That’s been the motto of America since day one apparently. Look at today’s headline from the Sun Chronicle in Maine this morning:

The Pilgrims and the beaver trade

That’s right, the Pilgrims apparently paid for their journey to religious freedom with money they borrowed from the Company of the Merchant Adventurers of London. And guess what was the fastest way to pay them back after those first hard winters? I’ll give you a hint, it starts with a ‘B’.

By 1625, the Pilgrims concluded that the fur trade would offer the most viable means to retire their debt. They were able to obtain a charter from the King granting them rights on the Kennebec River in what is today the state of Maine.

So the Pilgrims built a shallop, a sailing vessel designed for coastal navigation, and set out for Merrymeeting Bay, 200 miles to the north, then up into the Kennebec River. Twenty five miles upriver, at the head of the tide where current and tides mark the extreme of navigable water, they established a trading post at Cushnoc, the site of modern-day Augusta.

The indigenous tribe, the Abenaki, were anxious to trade. They had abundant furs to offer in exchange for corn, of which the Pilgrims were producing a surplus, and other goods. As Governor Bradford put it, “not only with corn, but also with such other commodities as the fishermen had traded with them, as coats, shirts, rugs and blankets, biscuit, pease [sic], prunes, etc.” In exchange for a shallop-load of corn sailed up the river, 700 pounds of beaver pelts came back down. With beaver fur in great demand in London, the Pilgrims were able to satisfy their debts by 1636.

700 lbs of beaver skins. Wow, since the specified weight for an adult beaver pelt was 1.25 lbs that means that the pilgrims paid off their credit card with about 600 beavers on a single stream, plus of course killing all the kits and incidental young that weren’t good for anything. Let’s see, that’s like 56 beavers a year in a 170 mile stretch of river…let’s say 3 a mile….yup that seems about right.

Religious freedom, thrift, hardwork and beaver killing! Now I know just how to decorate for thanksgiving this year! And just to show that beaver intolerance spans the centuries fully from our founding to the modern day, there is apparently a new episode of ‘Duck Dynasty‘ out this week that shows the hardworking Bayou entrepreneurs  blowing up a beaver dam. A smart man would think to himself, hey since they make their money selling decoys for duck hunting maybe they would want more to keep the animal that builds conditions that make more ducks – but a smart man would be nowhere near this ambivalent hickfest. Apparently they think the beavers live in the dam! If you want to see the explosion go here but I’m sure you have better things to do.

(Tell me again what A&E stands for because I must have forgotten.)

If you need some good cheer after this beaver killing extravaganza go read this op ed by Karen Levenson of Guelph Canada. She’s the Director of the Animal Alliance in Canada that wrote me last week about starting a beaver festival in Ontario. Enjoy!

Beavers are an environmental asset

Throughout North America, cities such as Guelph are recognizing the critical role beavers play in protecting our environment.  Beavers are a keystone species that help maintain healthy aquatic habitat, which supports a wide variety of animal and plant life, thus ensuring biodiversity.

Let’s be proud that Mayor Karen Farbridge and forestry supervisor Randy Drewery are taking a progressive, science-based approach by wrapping vulnerable trees to discourage beavers from chewing. The city can also plant trees that beavers prefer, fast-growing species, such as poplar, willow, birch and trembling aspen, close to the water’s edge to discourage beavers from removing more valuable trees further up the bank and to help stabilize the slope and prevent erosion. An added benefit is when these trees grow back they are fuller, with lots of new growth, providing nesting sites for a variety of bird species.