In Beaver World Part 3

The most interesting dam of this kind that I ever saw was one across the narrow neck of a rudely bell-shaped basin that was about two hundred feet in length. The material for this dam came from a grove of aspens that extended into one side of the basin. The floor of this basin was partly covered with a few inches of water. In starting the dam the beaver evidently knew where they wanted to build it. This was not by the aspen grove where the materials were convenient, where the dam would need to be about one hundred and twenty feet long, but was about fifty feet farther on, where a dam of only forty feet was required. This dam when completed bowed seven feet against the enclosed water. The beaver commenced building at the end nearest the grove of aspens, pulling and dragging the poles the fifty feet to it.

They laid these aspen poles, which were two to five inches in diameter and from four to twelve feet in length, at right angles to the length of the dam, and usually placed the large end upstream or against the current. But the water was shallow, and the transportation of these poles to the dam was difficult. Accordingly a ditch or ca.n.a.l was dug from the grove to the place by the dam where the work was going on.

This ditch was about twenty-five inches wide and fifteen deep. The waters filled it and thereby afforded an easy means of floating or transporting the poles from the grove to the place where they were being used. This ditch was carried forward along the upper line of the dam, and several feet in advance of the spot where the outbuilding work was advancing. Upon the earth thrown up from this were laid the upper or high ends of the poles. When the dam was finally completed, it was approximately eight feet wide on the base and stood four feet high. As soon as it was completed, the beaver stuffed the water-front with mud and gra.s.s roots, which were obtained by digging from the construction ditch immediately in front of the dam. In other words, they enlarged their pole-floating ditch above the dam into a deeper and wider channel, and used this excavated material for strengthening and waterproofing the dam.

The longest beaver dam that I have ever seen or measured was on the Jefferson River near Three Forks, Montana. This was 2140 feet long.

Most of it was old. More than half of it was less than six feet in height; two short sections of it, however, were twenty-three feet wide at the base, five on top, and fourteen feet high.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PART OF AN OLD DAM 1040 FEET LONG]

Harvest Time with Beavers

One autumn I watched a beaver colony and observed the customs of its primitive inhabitants as they gathered their harvest for winter. It was the Spruce Tree Colony, the most attractive of the sixteen beaver munic.i.p.alities on the big moraine on the slope of Long's Peak.

The first evening I concealed myself close to the beaver house by the edge of the pond. Just at sunset a large, aged beaver of striking, patriarchal appearance rose in the water by the house, and swam slowly, silently round the pond. He kept close to the sh.o.r.e and appeared to be scouting to see if an enemy lurked near. On completing the circuit of the pond, he climbed upon the end of a log that was thrust a few feet out into the water. Presently several other beaver appeared in the water close to the house. A few of these at once left the pond and nosed quietly about on the sh.o.r.e. The others swam about for some minutes and then joined their comrades on land, where all rested for a time.

Meanwhile the aged beaver had lifted a small aspen limb out of the water and was squatted on the log, leisurely eating bark. Before many minutes elapsed the other beavers became restless and finally started up the slope in a runway. They traveled slowly in single file and one by one vanished amid the tall sedge. The old beaver slipped noiselessly into the water, and a series of low waves pointed toward the house. It was dark as I stole away in silence for the night, and Mars was gently throbbing in the black water.

This was an old beaver settlement, and the numerous harvests gathered by its inhabitants had long since exhausted the near-by growths of aspen, the bark of which is the favorite food of North American beaver, though the bark of the willow, cottonwood, alder, and birch is also eaten. An examination of the aspen supply, together with the lines of transportation,--the runways, ca.n.a.ls, and ponds,--indicated that this year's harvest would have to be brought a long distance. The place it would come from was an aspen grove far up the slope, about a quarter of a mile distant from the main house, and perhaps a hundred and twenty feet above it. In this grove I cut three notches in the trunks of several trees to enable me to identify them whether in the garnered pile by a house or along the line of transportation to it.

The grounds of this colony occupied several acres on a terraced, moderately steep slope of a mountain moraine. Along one side rushed a swift stream on which the colonists maintained three but little used ponds. On the opposite side were the slope and summit of the moraine.

There was a large pond at the bottom, and one or two small ponds, or water-filled basins, dotted each of the five terraces which rose above. The entire grounds were perforated with subterranean pa.s.sageways or tunnels.

Beaver commonly fill their ponds by damming a brook or a river. But this colony obtained most of its water-supply from springs which poured forth abundantly on the uppermost terrace, where the water was led into one pond and a number of basins. Overflowing from these, it either made a merry little cascade or went to lubricate a slide on the short slopes which led to the ponds on the terrace below. The waters from all terraces were gathered into a large pond at the bottom. This pond measured six hundred feet in circ.u.mference. The crooked and almost encircling gra.s.s-grown dam was six feet high and four hundred feet long. In its upper edge stood the main house, which was eight feet high and forty feet in circ.u.mference. There was also another house on one of the terraces.

After notching the aspens I spent some time exploring the colony grounds and did not return to the marked trees until forty-eight hours had elapsed. Harvest had begun, and one of the largest notched trees had been felled and removed. Its gnawed stump was six inches in diameter and stood fifteen inches high. The limbs had been trimmed off, and a number of these lay scattered about the stump. The trunk, which must have been about eighteen feet long, had disappeared, cut into lengths of from three to six feet, probably, and started toward the harvest pile. Wondering for which house these logs were intended, I followed, hoping to trace and trail them to the house, or find them _en route_. From the spot where they were cut, they had evidently been rolled down a steep, gra.s.sy seventy-foot slope, at the bottom of this dragged an equal distance over a level stretch among some lodge-pole pines, and then pushed or dragged along a narrow runway that had been cut through a rank growth of willows. Once through the willows, they were pushed into the uppermost pond. They were taken across this, forced over the dam on the opposite side, and shot down a slide into the pond which contained the smaller house. Only forty-eight hours before, the little logs which I was following were in a tree, and now I expected to find them by this house. It was good work to have got them here so quickly, I thought. But no logs could be found by the house or in the pond! The folks at this place had not yet laid up anything for winter. The logs must have gone farther.

On the opposite side of this pond I found where the logs had been dragged across the broad dam and then heaved into a long, wet slide which landed them in a small, shallow harbor in the gra.s.s. From this point a ca.n.a.l about eighty feet long ran around the brow of the terrace and ended at the top of a long slide which reached to the big pond. This ca.n.a.l was new and probably had been dug especially for this harvest. For sixty feet of its length it was quite regular in form and had an average width of thirty inches and a depth of fourteen. The mud dug in making it was piled evenly along the lower side. Altogether it looked more like the work of a careful man with a shovel than of beaver without tools. Seepage and overflow from the ponds above filled and flowed slowly through it and out at the farther end, where it swept down the long slide into the big pond. Through this ca.n.a.l the logs had been taken one by one. At the farther end I found the b.u.t.t-end log. It probably had been too heavy to heave out of the ca.n.a.l, but tracks in the mud indicated that there was a hard tussle before it was abandoned.

The pile of winter supplies was started. Close to the big house a few aspen leaves fluttered on twigs in the water; evidently these twigs were attached to limbs or larger pieces of aspen that were piled beneath the surface. Could it be that the aspen which I had marked on the mountainside a quarter of a mile distant so short a time before, and which I had followed over slope and slide, through ca.n.a.l and basin, was now piled on the bottom of this pond? I waded out into the water, prodded about with a pole, and found several smaller logs.

Dragging one of these to the surface, I found there were three notches in it.

Evidently these heavy green tree cuttings had been sunk to the bottom simply by the piling of other similar cuttings upon them. With this heavy material in the still water a slight contact with the bottom would prevent the drifting of acc.u.mulated cuttings until a heavy pile could be formed. However, in deep or swift water I have noticed that an anchorage for the first few pieces was secured by placing these upon the lower slope of the house or against the dam.

Scores of aspens were felled in the grove where the notched ones were.

They were trimmed, cut into sections, and limbs, logs, and all taken over the route of the one I had followed, and at last placed in a pile beside the big house. This harvest-gathering went on for a month. All about was busy, earnest preparation for winter. The squirrels from the tree-tops kept a rattling rain of cones on the leaf-strewn forest floor, the cheery chipmunk foraged and frolicked among the withered leaves and plants, while aspens with leaves of gold fell before the ivory sickles of the beaver. Splendid glimpses, grand views, I had of this strange harvest-home. How busy the beavers were! They were busy in the grove on the steep mountainside; they tugged logs across the runways; they hurried them across the water-basins, wrestled with them in ca.n.a.ls, and merrily piled them by the rude house in the water. And I watched them through the changing hours; I saw their shadowy activity in the starry, silent night; I saw them hopefully leave home for the harvest groves in the serene twilight, and I watched them working busily in the light of the noonday sun.

Most of the aspens were cut off between thirteen and fifteen inches above the ground. A few stumps were less than five inches high, while a number were four feet high. These high cuttings were probably made from reclining trunks of lodged aspens which were afterward removed.

The average diameter of the aspens cut was four and one half inches at the top of the stump. Numerous seedlings of an inch diameter were cut, and the largest tree felled for this harvest measured fourteen inches across the stump. This had been laid low only a few hours before I found it, and a bushel of white chips and cuttings encircled the lifeless stump like a wreath. In falling, the top had become entangled in an alder thicket and lodged six feet from the ground. It remained in this position for several days and was apparently abandoned; but the last time I went to see it the alders which upheld it were being cut away. Although the alders were thick upon the ground, only those which had upheld the aspen had been cut. It may be that the beaver which felled them looked and thought before they went ahead with this cutting.

Why had this and several other large aspens been left uncut in a place where all were convenient for harvest? All other neighboring aspens were cut years ago. One explanation is that the beaver realized that the tops of the aspens were entangled and interlocked in the limbs of crowding spruces and would not fall if cut off at the bottom. This and one other aspen were the only large ones that were felled, and the tops of these had been recently released by the overturning of some spruces and the breaking of several branches on others. Other scattered large aspens were left uncut, but all of these were clasped in the arms of near-by spruces.

It was the habit of these colonists to transfer a tree to the harvest pile promptly after cutting it down. But one morning I found logs on slides and in ca.n.a.ls, and unfinished work in the grove, as though everything had been suddenly dropped in the night when work was at its height. Coyotes had howled freely during the night, but this was not uncommon. In going over the grounds I found the explanation of this untidy work in a bear track and numerous wolf tracks, freshly moulded in the muddy places.

After the bulk of the harvest was gathered, I went one day to the opposite side of the moraine and briefly observed the methods of the Island beaver colony. The ways of the two colonies were in some things very different. In the Spruce Tree Colony the custom was to move the felled aspen promptly to the harvest pile. In the Island Colony the custom was to cut down most of the harvest before transporting any of it to the pile beside the house. Of the one hundred and sixty-two trees that had been felled for this harvest, one hundred and twenty-seven were still lying where they fell. However, the work of transporting was getting under way; a few logs were in the pile beside the house, and numerous others were scattered along the ca.n.a.ls, runways, and slides between the house and the harvest grove.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE SPRUCE TREE HOUSE AND FOOD-PILE, OCTOBER 12]

There was more wasted labor, too, in the Island Colony. This was noticeable in the attempts that had been made to fell limb-entangled trees that could not fall. One five-inch aspen had three times been cut off at the bottom. The third cut was more than three feet from the ground, and was made by a beaver working from the top of a fallen log.

Still this high-cut aspen refused to come down and there it hung like a collapsed balloon entangled in tree-tops.

Prowling hunters have compelled most beaver to work at night, but the Spruce Tree Colony was an isolated one, and occasionally its members worked and even played in the suns.h.i.+ne. Each day I secluded myself, kept still, and waited; and on a few occasions watched them as they worked in the light.

One windy day, just as I was unroping myself from the shaking limb of a spruce, I saw four beaver plodding along in single file beneath.

They had come out of a hole between the roots of the spruce. At an aspen growth about fifty feet distant they separated. Though they had been closely a.s.sembled, each appeared utterly oblivious of the presence of the others. One squatted on the ground by an aspen, took a bite of bark out of it, and ate leisurely. By and by he rose, clasped the aspen with fore paws, and began to bite chips from it systematically. He was deliberately cutting it down. The most aged beaver waddled near an aspen, gazed into its top for a few seconds, then moved away about ten feet and started to fell a five-inch aspen.

The one rejected was entangled at the top. Presently the third beaver selected a tree, and after some trouble in getting comfortably seated, or squatted, also began cutting. The fourth beaver disappeared and I did not see him again. While I was looking for this one the huge, aged beaver whose venerable appearance had impressed me the first evening appeared on the scene. He came out of a hole beneath some spruces about a hundred feet distant. He looked neither to right nor to left, nor up nor down, as he ambled toward the aspen growth. When about halfway there he wheeled suddenly and took an uneasy survey of the open he had traversed, as though he had heard an enemy behind. Then with apparently stolid indifference he went on leisurely, and for a time paused among the cutters, which did nothing to indicate that they realized his presence. He ate some bark from a green limb on the ground, moved on, and went into the hole beneath me. He appeared so large that I afterward measured the distance between the two aspens where he paused. He was not less than three and a half feet long and probably weighed fifty pounds. He had all his toes; there was no white spot on his body; in fact, there was neither mark nor blemish by which I could positively identify him. Yet I feel that in my month around the colony I beheld the patriarch of the first evening in several scenes of action.

Sixty-seven minutes after the second beaver began cutting he made a brief pause; then he suddenly thudded the ground with his tail, hurriedly took out a few more chips, and ran away, with the other two beaver a little in advance, just as his four-inch aspen settled over and fell. All paused for a time close to the hole beneath me, and then the old beaver returned to his work. The one that had felled his tree followed closely and at once began on another aspen. The other beaver, with his aspen half cut off, went into the hole and did not again come out. By and by an old and a young beaver came out of the hole. The young one at once began cutting limbs off the recently felled aspen, while the other began work on the half-cut tree; but he ignored the work already done, and finally severed the trunk about four inches above the cut made by the other. Suddenly the old beaver whacked the ground and ran, but at thirty feet distant he paused and nervously thumped the ground with his tail, as his aspen slowly settled and fell. Then he went into the hole beneath me.

This year's harvest was so much larger than usual that it may be the population of this colony had been increased by the arrival of emigrants from a persecuted colony down in the valley. The total harvest numbered four hundred and forty-three trees. These made a harvest pile four feet high and ninety feet in circ.u.mference. A thick covering of willows was placed on top of the harvest pile,--I cannot tell for what reason unless it was to sink all the aspens below reach of the ice. This bulk of stores together with numerous roots of willow and water plants, which are eaten in the water from the bottom of the pond, would support a numerous beaver population through the days of ice and snow.

When I took my last tour through the colony everything was ready for the long and cold winter. Dams were in repair and ponds were br.i.m.m.i.n.g over with water, the fresh coats of mud on the houses were freezing to defy enemies, and a bountiful harvest was home. Harvest-gathering is full of hope and romance. What a joy it must be to every man or animal who has a hand in it! What a satisfaction, too, for all dependent upon a harvest, to know that there is abundance stored for all the frosty days!

The people of this wild, strange, picturesque colony had planned and prepared well. I wished them a winter unvisited by cruel fate or foe, and trusted that when June came again the fat and furry young beavers would play with the aged one amid the tiger lilies in the shadows of the big spruce trees.

Transportation Facilities

Two successive dry years had greatly reduced the water-level of Lily Lake, and the consequent shallowness of the water made a serious situation for its beaver inhabitants. This lake covered about ten acres, and was four feet deep in the deepest part, while over nine tenths of the area the water was two feet or less in depth. It was supplied by springs. Early in the autumn of 1911 the water completely disappeared from about one half of the area, and most of the remainder became so shallow that beaver could no longer swim beneath the surface. This condition exposed them to the attack of enemies and made the transportation of supplies to the house slow and difficult.

In the lake the beaver had dug an extensive system of deep ca.n.a.ls,--the work of years. By means of these deep ca.n.a.ls the beaver were able to use the place until the last, for these were full of water even after the lake-bed was completely exposed. One day in October while pa.s.sing the lake, I noticed a coyote on the farther sh.o.r.e stop suddenly, p.r.i.c.k up his ears, and give alert attention to an agitated forward movement in the shallow water of a ca.n.a.l. Then he plunged into the water and endeavored to seize a beaver that was struggling forward through water that was too shallow for his heavy body. Although this beaver made his escape, other members of the colony may not have been so fortunate.

The drouth continued and by mid-October the lake went entirely dry except in the ca.n.a.ls. Off in one corner stood the beaver house, a tiny rounded and solitary hill in the miniature black plain of lake-bed.

With one exception the beaver abandoned the site and moved on to other scenes, I know not where. One old beaver remained. Whether he did this through the fear of not being equal to the overland journey across the dry rocky ridge and down into Wind River, or whether from deep love of the old home a.s.sociations, no one can say. But he remained and endeavored to make provision for the oncoming winter. Close to the house he dug or enlarged a well that was about six feet in diameter and four feet in depth. Seepage filled this hole, and into it he piled a number of green aspen chunks and cuttings, a meagre food-supply for the long, cold winter that followed. Extreme cold began in early November, and not until April was there a thaw.

[Ill.u.s.tration: LAKE-BED Ca.n.a.lS AT LILY LAKE, OCTOBER, 1911]

[Ill.u.s.tration: SECTION OF A 750-FOOT Ca.n.a.l AT LILY LAKE Here five feet wide and three feet deep]

Before the lake-bed was snow-covered, all the numerous ca.n.a.ls and basins which the beaver had excavated could be plainly seen and examined. The magnitude of the work which the beaver had performed in making these is beyond comprehension. I took a series of photographs of these excavations and made numerous measurements. To the north of the house a pool had been dug that was three feet deep, thirty feet long, and about twenty wide. There extended from this a ca.n.a.l that was one hundred and fifty feet long. The food basin was thirty feet wide and four feet deep. This had a ca.n.a.l connection with the house. In the bottom of the basin was one of the feeble springs which supply the lake. Another ca.n.a.l, which extended three hundred and fifty feet in a northerly direction from the house, was from three to four feet wide and three feet deep. The largest ditch or ca.n.a.l was seven hundred and fifty feet long and three feet deep throughout. This extended eastward, then northeasterly, and for one hundred feet was five feet wide. In the remaining six hundred and fifty feet it was three to four feet wide. There were a number of minor ditches and ca.n.a.ls connecting the larger ones, and altogether the extent of all made an impressive show in the empty lake-basin.

Meantime the old beaver had a hard winter. The cold weather persisted, and finally the well in which he had deposited winter food froze to the bottom. Even the entrance-holes into the house were frozen shut.

This sealed him in. The old fellow, whose teeth were worn and whose claws were bad, apparently tried in vain to break out. On returning from three months' absence, two friends and I investigated the old beaver's condition. We broke through the frozen walls of the house and crawled in. The old fellow was still alive, though greatly emaciated.

For some time--I know not how long--he had subsisted on the wood and the bark of some green sticks which had been built into an addition of the house during the autumn. We cut several green aspens into short lengths and threw them into the house. The broken hole was then closed. The old fellow accepted these cheerfully. For six weeks aspens were occasionally thrown to him, and at the end of this time the spring warmth had melted the deep snow. The water rose and filled the pond and unsealed the entrance to the house, and again the old fellow emerged into the water. The following summer he was joined, or rejoined, by a number of other beaver.

In many localities the ca.n.a.ls or ditches dug and used by the beaver form their most necessary and extensive works. These ca.n.a.ls require enormous labor and much skill. In point of interest they even excel the house and the dam. It is remarkable that of the thousands of stories concerning the beaver only a few have mentioned the beaver ca.n.a.ls. These are labor-saving improvements, and not only enable the beaver to live easily and safely in places where he otherwise could not live at all, but apparently they allow him to live happily. The excavations made in taking material for house or dam commonly are turned to useful purpose. The beaver not only builds his mound-like house, but uses the basin thus formed in excavating earthy material for the house for a winter food depository. Ofttimes, too, in building the dam he does it by piling up the material dug from a ditch which runs parallel and close to the dam, and which is useful to him as a deep waterway after the dam is completed.

In transporting trees for food-supply, water transportation is so much easier and safer than land, that wherever the immediate surroundings of the pond are comparatively level the beaver endeavors to lead water out to tree groves by digging a ca.n.a.l from the edge of the pond to these groves. The felled trees are by this means easily floated into the pond. One of the simplest forms of beaver ca.n.a.l is a narrow, outward extension of the pond. This varies in length from a few yards to one hundred feet or more.

Another and fairly common form of ca.n.a.l is one that is built across low narrow necks of land which thrust out into large beaver ponds, or on narrow stretches of land around which crooked streams wander.

The majority of beaver ponds are comparatively shallow over the greater portion of their area. In many cases it is not easy, or even possible, to deepen them. They may be so shallow that the pond freezes to the bottom in winter except in its small deeper portion. The shallow ponds are made more usable by a number of ca.n.a.ls in the bottom. These ca.n.a.ls a.s.sure deep-water stretches under all conditions.

Most beaver ponds have a ca.n.a.l that closely parallels the dam. In some instances this is extended around the pond a few yards inside the sh.o.r.e-line. Two ca.n.a.ls usually extend from the house. One of these connects with the ca.n.a.l by the dam, the other runs to the place on the sh.o.r.e (commonly at the end of a trail or slide) most visited by the beaver.