The
beaver is the
national animal of Canada - it
appeared on the first postage
stamp issued by the colony in
1851, and now features on the
back of the current 5˘ piece.
There was nothing sentimental
about this choice - beaver
pelts had once kick-started
the Canadian economy, but only
recently has the beaver been
treated with respect and
protected from slaughter.
Beavers are actually
aquatic rodents, which grow to
around 750cm long and weigh
about 35kg. Their early
importance was due to their
thick soft pelts, composed of
long guard hairs and a dense
undercoat, which was used by
the native peoples for
clothing long before the
arrival of the Europeans.
Early fur traders quickly
realized the value of
beaver-skins, particularly for
the manufacture of felt
, for which there was a huge
demand for hat-making. To keep
up with demand the beaver was
extensively trapped, and the voyageurs
pushed further and further
west along the lake and river
systems in pursuit of the
animal, thus opening up more
and more of present-day
Canada. The beaver population
was decimated to the point of
extinction in some areas of
the east, but after beaver
hats went out of fashion in
the nineteenth century the
species rapidly recovered and
today they are comparatively
common.
Bark (for food) and water
(in which to escape from
danger) are two vital elements
for beavers. They build a dam
to create a large pond in
which to escape from their
enemies and to serve as a
winter food store. Beavers
start their dams, which can be
up to 700m wide, by
strategically felling one tree
across a stream. This catches
silt and driftwood and the
beaver reinforces it with
sticks, stones, grass and mud,
which is laboriously smoothed
in as a binding element. The lodge
is constructed simultaneously;
sometimes it forms part of the
dam and sometimes it is fixed
to the shore or an island in
the pond. It is about 2m in
diameter and has two
entrances: one accessible from
land and one from underwater.
Lodges are topped with grass
thatch and a good layer of
mud, which freezes in winter,
making them virtually
impenetrable. During the
autumn, the beaver stocks the
pond formed by the dam with
large numbers of young
soft-bark trees and saplings;
it drags these below the water
line and anchors them to the
mud at the bottom. It then
retires to the lodge for the
winter, only emerging to get
food from the store or repair
the dam in case of emergency.
Beaver lakes are not, however,
the tree-fringed paradises
portrayed by some nature-film
makers; a mud-banked pond,
surrounded by untidily felled
trees and with a
bedraggled-looking domed heap
of sticks and sludge somewhere
along its banks is often
nearer the mark. If you spot
an untidy-looking lake
anywhere in northwest Ontario,
the chances are that a
beaver's lodge will be close
by, though you're unlikely to
see the creature itself.
