The Beaver
The beaver is the national animal of Canada - it appeared on the first postage stamp issued by the colony in 1851, and now features on the back of the current 5c piece. There was nothing sentimental about this choice - beaver pelts had once kick-started the Canadian economy, but only recently has the beaver been treated with respect and protected from slaughter. Beavers are actually aquatic rodents, which grow to around 750cm long and weigh about 35kg. Their early importance was due to their thick soft pelts, composed of long guard hairs and a dense undercoat, which was used by the native peoples for clothing long before the arrival of the Europeans. Early fur traders quickly realized the value of beaver-skins, particularly for the manufacture of felt , for which there was a huge demand for hat-making. To keep up with demand the beaver was extensively trapped, and the voyageurs pushed further and further west along the lake and river systems in pursuit of the animal, thus opening up more and more of present-day Canada. The beaver population was decimated to the point of extinction in some areas of the east, but after beaver hats went out of fashion in the nineteenth century the species rapidly recovered and today they are comparatively common. Bark (for food) and water (in which to escape from danger) are two vital elements for beavers. They build a dam to create a large pond in which to escape from their enemies and to serve as a winter food store. Beavers start their dams, which can be up to 700m wide, by strategically felling one tree across a stream. This catches silt and driftwood and the beaver reinforces it with sticks, stones, grass and mud, which is laboriously smoothed in as a binding element. The lodge is constructed simultaneously; sometimes it forms part of the dam and sometimes it is fixed to the shore or an island in the pond. It is about 2m in diameter and has two entrances: one accessible from land and one from underwater. Lodges are topped with grass thatch and a good layer of mud, which freezes in winter, making them virtually impenetrable. During the autumn, the beaver stocks the pond formed by the dam with large numbers of young soft-bark trees and saplings; it drags these below the water line and anchors them to the mud at the bottom. It then retires to the lodge for the winter, only emerging to get food from the store or repair the dam in case of emergency. Beaver lakes are not, however, the tree-fringed paradises portrayed by some nature-film makers; a mud-banked pond, surrounded by untidily felled trees and with a bedraggled-looking domed heap of sticks and sludge somewhere along its banks is often nearer the mark. If you spot an untidy-looking lake anywhere in northwest Ontario, the chances are that a beaver's lodge will be close by, though you're unlikely to see the creature itself.
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