Part 1 — What Is Spruce Resin? A Beginner’s Guide

Spruce resin, or pine resin, also called  pitch, is one of those things most people walk past without realizing what it is. It looks like a small golden bead on the side of a tree, sticky and hardened by the sun. But once you understand what it is and how it forms, you start to see it everywhere.

This post is the beginning of a series we’re writing to teach everything we know about spruce and resin and spruce gum. From the forest floor to the final chew, we want this to be a clear, honest, and approachable guide for anyone who’s curious.

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Our Goal Is Simple

Our goal with this series is to teach everyday people just how accessible spruce resin really is. Not experts. Not professional foragers. Not people with years of herbal training. Just regular humans who enjoy being outdoors, who feel curious about the land, or who simply want to learn a traditional northern skill.

Spruce resin isn’t rare. It isn’t mysterious. And it isn’t something limited to a few people who “know the secret.” Once you know what to look for, you realize how common it is in most forests. Trees have been producing resin for thousands of years, and they do it naturally and abundantly.

We want people to understand that sap is not an exclusive or intimidating material. If you have access to spruce trees, you have access to resin. With a bit of guidance, you can walk through almost any forest and start noticing resin everywhere — on branches, on trunk scars, on old wounds, on fallen limbs, even at the base of trees.

You don’t need special tools. You don’t need expensive equipment. You don’t even need perfect technique. You only need respect for the trees, patience, and the willingness to learn.

Spruce resin is abundant, forgiving, and surprisingly simple to work with. And once you learn the basics, you can make your own gum, a small salve for your hands, or a handful of natural gifts for friends and family. That’s why we’re creating this series. To open the door, not guard it.

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Where Spruce Resin Comes From

Spruce trees produce resin as part of their natural healing process. When the bark is scratched by wind or wildlife, or bumped by falling branches, the tree sends out resin to seal the wound. This helps protect against insects and keeps the damaged area clean.

The resin starts soft and sticky. Over time, it hardens into amber-coloured beads along the bark.

Every piece is simply the tree taking care of itself.

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Why People Chewed It

Long before store-bought gum existed, people chewed spruce resin. It wasn’t candy. It was something natural to chew while working outdoors, travelling long distances, or simply wanting a bit of freshness from the forest.

Spruce and pine resin have been chewed for thousands of years by Indigenous peoples across North America. It was part of everyday life — used for freshening breath, as medicine, soothing the mouth, and enjoying something natural while working or traveling.

In the 1800s, early settlers adopted the same practice after seeing it used in Indigenous communities, and resin eventually became one of the very first commercial gum bases before synthetic gums existed.

For our family, wildcrafting resin is more than a hobby — it’s a craft and a tradition that we teach our children. My husband grew up with this knowledge, and passing it down keeps a small piece of his culture and connection to the land alive for future generations. It’s something our kids will carry with them, and one day, pass on to their own children too.

Today, resin gum is one of the oldest natural chewing traditions still around — simple, real, and deeply rooted in the land.

A lot of people assume chewing raw resin must be unpleasant or “yucky,” but that isn’t true. With the right technique, raw resin becomes a smooth, satisfying little wad of gum. You start with small pieces, warm them gently in your mouth, and let them come together on their own. Within a minute or two, the resin softens, firms up, and turns into a pleasant, chewy texture.

The flavour is strong at first — very woodsy and wild — but it settles quickly. And once resin is purified, it becomes even smoother, firmer, and much longer-lasting. But even raw, spruce resin has been happily chewed for generations.

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Raw Resin and Purified Resin

Chewing resin straight from the tree can be sticky, crumbly, or inconsistent. That’s completely normal. Purification changes the texture dramatically.

Purifying resin means melting it slowly, straining out the bark and debris, and letting it cool into a clean, solid piece. It takes patience, but the process is simple and deeply satisfying.

We’ll show the full purification method later in the series.

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Is Spruce Resin Safe to Chew

For most people, yes. It has been used traditionally for generations. Anyone with tree allergies should be cautious, and resin should always be harvested away from polluted or chemically treated areas. As with anything natural, it’s best to listen to your own body.

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This Craft Is Meant to Be Accessible

A big reason we’re writing this series is because spruce resin has recently been talked about in ways that make it seem rare, exclusive, or difficult to learn. In many online spaces, there’s a growing narrative that only certain people “know how” to work with resin, or that the process is so specialized that the average person shouldn’t even try.

We’ve seen resin described as if it’s a precious, limited resource. We’ve seen people suggest that working with it requires secret techniques, expensive tools, or insider knowledge. And we’ve watched a simple, traditional craft slowly be made to look intimidating when it really isn’t.

We want to move away from all of that.

Spruce resin has been used for generations by regular people living close to the land. Families gathered it, chewed it, burned it, softened it for salves, and used it in everyday life. It wasn’t rare. It wasn’t elite. It wasn’t guarded. It was simply part of the land.

The idea that modern wildcrafters should treat it like a secret or make it sound overly technical goes against the nature of this craft.

If you have spruce trees, you can learn to harvest resin.
If you have patience, you can purify it.
If you’re willing to practice, you can make your own gum.

This knowledge isn’t meant to be hidden, sold, or controlled. It belongs to the people who walk the land and want to understand what grows around them.

Our goal with this series is to make sure that anyone who feels curious has the information they need to start. Whether you live in a rural area, a small town, or even a place with a few accessible spruce trees, you have everything you need to learn this.

We want to take the mystery out of it.
We want to take the fear out of it.
We want to put this craft back into the hands of everyday people, where it has always belonged.

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A Note About Current Market Trends

You may see discussions online about spruce resin being sold for hundreds of dollars per pound. Prices have been rising in some places, especially for resin that is exceptionally clean, very clear, or already partly processed. There is also growing interest in natural products, which pushes demand higher.

But it’s important to understand what these prices actually reflect. The highest numbers are usually tied to the most specialized or perfectly clean resin, not the everyday harvests that most wildcrafters gather. In nearly all cases, the cost comes from the labour involved — sorting, cleaning, purifying, and handling large amounts of sticky material by hand — not because the resin itself is rare.

Rising interest doesn’t mean the tradition has suddenly become a luxury item. It simply shows that more people are discovering it. For anyone harvesting for themselves or making small batches, the real “cost” is time and patience, not money. We believe the value of resin should reflect the work involved, not hype or exaggeration.

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A Note About the Gum We Make

We do make and sell our own spruce gum, and we put a lot of care into it. The batches we create take long days of harvesting, sorting, purifying, and pouring, and our pricing simply reflects the time and work involved. But we never want that to make it seem like spruce gum is some elite or unreachable thing. The truth is, anyone can harvest resin and make their own small batch of gum if they want to. What we sell is just the version we make in larger quantities, with the same patience and respect we use when teaching this. Selling our gum doesn’t change the fact that this craft belongs to everyone, and we’re happy to share every step of it.

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What This Series Will Cover

Throughout this series, we’ll be sharing everything we’ve learned over the years, including:

• how to identify spruce trees
• how to spot resin easily
• how common it actually is in most forests
• the tools you need
• how to harvest resin safely and respectfully
• how to clean and sort your harvest
• how we purify resin
• and how you can make your own handmade spruce gum

This knowledge is meant to be shared.

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Why We Love Working With Resin

Harvesting resin slows life down. It makes you look closely at the world around you. You begin to notice the stories each tree carries, how the forest changes with the seasons, and how much wisdom lives in places we often miss.

Working with resin isn’t just a craft for us. It’s a relationship with the land. And teaching it feels like the right way to honour that connection.

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Thank You For Reading

If you’re here because you want to learn more about spruce resin, wildcrafting, or the story behind the gum we make, we’re happy you found us. We hope this series gives you the confidence to explore, learn, and connect with the forest in your own way.

Ron & Maria
Alberta Wildcraft