Because the beaver isn't just an animal; it's an ecosystem!

Category: Festival


Finally a moment to reflect on Ben’s new article about  an end of life beaver story. This one about Brittany in New York. It was published this week in the writers blog “The last word on Nothing.”

Brittany and the Beavers

Since I published a book about beavers two years ago, I’ve heard from dozens, maybe hundreds, of readers with their own beaver experiences to share. This is a wonderful perk of authorhood: When you tell your own story, you attract others. I’ve gotten emails from folks who have hand-fed blackberries to wild beavers, who have seen beavers build dams entirely of rock, who have watched beavers frolic like seals in the Baltic Sea. Just last month I received the unsolicited memoir of a guy who once resuscitated a drowning beaver. Yes, mouth-to-mouth. 

Most writers, I’m sure, get some version of this correspondence. Still, there’s something about beavers — their human-like family structures, their penchant for construction — that seems to foster personal connection. They enter lives in unexpected ways. They channel joy and grief. Today, I want to relate one such saga, courtesy of a woman named Brittany. I’ll warn you that Brittany’s story is about illness and death. It’s also about life and love. And beavers. It’s definitely about beavers.

Every time Ben introduces a story line I start to relax and settle in for a nice long read. He has such a winding and familiar prose style that I couldn’t be more comfortable unless the subject was about beavers. Which of course it is. This time through the eyes of Brittany in Cuba New York.

In adulthood, the siblings drifted apart. Zach stayed at home, cycled in and out of college, worked at a cheese factory. Brittany, a high achiever, moved to West Virginia to teach at a university. Around 2010, though, she, her husband, and their kids returned to Cuba after receiving terrible news. Zach, at age 24, had been diagnosed with glioblastoma, an aggressive, almost invariably fatal brain cancer. Brittany’s brother was going to die.

One day in 2016, Brittany, along with her sister, her niece, and her mom, took Zach on a final field trip. A lifelong animal lover, Zach had a special thing for turtles; he even owned a painted turtle, a female named Gary, that their sister brought back once from Myrtle Beach. (It’s still alive today, in the care of their mother). Zach’s dying wish was to visit Moss Lake, a turtle hotspot. “I can remember trying to get him in the car — it was so tragic but so funny,” said Brittany, who has a gift for smiling through pain. “It’s horrible because he’s dying, he can’t move. But at the same time, we’re all laughing because his gut is hanging out, he’s swearing, there’s a cigarette coming out of his mouth, his catheter is falling out of his pocket.” Alas, the turtles weren’t out, but it was still a lovely afternoon. In a photo Brittany sent me from that day, Zach sits flanked by his family, five backs to the camera, their arms twined around each other’s shoulders, the dark timber across the lake reflected in the water’s silver bowl.

Two weeks later, Zach died. Brittany’s family poured his ashes into Moss Lake — illegally, which Zach would have appreciated. The turtles surfaced and ate them all.

So the lovingly described brother dies, and the family builds a bench or him at the cemetery. And she like to go there to remember him. And the cemetery is in a wetlands which is where we all should be buried..

During one of her vigils soon after Zach died, Brittany spotted a V-shaped wake carving through the swamp. The wake was cast, she realized, by the head of a beaver, the first she’d seen. Brittany, a casual but enthusiastic nature-lover, was thrilled. When she next came to the cemetery, she saw beavers again, and again the time after that. Beavers are ordinarily nocturnal, but this colony was bold and active during the day, perhaps because it had habituated to the cemetery’s foot traffic. Soon Brittany was visiting five days a week, for hours at a time. “I’m at the cemetery trying to feel some peace,” she wrote in her journal one day in July. “And I saw the beavers and Zach would have loved them.”

Peace, at the time, was hard to come by. In the aftermath of Zach’s death, Brittany’s family melted down into chaos and drama; no need to divulge specifics, but suffice to say that, when she compares the situation to Jerry Springer, she may actually be underselling it. The beavers transcended the bullshit. “They were so majestic, so blissfully unaware of the horrors of everything going around,” she recalled. They were, it seemed to her, manifestations of our better natures. They lived in tight family units, like Brittany’s own clan, and they were fiercely devoted to their kits, as Brittany was to her children. But they were also blessedly drama-free, practical, industrious. They did not dread death; they did not betray each other. They were akin to humans, yet superior to them. They also led double lives — sleek and graceful in the water, clumsy and uncomfortable out of it — that seemed to reflect humanity’s own dualism, Zach’s own dualism, how we can at once be so generous and kind and callous and mean, how we all contain multitudes. 

Yes, of course these are the very same thoughts I’ve had watching beavers. And maybe you’ve had too. Because there is nothing new under the sun. It has all been done before.

A few months later, Brittany’s health began to deteriorate. She felt dizzy and fatigued; she struggled to walk. At the hospital, a wild thought rushed through her aching head: that, although glioblastoma is not hereditary, she had contracted the same disease that felled her brother. She didn’t fear death itself, but she was terrified by the thought of leaving behind her four children. The next day, she received her diagnosis: an aggressive form of multiple sclerosis. Another person might have grieved. Brittany, though, had expected incurable cancer. “I was so relieved,” she said. “I don’t think I even cried once. Like, whatever, I’ll get over it.” She threw herself into exercise and literature; although she occasionally requires a cane, her life has continued mostly unaltered. 

Yeah, yeah, yeah. All the best beaver people do. Who knew I was a type?

Brittany and I spoke in late May, amidst an unprecedented societal lockdown. All over the country, people were adjusting to smaller, quieter lives, as Brittany had, and escaping their deepening depressions through nature, as Brittany once did. Gardening was ascendant; so was birdwatching. We were all trying to connect with forces deeper and simpler, to commune with creatures blessedly detached from a world that we’d ruined. That, in the end, was what Brittany loved most about beavers: “They’re so unaware,” she said, “of the shit that we go through.”

Yup.


May day. The day I promised we’d decide whether we would officially keep behaving like we were having a festival next month or not. Whether to keep arrangements for chairs and tables, exhibits, musicians and silent auction items or finally admit that this year, the thirteenth beaver festival, was not to be.

Yesterday I withdrew our grants to the city, the wildlife commission the community foundation. I wrote the musicians, the sound guy and the volunteers. The beaver festival will have to be like a hotel elevator with no thirteenth floor. We’ll continue on next year and I promise it will be better than ever, but this year, this one rotten year we’ll have to take a break,

I have been holding a beaver festival in the summer since Bush was president. Since Martinez had 9 beavers, Since I was working full time. I held a festival the year the beavers died, the year my father died, the year I was in the hospital with sepsis. Every year since 2008 But not this year.

We received such awesome donations to the auction this year, not the least of which was an original reed bed painting from Lizzie Harper of Wales that she did originally for an exhibit at the national gallery. I cannot believe how beautiful her work is, and we’ll save it for next auction. She was so kind also and I advised her to do more work with the Beaver Trust but to charge them because they could afford it. (Smile). She is so careful in her work you won’t believe it until you watch one of her videos of the process. She just dropped this video this morning of painting rose leaves. Go watch and be peaceful for a moment.

Well, I have the activity the cards and the spyglasses ready for next year. We have the prayer flags for painting. We have the beaver billboards from last year, the printed towels and Amy’s designs to look forward to. We’ll just have to shelter in place until that happy day.

The other day I talked with the Masters student from Humboldt researching the festival and got him in touch with some of our early supporters. The boy in this video is Noa who is now finishing his mathematics degree at UC Santa Barbara and was only too happy to talk to him. Watch it all and you feel so much better. There is nothing about this video that doesn’t remind me how I got on this journey and make me determined to continue onward next year.

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I admit it. This was me yesterday. The loving and generous artist who has done our festival ad for years our of the incredible goodness of her heart wrote that she had nothing for me and was going to Mexico for a week. Which would be fine if it weren’t for the fact that Bay Nature needs their artwork for the Spring ad February 24th. Which would still be fine if it we hadn’t already paid for it, many hundreds of dollars for an empty quarter page ad,

The only way to face panic is with planning. So I wheedled for an extension and thought about our options. The chalk artist Amy Hall said the image she created for last year is ours to use. So maybe that could work?  It’s just a matter of meeting those exacting specifications.3 9/16 by 4 15/16. Who uses fractions anymore? But I found a mixed numbers calculator and was able to cobble this together. This will do in a pinch. And Amelia says she’ll try when she gets back, so this will have to do for now. Breathe,

Adding to my panic is that this weekend saw the start of begging for the silent auction and in three days I didn’t get one yes. I’m used to asking for ten things for every one I am given, but zero seemed very bad news. Yesterday I got six very kind and lovely responses to the requests I sent Sunday. And the first was from the company I arguably wanted to hear from most of all.

Cate & Levi is a company in Ontario that makes stuffed toys and kids things from entirely recycled products. Their idea is that kids should be allowed to use creativity to play, and the beaver puppets on the left made my heart sing. It’s the sweaters. Look at the SWEATERS!

Anway the owner wrote back with a generous promise of 2 puppets, and I was off to the races. Other things started to fall into place. So I could temporarily stop inhaling and lay the bag down. Not throw it away, mind you, I might need it again. But this is good for now.


It all started with a picture,

This picture in particular done by graphic artist and continual inspiration Catrin Welz-Stein 0f Germany.

Something about its whimsical impossibility made me think about our next beaver festival way before I should and wonder about the idea of creating a mystery for children to solve as the activity. What if the mystery used the collection of “suspects” at a beaver pond that represented all the wildlife? What if children were asked to find out what happened to the missing salmon?

I imagined children getting a top secret dossier containing 6 cards showing the foot prints of 6 different species. Then having to find what animal left what footprint and solve the crime. Participating exhibits would have a matching card showing the species, like an otter, and its alibi. “It wasn’t me. I was saving it for my birthday”. Or the beaver, saying “Not me, I don’t eat fish!” And so on until the mystery is solved.

By eliminating all the ‘suspects’ kids can solve the mystery and find the solution: (maybe the answer is that salmon swam to sea?) When kids know they come back to me and collect their reward for solving the case!

Mulling about looking for the reward I stumbled upon this miniature magnifying glass made by Solid Oak Inc in Rhode Island for their Steam Punk Collection. It sells for 10 dollars on Amazon, which is way outside our budget. It sells for 7 at their website which is  better but still outside our budget. 

So I started researching the owners and learning what I might about them. Turns out the VP of marketing is also a passionate supporter of the humane society and against animal cruelty. I thought maybe there was a chance he’d take mercy on beavers but I knew Rhode Island tends to be a tough sell on our flat tailed friends.

It was a tough sell. When I talked about our work to the woman running the store she pointed out how beaver dams block everything from getting by including water and fish. I gamely persevered. And tried to make our story irresistible.

It is hard work sounding irresistible from 3000 miles away, But I kept hoping. Yesterday the VP wrote that he could get me 100 magnifying glasses shipped directly from the supplier for a price we can afford and just like that we have ourselves a festival! HURRAYYYYYYYYYYYY!

I could see it all coming together in my mind! All respect to Amelia Hunter and Catrin Welz-Stein, but  I always like to imagine ideas to encourage our artist to be intrigued so she can create something way better than anything I can do.

So now its just a matter of creating the clue cards and inserting details. Excellent. I like to leave myself plenty of time so I can know the details of that I’m asking for when I start the grant writing process, which believe it or not is due at the end of December. Bruce Thompson of Ecotracs in Wyoming says he’ll help me with footprints, and I’m thinking 2 inch square business cards for the footprints to match together with the suspects, with kids putting the entire mystery together to reveal the solution.

The activity teaches: whose at a beaver pond, what footprints go with that animal, and reminds everyone about SALMON and why they show up in beaver ponds in the first place. Which is a great way to show that beaver ponds matter.

Oooh how exciting!


You know how it is. Two steps forward, one step back. You know it as well as I do. Beaver progress is as closely woven with beaver failure that the seam between them isn’t visible anymore. Both just happen together.

So it occurs that National Geographic launches an issue with beaver benefits to salmon at the same time the Anne of Green Gables releases this pressing concern.

Beaver dam, debris cluttering up endangered salmon habitat in Cornwall, P.E.I.

“Most of our work has to do with rehabilitating salmon habitat in Watts Creek. Watts Creek is a very well-known salmon river,” said Karalee McAskill, co-ordinator for the watershed.

“Beavers tend to dam up the flow of the river and, as a consequence from that, any sediment that’s coming down from up above settles out into these large beaver pond impoundments,” she said.

“Sometimes it’s six- to seven-feet deep of silt and sediment and mud, it’s almost like quicksand if you’re stepping in it.”

Oh those darn beavers, trapping sediment and maintaining a tireless dam. I just hate when they do that. And boy does NOAA fisheries hate it too.

It there’s one thing that juvenile salmon don’t need its all those annoying deep pools rich with food where they can fatten before heading off to sea. They hate that.

Salmon can thrive in other provinces with deeper rivers and streams, she said, as they can leap up waterfalls and rapids.

But some of P.E.I.’s gentle, relatively shallow waters do not offer salmon the depth or swift currents they need to push past dams built by beavers. As a result, endangered Atlantic salmon will not spawn or they’ll find another area altogether, which is concerning for the watershed.

Our special water is too special for salmon to use if there are nasty beaver present. Where have I heard that before?

Beavers can drag their bellies and create “beautiful, magnificent channels that salmon love to cruise through.” Fish and other wildlife behind dams can also thrive because there’s more food. 

“So the beavers are actually great in one sense, but the dam is the issue,” she said. “We can’t relocate that beaver because then it will become someone else’s problem.”

Drag their bellies? Drag their bellies? You think we construct all these complex channels by “dragging our bellies?”

Moving mud: Glenn Hori

Shorter Karalee McAskil: I mean I’d love to have the benefits of beavers, but you know. Those rotten dams. They just mess everything up for those fish that we mostly don’t actually have anymore. So screw the woodducks and the otters, because we just can’t have our imaginary fish jumping over rotten dams, Right?

Oh adorable, misinformed and neglected P.E.I. You are so plucky in your persistence to be wrong. It’s almost admirable. Don’t worry, information is trickling very slowly, we can tell. It won’t come as one big shock, You used to complain that beavers weren’t even native, and that they ruined habitat for everything. Now you’ve advanced three whole baby steps and say they CAN be good in some places, just not on the special unique water you have on the magic Anne island.

Sure, I guess, whatever.


Now let’s hurry up and get to the steps forward part. Guess what?

Come September ANOTHER beaver festival celebration kicks into gear. Seems our friends at the Methow project can’t wait to follow in our webbed footsteps.

Beaver celebration to be held Sept. 14

The Methow Beaver Project will hold its first Beaver Celebration on Sept. 14 and 15, 5-9:30 p.m. Come join in the fun at this free event, starting with a social in Mack Lloyd Park at 5 p.m. on Saturday the 14th. Mingle and share in the excitement around beaver ecology and restoration while sipping on Special Edition OSB Tail Slapper Ale or Sixknot Sawtooth Cider, available for purchase, and sampling “small bites” from Sunflower Catering.

At 6:30 p.m., the celebration will move into the Winthrop Barn for presentations by Ben Goldfarb, author of Eager: The Surprising, Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter, and Sarah Koenigsberg, who will screen her feature film The Beaver Believers. Beaver restoration site tours will be offered on Sunday morning, the 15th, sign up at Saturday’s event and choose an easy, moderate, or more strenuous option.

Well, well, well. They’re offering beaver tours, a Ben presentation and A Film screening! Remember its Washington so I imagining it won’t be hard to get folks to come and enjoy your efforts. Maybe something for the kids to do while all those grownups are drinking and listening? And I might suggest some live music and a raffle?

We wish you every success!

 

 

 

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