Poetry Prose and Other Words

by Ken Ingham

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Thinking Like a Beaver

Beaver have long been drawn to this West Virginia mountain valley by the taste of the potable water that emerges from under the rocks at the mouth of Raven’s Ravine. When the present family arrived, there were already two large ponds, made by a human with a bulldozer, perfect sites for a beaver lodge. But that human didn’t approve their way of developing waterfront property. Many before had lost their lives by foolishly showing their faces in broad daylight. Then that human was replaced by a new one, yours truly, who carried a shovel instead of a gun. I installed fences around my favorite trees and protected culverts under the road. I allowed them to make a lodge. I sat nearby for hours, mesmerized by the whimpers of nursing kits. The parents slapped their tails in gratitude while making their rounds at dusk and dawn. But when they built a dam in the overflow ditch, I broke it up with my shovel. The damage was soon repaired because beaver like their ponds full to the brim. They don’t understand that if water flows over a man made dirt dam, it could erode the back side to the point of collapse. Eventually I built a robust system that directed the overflow into the former cow pasture. I hired a man with a tractor to make a crude berm extending out into the pasture. When the berm sprung a leak, the beaver immediately repaired it. Soon there was a whole new wetland with bull rushes and cat tails and salamanders. Last year I was elated to spot an American Bittern camouflaged by the new growth. Over the years the beaver have built many new dams, creating additional ponds above and below the man made ones. Last night at dusk, I watched two beaver making their rounds. In stead of slapping their tails, one of them came close and stared at me for a long time, as if projecting this thought: You know, if we continue working together, we can and take this ecosystem to a whole new level.

This essay first appeared in Watershed, a news letter of the
Cacapon & Lost Rivers Land Trust