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Full Circle

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beavers elsewhere, History September 26, 2011

Dear Editor:

One of Estes Park’s tourist and local resident’s most outstanding attractions is the 6:30-8:00 P.M. nightly “show” put on by the Beaver at their dam sites on Fish Creek Road near Cheley Camp Road.

Now comes word that the Town Trustees, County Commissioners, EVRPD and Department of Wildlife (DOW) have given the okay to seek funds and build a bike/hike Trail along Fish Creek Road, which will intersect the Beaver dams. Why? As a frequent visitor to the area to watch the “show”, I see many people parking or stopping to watch, but never have I seen a biker or hiker in that area! So why now?

Estes Park has been labeled “Nature’s Wonderland”, thus it is unimaginable to me that the Officials entrusted with the sanctity of wildlife in the community appear to be supporting this action. These “community Beaver” need to be protected. They are an asset to Estes Park and the Proposed Trail will simply drive them away or worse. How would Enos Mills react to this Proposal?

The citizens of Estes Park need to contact their community leaders and the DOW and help put a stop to this Plan now, before it’s too late, if that’s not already the case.

Bill Melton, Estes Park Colorado

Ahh Bill, that might be my favorite letter to the editor, EVER. Estes Park is where Enos Mills lived and wrote his famous “In Beaver World”! Of course I wrote back that Bill was from the home town of MY hero and as it happened I was from the home town of HIS hero, so we obviously had alot in common. For the record. Here’s what Enos Mills had to say about beaver dams.

The dam is the largest and in many respects the most influential beaver work. Across a stream it is an inviting thorough fare for the folk of the wild. As soon as a dam is completed, it becomes a wilderness highway. It is used day and night. Across it go bears and lions. rabbits and wolves, mice and porcupines; chipmonks use it for a bridge, birds alight upon it, trout attempt to leap it and in the evening the deer cast their reflections with the willows in its quiet pond. Across it dash the pursuer and the pursued. Upon it take place battles and courtships. Often it is torn by hoof and claw. many a drama, romantic and picturesque, fierce and wild is staged upon the beaver dam.

The Beaver dam gives new character to the landscape. It frequently alters the course of a stream and changes the topography. It introduces water into the scene. It nourishes new plant life. It brings new birds. It provides harbor and a home for fish throughout the changing seasons. It seizes sediment and soil from the rushing waters and it sends waters through subterranean ways to form and feed springs which give bloom to terraces below.

p.74 Enos Mills In beaver World

And here’s a reminder of Mills trip to Martinez as Muir’s guest 1908, five years before the publication of his book.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is called destiny (and history, even though its not on a mural or anything….) YET.

The Last Word…

heidi08 Environmental, Why We Care July 5, 2011

The works of the beaver have ever intensely interested the human mind. Beaver works may do for children what schools, sermons, companions, and even home sometimes fail to do, develop the power to think. No boy or girl can become intimately acquainted with the ways and works of these primitive folk without having the eyes of observation opened, and acquiring a permanent interest in the wide world in which we live.

Enos Mills: In Beaver World

Interdependence

heidi08 Creative Solutions, Educational, Environmental, History July 4, 2011

In honor of the holiday I allowed myself to finish In Beaver World yesterday and I’m still hearing fireworks. I think the very best celebration I can think of for the holiday is to pass it forward. Imagine an inspiring Sousa march in the background, or better yet – I’ll give you one.

How’s that for a dynamite opening paragraph? He describes how deep pools made by the beavers allow trout to survive the frozen winter, how factories depend on the running water to operate and how beavers manage and create rich soil over the years that go on to feed the farms of america.

The truly amazing thing is that this was written almost 100 years ago, and I spent the last four years learning about it from people who were doing the research to prove that its really true. Words like biodiversity and hyporheic exchange hadn’t been invented yet, but Enos Mills could see it right before his eyes.

If you have any time left over after fireworks, watermelon and the balloon toss, go give yourself a real American treat and read the whole chapter. God Bless Castor Americanus!

Martinez Destiny

heidi08 Beavers, Friends of Martinez Beavers, History, kits May 28, 2011

So a couple months ago I was avidly reading “In Beaver World” by Enos Mills who was called the “John Muir of the Rockies”.

Beaver works are of economical and educational value besides adding a charm to the wilds. The beaver is a persistent practicer of conservation and should not perish from the hills and mountains of our land. Altogether, the beaver has so many interesting ways, is so useful, skillful, practical, and picturesque that his life and his deeds deserve a larger place in literature and in our hearts.

Enos Mills

I was was told by Robert Hanna, (Muir descendant and fellow board member) that the pair met in San Francisco at the beach and became friends with common interests. Robert directed me to some correspondence archived at University of the Pacific where I learned that Mills asked for an invite to Martinez in 1907 and Muir responded with a ‘please come’ in October of that year. My fancy was struck with the idea of the author of arguably the most important beaver book yet in circulation coming to Martinez, which would one day become the location of some pretty famous beavers.

There was no record at the Muir house of his visit. No one from UOP or the Sierra Club could tell me if it happened. The helpful rangers and interpretive guides couldn’t say whether the visit occurred or not. I eventually figured the trip would have been a bigger deal to Mills than Muir, so went looking at his site for clues. I had very enthusiastic guides from the Colorado Rockies national park and the Mills cabin looking through original documents and biographies. I learned that the copies of Muir’s letters were among the items found in Mills top desk drawer when he died, so they were clearly precious. Maybe it was too much to make the visit come true? Apparently Mills was a little hard on himself, and might not have been able to accept an offer that was so exactly what he wanted. I could understand that.

Then yesterdays fluke email turned me on to the California Digital Newspaper Collection and I spent yesterday ravaging history and not even getting dusty. I found articles from the 1800’s about beavers in the Stanislaus, Merced, and Tuolumne rivers. I found articles encouraging the adoption of kits as pets, or using dam building as a weather indicator. I found articles about beavers at Bodega Bay and Santa Barbara.

And then I found this:

It’s from the San Francisco Call newspaper in March 1908 when Enos Mills was a guest speaker at the California Club, and it clearly says Mills will be a guest of John Muir on his visit. Which means Enos Mills came to Martinez when my house was ten years old. I imagine he took the train and went from the old station to the Muir house by carriage, riding over the creek which is home to our beavers and my home on his way. Golly.

Partial

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Creative Solutions, Educational, Friends of Martinez Beavers May 12, 2011

“The drouth [sic] continued and by mid-October the lake went entirely dry except in the canals. Off in one corner stood the beaver house, a tiny rounded and solitary hill in the miniature black plane of lake-bed. With one exception the beaver abandoned the site and moved on to other scenes. I know not where. One old beaver remained. Whether he did this through the fear of not being equal to the journey across the dry rocky ridge and down into Wind River, or whether from a deep love of the old home associations no one can say. but he remained and endeavored to make provisions for the oncoming winter. Close to the house he dug or enlarged a well that was about six feet in diameter and four feet in depth. Seepage filled this hole and into it he plunged a number of green aspen chunks and cuttings, a meagre food supply for the long cold winter that followed. Extreme cold began in early November and not until April was there a thaw.”

Enos Mills: In Beaver World

Uh-oh. Things do not look good for our hero. You know those national geographic programs with the elephants all huddled around the drying pond and then a one gets stuck in the mud and buzzards come? i’ve decided that there’s almost no program about elephants ever that doesn’t end badly and make me cry, so my new motto is “if it has a trunk I’m turning it off”. Will this beaver’s fate be similar? Animal observers and reporters are often torn between maintaining their impartiality and intervening. I wonder what the founder of the Colorado Rockies National Park will do?

Meanwhile the old beaver had a hard winter. The cold weather persisted and finally the well in which he had deposited winter food froze to the bottom. Even the entrance holes into the house were frozen shut. this ssealed him in. the old fellow whose teeth were worn and whose claws were bad, apparently tried in vain to break out.

What do you suppose happens next, as the impartial beaver observer watches to see whether the fierce winter will finish off this lone beaver? Death and starvation are natural things that occur in a beavers life, and I told you Mills was a less whimsical writer than some. Did he come back in the spring to find the withered bones of the beaver elder? Or did the grandpa disappear without a trace?

On returning from three month’s absence two friends and I investigated the old beaver’s condition. We broke through the frozen walls of the house and crawled in. The old fellow was still alive and greatly emaciated. for some time — I know not how long– he had susbsisted on the wood and the bark of some green sticks which had been built into an addition of the house during the autumn. We cut several green aspens into short lengths and threw them into the house. The broken hole was then close.d The old fellow accepted these cheerfully. For six weeks aspens were occasionally thrown to him, and at the end of this time the spring warmth had melted the deep snow. The water rose and filled the pond and unsealed the entrance to the house and again the old fellow emerged into the water. The following summer he was joined, or rejoined, by a number of other beavers.“