When I first connected with Ian he was 13. I wrote him excitedly after seeing the first “Beaver Creek episode’. Back then we were still deeply embedded in the battle to save our beavers and I was toying with the idea of animating the struggle or dubbing the city council voices into an episode. Do you remember that first one? It seems like such a long time ago, now. It was retro-copyrighted in 2010 but I’m sure it was earlier when I first saw it because it was before his science film entry which was 2008.
I enjoyed so many things about this effort, the humor, the water, the gentle pacing. I couldn’t even imagine the hours and days and m
onths it took him to put together. Obviously he was a talent to keep an eye on, but I supposed beavers were just an accident, a cartoon vehicle that might as easily have been meerkats or groundhogs.
It was watching this next entry though that I realized Ian had been following our website and really taking an interest in beavers as other than clay action heroes. I was very happy to learn that it won first prize in the Virtual Challenge of the Science Museum.
There were lots of wonderful episodes that followed about 6 painstaking months apart, but the episode that really touched me and stands out in my mind was episode 6, in which Twig’s dad breaks his tail and he is called to go home to help out for a while. Our own dam and lodge had just washed out, and our mom beaver had died a few months earlier, leaving our orphans with a lot of work to do. I was wishing our beavers could send a note to twigs (or GQ) to ask for help and easily buy supplies at ‘home treepo’. I loved seeing the kits in this episode (complete with waterwings) and the yearling, but when they were relaxing over a family dinner I saw something amazing (@ 6:27).
Did you see that that? Mom’s tail at the dinner table has the same marking as OUR mom beaver. I honestly had been working so hard to get through the festival after her death and talk to the media and explain to everyone what was going on, that I just burst into tears when I saw that. Ian hadn’t even said anything, just added it in very quietly and watched if I’d notice. After I was done being sad I was very, very grateful.
Last year he was entered in several film festivals and came to california for the Wild and Scenic event in 2011. Of course he had to stop by Martinez with his lovely parents on his way to Nevada City just to see where our beavers live and meet the Worth A Dam family. I wrote at the time how very strange it seemed to meet strangers from 3000 miles away and have it feel like reconnecting with old friends.
Recently Ian went on to save the beavers in draught park and waged a very cordial battle that got international attention. Oregon beaver friend Leonard Houston connected him with Virginia beaver friend Stephanie Boyles from the Humane Society and got her involved on the issue and she came out to convince the city of solutions. That story now has an outcome that everyone is happy with and Ian just reported on seeing the summers new kits for the first time.
So now he’s 18, and no longer the wonderboy child-wiz who dazzled us all with his prowess and patience, but a talented young man facing a world of possibilities. He’s in his senior year and turning down offers right and left while maintaining a steady course for great things. We could not be prouder and we feel blessed that our paths crossed in a beaver pond. Ian you truly have shown us that there really is always an adventure up on beaver creek!
Oh and there’s one more place Ian had to visit in California. Can you guess what that was?
