I think it was 2008 when I first wrote Catherine Salvin of the WALC school at Balboa High in San Francisco. WALC stands for Wilderness Arts and Literacy Collaborative and is an outdoor-immersion-ecologically-minded splendor that is accessible to both continuation and Balboa students. As you can see it is definitely not your typical school.
Last year Catherine wrote that there was FINALLY money to get the kids here and they would like to make a visit to see some urban beavers. I told them the viewing was better before November but this is the first chance they had to make the trek. Jon and I are meeting them tonight down town for a beaver tour, and I’m hopeful that the beavers will cooperate. With any luck they will inspire some essays or artwork and I will get to post it here! (Not to mention fostering a healthy respect for urban beavers and their contributions later in life.)
Fingers crossed that we will see actual beavers in our beaver habitat!
In the meantime I’ve been thinking some pretty fanciful thoughts. Bear with me. (Remember my day job is a child psychologist so it’s an occupational hazard.) These thoughts are about mermaids. No seriously. Now everyone has seen the little mermaid and knows about mermaids in the ocean but did you also know that there are old stories that say some mermaids travel up estuaries to fresh water lakes? Estuaries like the Carquinez Straits? (Humphrey did it!)There is even some indication that they go to fresh water when they’re pregnant and give birth in fresh water. Which makes sense, considering salmon and steelhead go out to sea and come back to breed and lay eggs. Can’t you just imagine a mermaid tagging along beside a salmon and finding herself surrounded by cattails?
Mermaids have also been described as being able to swim up rivers to freshwater lakes.
And since you already agreed to come this far with your imagination, can’t you imagine how mermaids would enjoy swimming around with beavers in their murky splendor? I mean, you’ve seen paintings of them with seals, and dolphins, so why not beavers? Visiting their underwater houses, helping with a repair or two and playing with the kits? There are numerous stories about mermaids helping humans so it’s not unthinkable to imagine they would even warn beavers about trappers or underwater snares.
In the vast entirety of the internet, where one can spend days and months looking through every possible crazy idea that is dear to someone, there is not a single thing written or drawn about beavers and mermaids.
Until now.
