Yeah, it was in the burn pile. Around here we have lots of trembling Aspen( or quaking aspen, or popalar)but I've never seen one this solid, this one is very heavy and usually the rot from the center. Maybe some sort of ornamental Aspen. I've attached a picture of the in progress bowl for a look.Aspen can have nice medium reddish-brown color emanating from the heartwood, so that's still a possibility. If it's aspen, it's a really old tree and you've got the base, with that solidly gray, barky bark. Aspen has a pleasant smell, but it's not usually too remarkably so.
If it smells really nice, then you've probably got a fruit wood of some sort. Did this come from right around where you live? If so, that would eliminate most types of fruit trees. There's a type of cherry that is a 'chokecherry' tree, sometimes called Canada Red Cherry here in the States, which would have bark like any other cherry.
The holes attract bugs.Guess they are trying to plant bugs...
The brown color is typical for birch heart and will spread to the bark when a portion of the bark dies.I’d vote for the aspen. The brown color looks like the heart rot that often infects them in Northern Wis and it often erupts through the bark making it bumpy like that. We’re the any conchs on other parts of the log? Aspen also has a wintergreen- like smell when cutting. Definitely distinct from cherry but if it was sitting around for a while it might be less intense. I find the texture of aspen to be a bit more stringy than cherry when turning, but again the difference depends on greeness.
Don I have Pin Cherry and Choke Cherry on my property here, and like yours the Choke Cherry dies of before it gets thicker, and the Pin Cherry are just shrub size, they all grow very slow here as the soil is shallow and poor really.I have a 1980 Audubon Field Guide to North American Trees, which has color plates of the bark & leaves, the flowers and a range map with detailed description.
I have identified black cheery, pin cheery and choke cheery on my property and none of them has white bark . The range on choke cheery and pin cheery looks like it may reach Alberta. The stated diameter for CC is 6" and 12" for PC but the trees on my property start dyeing out at about 5" dimeter max.
I have had birch trees that were bird pecked before they died and had a similar look on the bark. The birch tree can be taped for sap just like maple so it obviously contains sugar to attract the birds.
The typical spots found in cheery would look more like this, where as the spots on the sample look like grown over bird pecks.Don I have Pin Cherry and Choke Cherry on my property here, and like yours the Choke Cherry dies of before it gets thicker, and the Pin Cherry are just shrub size, they all grow very slow here as the soil is shallow and poor really.
Also most of these are in the bush or on the edge, where they will grow better in open and full sun situations and rich soil.
I was again looking at the turning the OP made and there are those dark brown spots you often find in Cherry, also the inner bark is much thicker than I find in Birch and I don't see the paper like outer Birch bark, you can have a look here again, anyway I still lean to it being Cherry, though it is not impossible that it is Birch, but I doubt it.
View attachment 44083
The two samples are labeled cheery and apricot?Don I still think it is Cherry wood, to me that bark in the OP's pictures has a shine, and is not white like in Birch.
As for bark thickness here are two pictures of both Cherry and Birch, the Cherry has thick bark as shown, and the Birch is pretty thin, both of these ar cut at right angles and so I'll leave it at that, View attachment 44106.
View attachment 44107
Outer and inner bark is thinner than the tooth pick.
View attachment 44108
Yup I got the wrong double letter, but I must have been trying to cheer you upDon, I can understand an occasional typo ... or even a missed/uncorrected 'spell check'. But, you have consistently used "cheery" in this thread ... are you playing with us? Checked all my wood ID books and can't find any "cheery trees"!