Lakeside Living 9: Beaver Fever by Ruth Ross Saucier

               

The lake began life as a marsh more than fifty years ago. In a move that would not be allowed today, a developer dammed up the northern end of the stream with an earthen dam, and the marsh soon filled up creating a small lake. Well, it was really a large pond in most peoples’ eyes, and some used-to-be Texans I know remarked that in Texas it would be nothing more than a pothole. But it was water, and the local wildlife approved of the lake and the dam.

Particularly the beavers. Except, of course, they knew that it could be improved, so they set about nestling in and re-engineering the lake in ways that pleased them.  The stream and its new earth dam were a good start, but the beavers had bigger dreams. By the time I moved in and went

exploring, the beaver dam was a wall six feet high holding back a pond sixty to seventy feet across and fifty feet wide.

My home on the lake was bordered by woods mostly consisting of alders and fir trees. Beavers cut down trees and brush for both eating and building purposes. There is nothing more enticing to a beaver mama and her babies, though, than a lovely tender alder between three and eight inches in diameter—the perfect size for munching, cutting down, teaching babies, and ferrying to your perpetually growing home.  So it was inevitable that one day we found an alder eaten mostly all

the way through. Did you know that beavers typically eat about two thirds of a tree and leave it for the wind to blow down? While their motives are unclear, I suspect a beaver OSHA safety regulation. After ascertaining that the tree could slam into the house, we ended up having to cut the tree down ourselves.

In addition to the large beaver dam at the southern end, our local beaver colony had also built a small den on the northern end, directly across from my house.  This locale appeared to be the place for babies to be born and nurtured. Every spring and summer, baby beavers appeared, swimming purposefully in the cove, intent on nipping small brush and carrying it away to their local den with an underwater entrance.  The new babies hadn’t quite gotten control of their tails yet: their tails tended to float and they sculled with their tails up high, slapping the top water with great industry but little effectiveness at first. With time and practice they learned to zoom, but at no time did they ever forget themselves and just play like otters; their lives were busy with purpose and visions of damming the world.

But it was the huge beaver dam at the far end of the lake that was a marvel of engineering. The sheer volume of water it contained gave credence to a bit of local folklore.  Several years before I bought my house there, a few of the locals had evidently taken exception to the remodeling of their beaver neighbors. Not only had the beavers built a huge dam at Lake Symington, they had built a string of dams farther upstream as well. So some of the locals decided to blow up three of the beaver dams —simultaneously.  Each destroyed dam disgorged thousands of gallons of water, trees, brush, mud, and rotting muck into the stream, gathering momentum and volume as it flowed downhill into the lake.  The lake experienced a mini-tsunami, swamping yards and trampling boats and docks.  The homeowners were reputed to have been displeased; but I’m betting the beavers just saw it as a chance to remodel.