Making the bed in which you will one day lie.

"What it is, is 4 inches wider than your shoulders," Hagen said, "Five inches longer than your length, and 14 inches high."

Next Hagen's son-in-law, Burt Durham, put together the simple plywood box. Then the women went to work on it.

They divvied it up like a patchwork quilt. They glue-gunned and hammered down all the various colors and textures of inner and outer birch bark, adding twigs, leaves, lichen -- all materials that rose from the soil, all materials that will someday return to it.

One of Jennah Choate's blocks has twig swirls, a sun and a moon. Another has twists of bark representing the northern lights.

One of Durham's blocks is a log cabin quilt pattern overlaid with birch-bark applique, including a black bear to represent the one that broke into her mother's house and raided the kitchen.

Each section either came with a story or inspired one afterward.

"This one, you've got to look at it this way," Jill Choate said, turning her head sideways. "This is supposed to signify the Alaska Range, the mountains of Talkeetna. And of course we've got the birch trees. So it's like this is the final salute to Ardella as she traipses through the mountains and goes off into the sky to say adieux."

And what is it?

Swirls of wood smoke rise from the stovepipe of Ardella Hagen's little studio in the woods. Through the window panes, you can see it's a party. Spiced crab apples, cinnamon rolls and other goodies are laid out. Coffee and tea are brewing. You can hear it's a party too. The tap, tap, tap of hammers is constantly interrupted by bursts of laughter.

The reason for this revelry is that Hagen, her daughter and a couple of friends are putting the finishing touches on her coffin.

But it will also have alternative uses until she dies.

Until it's time to go inside, she'll make use of her coffin as a piece of furniture. After it's varnished, she'll either put a glass top over the lid and use it as a coffee table, or set it up on end and add shelves for a bookcase.