Nicole Eaton – Worth A Dam

A sizzle of umbrage has poured from the colder climes of our Canadian cousins. I have had a delightful time wading through the marshes of national outrage, and collecting the best bits to share with you. Let’s start with this fantastic video from a well known travel blogger.

This amused me too, from the National Post.

Love the graphic! I was especially pleased with Paula Simons post for the Edmonton Journal. In addition to her spirited defense of the beaver character…

The beaver is smart, industrious, creative. They are natural engineers, whose dams literally shape and change our landscape. They are builders. They are survivors. They thrive all across Canada, from the harsh northern wilderness – to the urban city core. And, how shall I put this – they can be viewed with affectionate irony. Polar bears inspire terror and awe. Beavers inspire good humoured admiration and ribald jokes. I know which sense better suits my idea of what it means to be Canadian

she included a repost of an article I somehow missed last year when the world’s biggest beaver dam (visible from space) story broke. It’s an imagined interview with the chief engineer about the mammoth project.

Beaver architect chews over his dam work

Edmonton Journal Thu May 6 2010

Journal Columnist Paula Simons sits down with Mr. Castor Canadensis, chief architect of the world’s biggest beaver dam, for an in-depth discussion on water management, green design and sprawl development. The 850-metre-long dam in a remote southeast corner of Wood Buffalo National Park became an international media sensation this week. It’s more than twice the length of the Hoover Dam. It’s the second-longest dam in the province. Only the 1,200-metre long Old Man Dam beats it.

Simons: Thanks, Mr. Canadensis, for taking time from your busy building schedule to talk to me today.

Canadensis: Please, Paula, call me Castor. Or Cas. We’re not a very formal bunch, up here at the lodge.

Simons: Good to know. So tell me Cas, how did you come to build the world’s largest beaver dam?

Canadensis: This wasn’t a fly-by-night project. We’ve been at this almost 40 years — it’s been the work of generations. We started building around the same time your city council started work on LRT. But we aren’t stop-start builders. We see things through. Slow. Steady. Solid. Diligent. You might say we beaver away at things until we get them done.

Simons: Is this your personal monument? Do you suffer from that common “starchitect” affliction, the edifice complex?

Canadensis: Far from it. This is a group effort, something our whole community has been working at for years. We’re all about legacy, about building for the future. Share the work, share the wealth. That’s our vision.

Honestly, you really have to go read the whole thing. It’s a lot of fun. I wrote Paula an appreciative fan letter and she wrote back stunned that there was a beaver advocacy group in California! Hopefully this is the start of a beautiful friendship, but quotes like these make it all worth while.

Simons: But it seems to me that a project as grandiose as yours is a damning example of sprawl development. What about compact urban form? What about walkability?

Canadensis: Walkability? Lady, if your legs were as short as mine, you’d stop popping off about walkability. Hey, we’ve got webbed feet for a reason. What matters in lodge and dam design is swimmability, and that, we’ve got covered. Compact urban form? Don’t make me laugh. This is big, wild country up here. We dream big. We think big. We build big. Freedom to create, spirit to achieve — we call it the Beaver Advantage.

And, let me add, we built it all without infrastructure grants, loan guarantees, stimulus dollars or bond issues. We never asked some city council to finance our “dam district.” OK, so we built on public land. But it was ours, before it was yours.

Listen, got to get back to work. I think my teeth have grown an inch while we’ve been yakking. I’ve got logs to roll, canals to plan, empires to build, regimes to overthrow.

Simons: Do you have any final words of wisdom for humanity?

Canadensis: Sure. You want something done right? Leave it to beavers. And for heaven’s sake, tell that Justin kid to comb the hair out of his eyes. He’s giving all us beavers a bad name.

I guess Ms. Eaton got her 15 minutes of fame alright. As of this morning the google tells me that there are 154 articles on her friday floor speech to replace the ‘dentally defective rodent’ with the lands largest carnivore. Unfortunately for her, lots of the articles look like this:

While it’s true that a polar bear would surely win a fight between the two mammals in the wilderness and the bakery – where bear claws trump beaver tails – we’ll put our money on the incumbent beaver if this ridiculous, expensive notion of “emblem makeover” ever makes its way into the Senate floor.

Beavers have served this country well for over a century, assuming a strong, proud pose on our nickels and the Hudson’s Bay Company coat of arms. Beaver Lumber was a fine, all-Canadian retail chain, The Beaver (now called Canada’s History) was a respected magazine. In a down economy, beavers can be counted on for make-work projects like dams. They are also an organic member of the forest industry.

It is not time to replace the beaver as our national symbol, but it is well past time that Eaton took a cue from the dentally defective rodent and got busy on something more constructive.

I have to commend Sen. Nicole Eaton for making headlines on a slow news day seriously debating the pros and cons of the beaver versus the polar bear.

I think the citizens of Canada put you in charge of thinking a little more in depth about situations than that. Try your hand at social issues or ending poverty or something to get your 15 minutes of fame before you waste more of our taxes looking into changing a Canadian icon.

Polar bears are strong and majestic looking, so it’s easy to see their appeal over squat and toothy rodents. But looks, dear senator, aren’t everything. And what’s really curious (besides how this could possibly be a matter for the Senate to worry about) is why, as a Conservative, Eaton doesn’t see more to love in the beaver. They really are on the right side of so many issues.

They’re big on history. The lucrative trade in beaver pelts drove exploration in much of the country and formed the basis of our early economy. Beavers played a “formative role in the creation of Canada,” according to the Canadian Encyclopedia. No one ever says that about the polar bear. Yes, fashion is fickle and beaver fur has fallen out of favour. But, it could be argued, their tails have more than filled that void. Fried dough drenched in sugar — there’s no dessert named after a polar bear that can beat that.

Socially and fiscally, beavers fit the Conservative bill, too. They mate for life and their older offspring care for the younger ones. Why, if we were all like that, demands for a national daycare program would cease. Wouldn’t that be music to Stephen Harper’s ears? Each beaver family can maintain acres of wetland — creating valuable habitat and environmental benefits — and they don’t charge a dime for it. And when some of the furry fellas decide to munch on the good senator’s Muskoka cottage dock that, it could be said, helps the economy by creating new construction jobs.

Most animals take what comes their way but the beaver, second only to us, changes its landscape. They even have their own verb: it means to work hard. The polar bear, for all its “strength, courage, resourcefulness and dignity,” which Eaton so admires, is under serious distress from warming temperatures and loss of sea ice for hunting. There’s nothing the polar bear can do about it. In fact, it’s a bit odd that a Conservative senator wants to draw attention to the polar bear at all. The climate change file isn’t exactly the Harper government’s strong suit.

Eaton has put out her call to trade in a “19th-century has-been for a 21st-century hero.” We say the beaver is found across the nation, is a hard worker, cares for family, contributes to the community and yet is no pushover. What better national emblem could we have?

Long live the beaver!

Nice. Who knew beavers were so political? I mean, besides every single person who has ever lived in the city of Martinez? Or anywhere in Contra Costa? Or the greater Bay Area? Or the entire West Coast? Never mind.

Beavers ARE political. Everyone knows that.