Watched by Wild Animals

by Enos A. Mills

Instead of moving, the colony folks spent a number of days clearing the fire wreckage from their pond. With winter near and streams perilously low for travelling, it probably was unwise to go elsewhere and try to build a home and gather a harvest.

One night, early in October, the colonists gnawed down a number of aspens that had escaped the fire. These were in a grove several hundred feet down stream from the pond. A few nights later they commenced to drag the felled aspens up stream into their pond. This was difficult work, for midway between the grove and the pond was a waterfall. The beaver had to drag each aspen out of the water and up a steep bank and make a portage around the falls.

The second night of this up-stream transportation a mountain lion had lain in wait by the falls. Tracks and marks on the muddy slope showed that he had made an unsuccessful leap for two beavers on the portage. The following morning an aspen of eighty pounds’ weight which two beavers had evidently been dragging was lying on the slope. The lion had not only missed, but on the muddy slope he slipped and received a ducking in the deep water-hole below.

Transportation up stream was stopped. The remainder of the felled aspens were piled into a near-by “safety pond.” A shallow stream which beavers use for a thoroughfare commonly has in it a safety pond which they maintain as a harbour, diving into it in case of attack. Usually winter food is stored within a few feet of the house, but in this case it was nearly six hundred feet away. In storing it in the safety pond, the beavers probably were making the best of a bad situation.

Two days after the attack from the lion the beavers commenced cutting trees about fifty yards north of their pond. The beavers took pains to clear a trail or log road over which to drag their felled trees to the pond. Two fallen tree trunks were gnawed into sections, and one section of each rolled out of the way. A two-foot opening was cleared through a tongue of willows, and the cuttings dragged into the pond and placed on top of the food-pile.

One morning a number of abandoned cuttings along this cleared way told that the harvesters had been put to flight. No work was done during the three following nights. Tracks in the mud showed that a lion was prowling about.

Pioneer dangers and hardships are the lot of beaver colonists. The history of every old beaver house is full of stirring interest. The house and the dam must have constant care. Forest fires or other uncontrollable accidents may force the abandonment of the colony at a time when the conditions for travelling are deadly, or when travelling must be done across the country. A score may leave the old home, but only a few survive the journey to the new home site.

The Broken Tree colonists continued the harvest by cutting the scattered aspens along the stream above the pond. A few were cut a quarter of a mile up stream. Before these could be floated down into the pond it was necessary to break a jam of limbs and old trees that had collected against a boulder. The beaver gnawed a hole through the jam. One day a harvester who ventured far up a shallow brook was captured by a grizzly bear. During this unfortunate autumn it is probable that others were lost besides these mentioned. Harvest-getting ended by the pond and the stream freezing over. It is probable that the colonists had to live on short rations that winter.

One winter day a beaver came swimming down into the safety pond. I watched him through the ice. He dislodged a small piece of aspen from the pile in the bottom of the pond and with it went swimming up stream beneath the ice. At the bottom of the icy falls I found a number of aspen cuttings with the bark eaten off. While examining these, I discovered a hole or passageway at the bottom of the falls. This tunnel extended through the earth into the pond above. This underground portage route enabled the beavers to reach their supplies down stream.