Stone Pier in Beaver Dam
On an exploring trip over the foot hills of Dunwood Mountain, Bige and I came upon a very unusual beaver dam on Little Bear Brook. The brook at this point flowed through a deep ravine. The dam built across the valley measured in length at its top two hundred and ten feet. It was fifteen feet from the bottom of brook to top of dam, and we estimated the width at its base at forty feet. Water was flowing over a spillway three feet wide at one end of the dam. The upper and lower sides of the dam sloped away steeply like the roof of a house, and along the ridge was a row of stones, each about the size of a man's head. We walked across the dam on these stones without wetting our feet, and we wondered how the beavers got them into position. It did not seem possible that such small animals could lift and carry these heavy stones to where they were placed. It was impossible for a human to roll them up over the lower and outer face of the dam, which was a network of interwoven and criss-crossed saplings, sticks and brush. The only other method which appeared to us possible was for the stones to be rolled or pushed up the upper and inner slope of the dam under water to the top. The inner face of the dam was of course plastered over with mud and was relatively smooth.
Beaver Dam Fifteen Feet High
We cooked our eggs, bacon and tea on the bank at one end of the dam. After we had eaten and drunken and while I was engaged in taking some photographs, we were agreeably surprised to see our old friend, the bald headed Chief Engineer, swimming down the pond toward us. As a signal that we were recognized, he saluted by humping his back, lifting his broad tail and striking the water a resounding slap, thus throwing a fountain of spray high into the air. His presence signified to us that this marvelous piece of engineering was the product of his skill in plan and execution.
We were able to go in a boat past the beaver house on our pond, about a mile up the river. At the head of navigation was a big flat rock, over which the water flowed, making a fall about one foot high, and above this fall were rapids. An old and much used trail started at this flat rock and led up the river; a branch also took one to Wolf Pond and another branch led to Dunwood Mountain. We often used this trail, as also did other visitors at the pond. And doubtless, so did the Indians many years ago.
A pair of young beavers, both of them probably relatives of the Chief Engineer, built a dam across the river on this flat rock. The dam was about two feet high, backing the water up the rapids thirty yards and making a fall of water over the dam three feet high. Above this dam the beavers started building a house, but before the house was completed, high water following three days of rain washed away the dam. The beavers at once rebuilt the dam in the same spot, but within a month the dam had been the second time washed away. The high water of the following spring carried the dam, rebuilt in the fall, off of the flat rock for the third time.
On the smooth flat surface of this rock there was no suitable anchorage for a dam, and the unusual pressure of high and swift flowing water pushed it down stream and scattered the materials of which it was built.
It was a bad dam-site! and this is doubtless what the Chief Engineer told the youngsters; for it was at this period that the Chief took a hand in the game.
The house that had been built above the flat rock was abandoned and was never again occupied.