The french cartographer and founder of Quebec, Samuel de Champlain, once wrote that beavers in the new world in 1600 occupied “Every River. Brook and Rill.”
I was thinking in particular about this sentence about the word “Rill” which isn’t used much today in conversation today but does still have a specific geomorphological meaning. Wikipedia defines a rill as “a shallow channel (no more than a few inches deep) cut into soil by the erosive action of flowing surface water. “
It occurs to me that when you’re a child making an ambitious sand castle at the beach and you and your cousin scoop a long trench from the waves to your creation in the hopes of bringing water to your moat that this is a kind of manmade “rill”.
And more importantly when beavers dig canals out from a pond to extend their territory to reach more trees and have an easy way to haul them back that is also a RILL. In fact a rill might be described as a path where water will go when the right conditions arise. What we today would refer to as an “Ephemeral stream“.
I am thinking that Ephemeral just means “without beavers“.
4 comments on “EPHEMERAL MEANS “WITHOUT BEAVERS””
Evan Wolf
December 8, 2023 at 3:09 pmHi Heidi,
I’m a longtime reader and beaver fan, researcher, restorationist, and professional wetland ecologist. I love your site and Worth A Dam. I have a question for you about the Champlain quote: What is your source for that?
I ask because that exact phase “every river, brook, and rill” was written by Harry Radford in 1907 in reference to the landscape of northern New York State. He presents these as his observations and assumptions, there’s no reason to believe he’s quoting Champlain. See “Eager” by Goldfarb, page 43-44 for a reprint of the Radford quote, or also the original Harry Radford 1907 “History of the Adirondack beaver” quote on page 396 of this citation:
Radford, Harry V. 1907. “History of the Adirondack Beaver: Its Former Abundance, Practical Extermination, and Reintroduction.” Annual Reports of the State of New York Forest, Fish, and Game Commissioner for 1904, 1905, 1906, pp 388–419. https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/100349977.
But perhaps these two people in two different languages 300 years apart used the same phrase to refer to beaver occupation. Or maybe Radford read the phrase somewhere and reused it for his own purposes? I’d love to know the answer, so please let me know where you got that Champlain quote from.
That same Radford citation has an excellent description of the estimated decimation of the beaver in the New York area and the rapid increase following the reintroduction and protection efforts by the State. Hopefully we’ll see a similar boost here in CA now that we have a State office dedicated to the cause!
Thanks for your time and effort,
Evan
heidi08
December 9, 2023 at 11:21 amEvan, thank you so very much for your thoughtful comment and your kind words about the website. I actually didn’t read the original of course I read it quoted and didn’t know where from so I tried to go back thru the website and find out where. I found it as far back as November 2009 which puts it before Ben’s book, before Frances Book and just barely at the start of my beaver learning. I realize the only thing I read then besides Dietland was Hope Ryden and I found this post early in the month that year. https://martinezbeavers.org/revelations/
I no longer have a copy of Lily Pond but I am thinking that maybe she got confused and attributed it Champlain OR it really is from Champlain and someone else said it too but my best guess is that I’m quoting her. She’s no longer with us so we can’t ask but I remember how thrilled I was to get an email from her back in the day thanking for my beaver videos because “she was now an old woman and couldn’t go out to watch them hereself anymore”. A bitter sweet memory.
Anyway you have given me a quest and I will try and get a hold of lily pond and find it. I’m so grateful you are paying attention and keeping an eye on beavers! I will post this rely on the website but just wanted to send it to you directly to make sure you got it.
Heidi Perryman
Sandy
December 9, 2023 at 10:25 amIn NH, the regulatory definition of ephemeral stream is: a watercourse that is located above the water table year round and is not fed by groundwater, such that runoff from rainfall and snowmelt is the primary source of stream flow and so the stream has flowing water only during, and for a short duration after, precipitation or spring thaw events, but which has less flow than an intermittent stream and no evidence of riffles, meander bends, point bars, or braiding. (Env-Wt 102.65)
heidi08
December 9, 2023 at 11:26 amThank you, it makes me think of this quote from Enos Mills in beaver world “The regulation of stream-flow is important. There are only a few rainy days each year, and all the water that flows to the sea through river-channels falls during these few rainy days. The instant the water reaches the earth it is hurried away by gravity, and unless there are factors to delay this run-off, the rivers would naturally contain water only on the rainy days and for a little while thereafter. A beaver dam and pond together form a factor of importance in the keeping of streams ever flowing. The pond is a reservoir which catches and retains some of the water coming into it during rainy days and which delays the water-flow through it. A beaver pond is a leaky reservoir, a kind of spring as it were, and if stored full during rainy days the leakage from it will help maintain stream-flow below during the dry weather. Beaver works thus tend to distribute to streams a moderate quantity of water each day. In other words they spread out or distribute the water of the few rainy days through all the days of the year.”