Return of the neighborhood beaver(s)?

Many, many years ago, we first moved into our house in early December. It wasn't until the following Spring that we discovered we had a beaver or beavers for neighbors. There was no classic beaver mound house, he, she, or they lived in a den in the bank of the flowage, on the West side of the township road. We enjoyed the company and the tail-slapping antics for a year or two and then s/he or they were gone. Our suspicion is it was a male beaver trying to establish a new territory in a not-very-promising location.

West-side flowage pond, beaver den was in left bank

Photo by J. Harrington

Last week we noticed a pickup truck belonging to the county or township or watershed organization stopping repeatedly up the road from our house, just where the flowage crosses under the road. On one of those occasions, we drove past and saw someone with a pry bar trying to disassemble what looks to us like a beaver damn on the East side of the road. Our suspicion is that the beaver(s) could repair the damage faster than one person with a pry bar could try to enhance what is at best a very slow flow, even during times of high water like this past Spring.

East-side flowage stream, dam is about between two trees on far bank

Photo by J. Harrington

Apparently, someone in officialdom was agitated enough by the new squatters in the flowage that the heavy equipment was brought or sent in. A large backhoe is now parked on the Northern flowage bank. Half the beaver dam has been removed and is now sitting on the Northern bank, and several vehicles have been stopping and parking for extended periods this week. We're not sure if they're watching a beaver, pondering what's left of the dam, or ....

With all that's malfunctioning and dysfunctioning in the world today, we're encouraged to see a return  of some of the areas native inhabitants. The flowage drains through the Carlos Avery Wildlife Management Area into the Sunrise River. We believe that beavers probably lived here when the land was inhabited by the Lakota and/or the Ojibwe. We suppose if it were our property that was being inundated by the waters behind a beaver dam, we might not be as welcoming. But it isn't, and, as far as we can tell, after having lived in the neighborhood for about a quarter of a century, we aren't aware of any normally dry land that's at risk from the new dam. We'll poke around some more and see what else we can learn about the dam, its creators and its likely future, plus, some day very soon we'll share some photos of the backhoe and what's left of the dam.

Man in Stream

Rosanna Warren- 1953-

You stand in the brook, mud smearing
your forearms, a bloodied mosquito on your brow,
your yellow T-shirt dampened to your chest
as the current flees between your legs,
amber, verdigris, unraveling
today’s story, last night's travail . . .

You stare at the father beaver, eye to eye,
but he outstares you—you who trespass in his world,
who have, however unwilling, yanked out his fort,
stick by tooth-gnarled, mud-clabbered stick,
though you whistle vespers to the wood thrush
and trace flame-flicker in the grain of yellow birch.

Death outpaces us. Upended roots
of fallen trees still cling to moss-furred granite.
Lichen smolders on wood-rot, fungus trails in wisps.
I wanted a day with cracks, to let the godlight in.
The forest is always a nocturne, but it gleams,
the birch tree tosses its change from palm to palm,

and we who unmake are ourselves unmade
if we know, if only we know
how to give ourselves in this untendered light.

********************************************
Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.