Mondays are hard. Everyone knows that. So what we really need is some kind of enthusiasm-booster chair, to help us see over the dreary week’s work ahead. Okay, you deserve it. Here’s just the thing.
Mickey the Beaver
Mickey the Beaver came into the life of Doris Forbes and her parents in 1939. High school student Jean Yuill found the kit on a sidewalk in Red Deer, Alberta, and happened to bring him to the nearby Forbes home.
The family nursed the injured kit back to health, raising him from when he was only twenty-five centimetres long until he was more than a metre in length.
Can you imagine Mikey’s life? Dressed in doll clothes or pushed in a stroller to a tea party here all the other children ooh and ahh over his curious tail? Doris’ unique pet has been discussed on this site before. There is even a statue dedicated to her in Red Deer Park. Mickey must have been a kind of cash monkey. In this photo he’s posing with a “Dainty white loaf” Beavers, by the way, do not eat bread. It makes them constipated I have heard.
Mickey would come when called by name and would go for swims in the nearby creek, always following the family home. He’d even make dams out of slippers in their home — after the family trained him to stop gnawing at the furniture.
When Doris Forbes was sick, Mickey would go to her bedroom every day to visit — the beaver even caught whooping cough from the young girl. The two were inseparable; Mickey was Doris’s best friend.
“He’s the best pet I ever had, and I love him with all my heart,” she said.
Now that I completely believe. Beavers are very social and personable and a pet orphan is likely to be very demonstrative of affection, because he is missing any. No word yet on what all the trappers of the day, who love to describe beavers as vicious and aggressive, thought of this sweet story. They surely must of heard it because Doris and Mickey were big news.
When “The Tale of Mickey the Beaver” (The Beaver, December 1941) was published, the Forbes had been raising Mickey for more than two years. This is just one of the stories you’ll find in our online archive of The Beaver, Canada’s History, and Kayak magazines. Using the new online search function, search “Mickey the Beaver” to see even more photos of Doris and her furry friend.
Ahh Mickey I hope you life ended kindly and you got to live in someones pond or something. Searching the Canadian archives looks like fun. Thanks for the rainy day suggestion! There’s even a section just on Voyageurs and lots of info about the fur trade. Just in case readers need to learn more about this story, here’s a short video of her story and statue by a recent visitor.
