Yesterday was fun, lots of good questions and interest. Some folks had even attended a beaver festival before. But beaver news can’t be ALL good. Into every life a little rain must fall. Or a lot.
Broken beaver dam caused Alaska Highway washout, officials say as detour opens
Officials say a major washout on the Alaska Highway in B.C. over the holiday weekend was caused by a broken beaver dam that sent a torrent of water through the area, sweeping away a section of the highway in northern B.C. and causing major disruptions for travellers and truckers before a detour opened to traffic on Monday.
“There was, you know, quite a bit of water there,” said George Smith, a manager with Public Service and Procurement Canada, the department responsible for that stretch of the highway.
“And once that beaver dam broke, the rush of water from that lake came down through and plugged off the culvert, and washed out the highway.”
Well now it’s possible a beaver dam caused this. It’s also possible you just weren’t maintaining things as well as you should have been. I get the feeling that whenever there’s a road washout and hardworking men get angry phone calls from the media their first inclination is to say “BEAVER!”
It may still be a bit slow-going for motorists though, Smith said. He’s asking people to be patient.
“People are just going to have to wait for the pilot car and then, you know, go through there at a reduced speed.”
He’s not sure how long it will take to fix the actual highway. He said engineers were expected to arrive at the site on Wednesday to take a look, and then they’ll come up with a plan.
I’ve been doing a little research into my ancestry and reading about the tin miner’s who came from Cornwall to America to help with the mines in the 185o’s. They had a tradition of blaming odd noises, slides and weird occurrences on “Tommy Knockers“ who were believed to be spirits living in the mines and that either did mischief or rescue but could never quite been verified. There is a long history of Tommy Knockers actually going all the way back to the spirits of the Jewish slaves the Romans used for the original mining in Cornwall. Sometime they even helped miners, leading them to a rich vein and blocking off unproductive shafts.
But mostly it was just a way to explain things to the boss. Like when you were a kid and got in trouble and covered your tracks by saying you’re younger sister did it.
I think beavers are the highways “Tommy Knockers”
