a kid. And I thought it would be really cool to make a map of the US where each state is made from its official state tree. But it felt out of reach. I would need some fancy CNC machine to be able to make the perfect map.
But in the end. I had a piece of Quaking Aspen wood that I foraged from avalanche debris. It was full of figure and spalting. I thought to myself: “I could start the map with my own state. If it goes well then great, if it's a flop, then whatever.” Well, it did really well! Looking back, this was a real learning point for me. Don’t let the conceptualisation of a perfect project, stop you from starting something. Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good.
You’ve ladened me with guilt Justin! Which is easy to do to an English person. Years ago I started making a meal from every country in the world. I’m about three quarters of the way around the globe but life got in the way. I will endeavour to start again! It’s a real thrill to see you make bread, ice cream and other foods from trees. This is such an interesting way to reconnect people with the sensory nature of trees. Though it’s rarely warm enough in the UK for ice cream..
The Sassafras ice cream was my favourite. Its root is banned for commercial use by the FDA, so to make ice cream and a bowl and spoon from its timber was great. Its grain was similar to Ash. I also loved the oak chip infused ice cream. It was delicious!
The success of the maps series, and the ice cream, has allowed me time to reflect. You know, here in the U.S, we're in a very tumultuous time right now and our public lands, that I feel very passionate about, are under real attack. So I've been really contemplating a way to try to speak to some of those issues. To use my platform and voice in a way that reaches a lot of people, and has a positive influence, without hitting people over the head with the issues!
This conversation has been very hope filled, I think. You’ve raised the environment and the political situation in the US. But, we’ve also talked about younger people wanting to close the gap between them and nature. What’s making you feel hopeful about the future?
I love this question because I've not been allowing myself to sit in optimism, when I'm just alone in my own thoughts. But then I find when I have conversations with people can rekindle that optimism.
I'm drawn to intergenerational spaces, where people are sharing knowledge with one another. I think this is one of the most powerful tools that we have, that can’t easily be taken away from us. I want to encourage people to seek these spaces out. To learn. And to make. And to do.
The word Chatoyancy (Sha-Toy-An-See) has developed an almost celebrity status amongst your audience and you often reveal chatoyancy in your woodworking. For those readers who aren’t aware, what’s chatoyancy, and what other tree and timber words have you learned in recent years?
Yeah, that's been one of the most surprising and unexpected parts of this whole journey. One of my really early TikToks had this really interesting Quaking Aspen log that I'd found up in an avalanche debris field in the mountains near my home. I sensed some unique wood hiding inside. So I set up my camera and filmed myself turning it into a vase. The grain showed lots of figure and curl, a ton of spalting.
In researching the script I came across the word "chatoyancy" -- which more or less means "a visual effect in which a surface appears three dimensional but is actually flat." I guess it’s a really common term in lapidary, jewels like tiger's eye and quartz, for example, commonly have that effect. As does curly and figured wood.
So I get to narrating, and at this time I would literally just shut myself in my closet and record my audio directly on my phone, I hadn't yet begun to record on a nice microphone and do all my editing on my computer. So I'm in my closet, reading this script, and as I'm saying the word "chatoyancy" I couldn't resist putting just a bit of an over the top flair to it. It's a word that kinda begs to be said in a velvety way. "Chatoyancyyyyy."
The viewers really responded to the word. The internet loves a meme, and that quickly became one for my fans. I still have people come up to me and say, "hey, aren't you that chatoyancy guy?". It’s truly wild!
You can watch Justin’s stories unfold at https://www.youtube.com/@Justinthetrees/videos
Images by Gabriel Kogami