Yellowknife is the capital of the North West Territories, about 1500 miles north of Montana. It’s the kind of place that when you look at it on a map you think ‘Holy tomale, Canada is BIG’. The Northwest Territories were added to the Canadian Confederation in 1870 (Since HBC had killed all the beavers, they really didn’t need it anymore) and it is so far north that about half of it sits above the tree line. It is the location of the first Diamond mine in Canada, and an unbelievable amount of other gold, silver and increasingly sinister kinds of mines, including radium and uranium. Winter temperatures of -25 are not uncommon and it is fair to say that the population, as a rule, is required to be somewhat hardy.
So I was very interested to read this from the 4-term mayor of Yellowknife in a recent story about whether to trap some local beavers that have been chewing trees. Gord Van Tighem has been a popular mayor of the most populated town in the region (about 20,000 – half of the entire population of NT). He actually used to be a trapper for the government of Alberta and recently warned that the animals can be dangerous.
“They can use their tails like a trampoline and will launch themselves at you. If they get a hold of you, they will snip your arm in one bite.”
Trampoline? Launch? Really, Gord?
Oops. This seems as good a time as any to note that the appropriate way to address a mayor of the North West territories is “His Worship”. So let me correct that and say, “trampoline, launch, really, your worshipfulness?” Now I have no doubt that an animal that chews through a poplar or maple in a matter of minutes could just as easily slice through a humerus. And I’m pretty sure that when you’re trying to kill them beavers can put up a fight. But I can’t help myself, as much as I’ve tried to make allowances, I’m just going to have to take issue with “trampoline“.
Wikipedia notes that ‘according to circus folklore, the trampoline was supposedly first developed by an artiste named du Trampolin, who saw the possibility of using it as a trapeze safety net – the story of du Trampolin is almost certainly apocryphal, and no documentary evidence has been found to support it. There is also an old Inuit tradition (Nalukataq) that involved bouncing an individual on a walrus skin to celebrate the hunt. The community all gathered together to launch the lucky member in a gravity-free homage to the divine who provided for them.
These are colorful, historic and fairly plausible stories. A beaver making a pogo stick of its own tail, (which is not made of rubber, has no springs and happens to have a skeletal structure that looks very much like vertebrae) to propel itself – whether in attack, greeting or amorous advance – is simply NOT plausible. Or, as any self-respecting paleophysicist would argue: possible.
Which is not to say the city of Yellowknife is without beaver comprehension. After a resident found a dead beaver on the trail last year, they have agreed to ‘relocate’ the beavers humanely. Check this out:
Ian Ellsworth, a renewable resources officer, oversees two wildlife officers who check suitcase-like live traps at the lake every day. He said the department is trying to relocate the beavers but people are interfering with the traps. Signs are now posted warning people to stay away from them.
“We check them in the morning and we are finding that someone throws a rock or stick into the traps to set them off,” said Ellsworth. “That is the issue we are kind of dealing with right now.”
Ah, you have to love anyone out walking their dog in the morning who goes out of their way to trigger a trap so that beavers roam free! Of course, one never knows whether these valiant actions are pro-beaver or anti-magistrate, but as we learned firsthand in Martinez, both forces often play for the same team. I imagine that the NT attracts a somewhat libertarian, live and let live, populace. But there is this:
Colleen Zorn, a resident on Ballantyne Court, is one resident who said she wants the beavers to stay. Her backyard backs onto the lake but she does not have a lot of poplar trees that attract the rodents. “I have three young kids and we love to go for walks on the trail to see the beaver,” she said. “My two-year-old comes home with beaver sticks on a regular basis. He walks on that trail every single day and goes to see the beaver.”
She said the beavers should not be removed because they have been residing on the lake long before people arrived. “The beavers were there first and we are in their yard,” she said. “They are only going to eat up the food source and move on. They will go to another little pond where there are poplars and stuff to eat. I also think (the beavers are) only going to improve the trail because now you can see the lake.”
Colleen! We like you already! Have you ever considered the possibility of starting a beaver festival in YK? Since your elected officials are busily preaching the kind of coffee-spitting misinformation from the pulpit that is so LOL-worthy it will likely be forwarded again and again from Ottawa to Ohio, it might be time for a little community education and common sense! We’d be happy to help out with ideas and planning.
In the meantime tell the tree-suffering residents of the lake that wrapping with chicken-wire would only work if beavers were the same size as chickens. Use galvanized fencing wire or abrasive painting and read here for details. Any city smarter than a beaver can keep a beaver, and if you move these animals more will just come take their place.
A final note: Readers of this website will be happy to know that two Martinez beavers were seen this morning mudding the primary and secondary dams respectively, and thankfully neither of them happened to use their tail as a trampoline to launch a vicious, de-limbing, attack. Whew.
