Watched by Wild Animals

by Enos A. Mills

Winter supplies for this colony—green aspen or birch trees—must be had. Ordinarily, beavers cut the trees most easily obtained: first those on the shore of the pond, then those up stream, and finally those on near-by, down-hill slopes. Rarely does a beaver go fifty feet from the water. But if necessary he will go down stream and float trees against the current, or drag trees up steep slopes. This pond did not have, as is common, a border of aspen trees.

Late October I visited this new wilderness home. In the lower end of the frozen pond was a two-foot hole in the ice. This had been gnawed by the beavers, but for what purpose I could not then imagine.

One crew of loggers had started to work in a grove about two hundred feet from the hole in the ice. They were cutting aspens that were about four inches in diameter and twelve feet high. But before dragging them to the pond an opening or trailway through the woods had been cleared. Every bush in the way was cut off, every obstructing log cut in two and the ends rolled aside.

Dragging their tree cuttings to the pond was slow, hard work, and it was also dangerous work for a slow-moving beaver to go so far from the water. A beaver is heavy bodied and short-legged. With webbed hind feet he is a speedy swimmer, but on land he is a lubber and moves slowly and with effort.

A few days later the purpose of the hole in the ice of the frozen pond was made plain. A freshly swept trail in the snow led to it out of the woods. The beavers were taking their green aspen cuttings through the hole into the pond for their winter’s food. They had begun storing winter food at last.

I followed the trail back to where a number of aspens had been cut. Their stumps were about fifteen inches above the snow. Two trees still lay where they fell. These were about six inches in diameter and perhaps twenty feet long. Preparatory to being dragged to the pond they had been gnawed into sections of from three to six feet.

The beavers had not nearly finished their harvesting when a heavy fall of snow came and they were compelled to abandon their carefully made dragway and the aspen grove where they had been cutting. The nearest aspens now available were only sixty feet from the edge of the pond. But a thick belt of pines and a confusion of large, fallen, fire-killed spruce logs lay between the pond and this aspen grove.

Deep snow, thick pines, and fallen logs did not stop their harvest-gathering efforts. Tracks in the snow showed that they went to work beyond the belt of pines. During one night five beavers had wallowed out to the aspens, felled several and dragged them into the pond. But wolves appeared to realize the distress of the beavers. They lurked about for opportunities to seize these hunger-driven animals. While harvesting the aspen grove wolves had pounced upon one of the beavers at work and another on his way to the pond had been pursued, overtaken, and killed in the deep snow.

During three days of good weather which followed, ever watchful for wolves, the beavers cut few aspens. Then came another snowstorm. The work of harvesting winter supplies was still further hindered.

But beavers never give up. To obtain aspens which were to supply them with winter food they finally dug a tunnel. They began this on the bottom of the pond near the shore and dug outward toward the aspen grove. The tunnel was about two feet under the surface for fifteen feet. From this point it inclined upward and came out under a pine tree, close to the aspens. In only the last few feet, where the digging was through frozen ground, was there difficult digging of this tunnel. Apparently the thick carpet of fallen leaves and the deep snow checked the frost and the earth had not frozen deeply.