This is a tree I took a photo of along the lake because it was pretty strange. It's a live tree, a basswood I think.

Indians and pioneers would use trees like that as trail markers.

They created them. I believe that they cut them a certain way to make them bend, pointing in the direction that they chose.

Both of you could be right. This is Indian country with the reservation not far from there.

That is exactly what that is. We call them 4 trees.

That is really interesting. So many people in the area have wondered what ever happened to the tree. I will pass this info on to them.
Thanks so much!

I can't tell by the photo, but what is the scale we are looking at? Looks to me like it would have been a mighty tall Indian to break that tree??
I'm guessing "snow-break".

I would guess to where the bend begins is about 10 feet. If that was done in the late 1800s, it would have had more than 100 years to grow.

It is a common misconception that as a tree grows upwards, that a particular spot on a tree will move upwards. That is not at all true, any event that happens (injury, blaze, etc.) will always remain at the same height.

There is an old story about a tall evergreen tree that some loggers cut down in Oregon. After it hit the ground they found a small and very old bell in the very upper branch of the tree. They surmised that some pioneers had tied the bell to the tree way back when it was of Christmas tree height: wrong, it doesn't work that way.

Another tree fell over, hit that one causing it to bend. After the fallen over tree rotted, along with the surviving tree rotting at the bend on out, continued to reach for the sky. Seen that quite often when I worked in the woods.

nailed it lumberjack
X2

I'm sure that Ryan Mcleod or White can show some trees on the McKenzie River or Alaska that have weird shapes with all the different slumping of the perma-frost melt and they grow in convoluted ways.
I know some of the tree ring counters have quite a hard time working out weather patterns with these rings.

If it was an ash tree then quite posiable was bent for making the curvature for snow shoes and they did not come back to harvest

A bend 10 feet up in a tree would be very easy to do when it was a sapling by shimmying up it till it bent over.
Guess we'll never know unless one of us learns to speak "tree"

We referred to them as "thong trees". There was one about 2 miles from where I grew up. Long gone now, but back then would have been at least 100 years old, so would have dated to first part of 1800's. Big pin oak with trunk bent in the shape of a horse, with no front legs. It pointed in a west/southwest direction, which happens to be a watershed divide. A meandering ridgetop that is at least 10 miles long that I"ve traced out on topo maps. East end of that ridge started (or stopped) at that tree. Stick to the ridge and you would never get your feet wet. Like a long road, with little cul-de-sacs running off it. Lots of Indian artifacts in the area.

But tree in photo doesn't look to be as old as county road maps, so not likely a thong tree.

Ever seen a nurse stump tree ?

This happens when a tree starts its life on a rotting stump or broken off part of a tree. Over time it's roots seek the ground. Then the stump rots away. I've seen a couple in the woods here. Kinda weird. Nature finds a way.

It would make a nice set of sleigh runners.
Or two.

When I worked surveying in swamps was quite common to see the nurse trees, usually in rows where a big tree fell and 10 trees in a row had that feature.

Always took a wide berth of them in the coastal BC area since bears held up in them out of the rain,

That is weird. But, as you say, nature finds a way to survive.

I seen a documentary years ago that touched on these types of trees in the south. Rumor/lore/legend was that as the south fell as the civil war was coming to an end , some loyal confederate troops had taken treasure ( possibly stolen from the north ) and buried it in the woods so that union troops could not find it. Then to mark the location they had bent saplings in a particular pattern/grid spaced very far apart , even miles apart with the crook of the bend pointed towards the location of the buried treasure. This was done so way into the future there would be a source of wealth to fund the confederate army to be able to battle the unionists again.

"The South shall rise again"

No idea if there is any truth to this , but makes for an interesting story for sure.

I like rumors and legends, but i seriously doubt that crooked tree is more than 40 years old.

Yep^^^
And that was caused by damage to the tree and it continued to grow....

...some folks do have a great imagination...lol

Interesting thread.

Trail trees, trail marker trees, crooked trees, prayer trees, thong trees, or culturally modified trees are hardwood trees throughout North America that Native Americans intentionally shaped with distinctive characteristics that convey that the tree was shaped by human activity rather than deformed by nature or disease.[1] A massive network of constructed pre-Columbian roads and trails have been well documented across the Americas, and in many places remnants can still be found of trails used by hunters and gatherers. One unique characteristic of the trail marker tree is a horizontal bend several feet off the ground, which makes it visible at greater distances, even in snow. Even today, modern hunters look for horizontal shapes while hunting deer, elk, and moose.[citation needed] Dr. Janssen noted in 1941:
Among the many crooked trees encountered, only a few are Indian trail markers. The casual observer often experiences difficulty in distinguishing between accidentally deformed trees and those ... purposely bent by the Indians. Deformities may occur in many ways. A large tree may fall upon a sapling, pinning it down for a sufficient length of time to establish a permanent bend. Lightning may split a trunk, causing a portion to fall or lean in such a way as to resemble an Indian marker. Wind, sleet snow or depredations by animals may cause accidental deformities in trees. However, such injuries leave scars which are apparent to the careful observer, and these may serve in distinguishing such trees from Indian trail markers.[2]

Large trees that exhibit deformed growth and distinctive forms bent in a vertical plane are sometimes labeled trail trees, marker trees, thong trees, or signal trees by enthusiasts. Historically, these unique trees were commonly known as Indian trail trees. Proponents of trail tree lore claim these unique forms are culturally modified trees used to mark trails or important places. Distinctively bent trees have long been noted throughout the Temperate Deciduous Forest of eastern North America.[3] The extent to which indigenous peoples used such trees as navigational aids, and whether such trees were formed by anthropogenic or natural means is controversial.[4][5]

These distinctively shaped trees have been photographed and documented in the Great Lakes Region by scientists and historians since the early 1800s.

That would make an interesting piece of furniture.

^^ THIS ^^

I believe there are trees that were used for that exact thing, but this is not one of them

EB nailed it as a surveyor, numerous early maps 1880's (for here) made had features sketched in the sides and references the crews saw in the field.
As an interest in First Nations encampment it was easy to see where they marked bison jumps and the stone lane markers lining them up. The bones were long gone collected for the fertilizer plants in Europe, but the projectile point were still there. Most of the rock piles were moved but some of them were not.
You have a better luck finding hens teeth on the prairies over remanding trees.

Even if they did(which according to experts is doubtful) bend trees as markers. ...that tree isn't nearly old enough.

Iv seen several trees like that over the years.

[quote=Pirogue

Even if they did(which according to experts is doubtful) bend trees as markers. ...that tree isn't nearly old enough.[/quote]
We use to do it as kids and teens. Some of those trees still stand in my parents woods

the will to live ,is in everything, plant, animal , and human ,

I have no idea how old the tree would be as I'm certainly no expert on trees. I just thought it was an interesting tree.

squatch rocking horse.

Exactly

Buwahahaha!! SMH!!

Amer Indians were all forced onto reservations by the late 1880's, 150 years or so ago.
Stop and think how large 150+ year old trees would be, how few such trees have survived all the construction, forest clearing, disease, weather, etc .
Now look at that trunk diameter and realize the tree in the OP's pic is VASTLY too young.

Common sense isn't just rare these days, it's obviously extinct.

Lumberjack. Nailed it. I see a bunch of trees just like that cutting firewood. And all ages too from saplings still being held down but reaching for the sun to dead and down. They are so common among lodgepole there is a company south of town makes furniture with them.

Found this one last year. It seems to happen frequently enough along streams around here, but I hadn’t seen one with such a smooth curve nor with a cute little waterfall.