"The herders used knives to carve, though the paper-thin soft, white bark of the aspen could be carved or scratched easily with just about any sharp object, even a thumbnail. The herders made a thin incision or cut, which could hardly be seen, and that was all the human hand contributed. The rest was up to the tree itself. The outline of the carving begins to show a few years later after the tree scars over. [...] No re-doing and no correcting mistakes are possible, and in the end you know that the tree will wither, revert to the earth, and the carving will self-destruct."

"J.L., a sheepherder, recounted that when he arrived in America the camptender took him to this godforsaken mountain in the wilds of northeastern Nevada and told him, 'This is going to be your home for a while.' After the camptender left he felt so terribly alone that he instinctively walked over [to] an aspen and carved, 'Hotel Derrepente' ('Hotel Suddenly')."

"The herders used aspens as their medium of communication, though it was not a very speedy one – in the best cases it took years for a 'conversation' to be completed."

From "Carving Out History: The Basque Aspens" by Joxe Mallea-Olaetxe. Photo from here.