Beaver River

“ In many cases water flows round the end of a dam, and in making its way back to the main channel is intercepted by another dam, then another; and thus the water from one small brook maintains a cluster or chain of pondlets.
[Pg 75]
The majority of beaver dams are as crooked as a river’s course. Now and then one is straight. A few are built from shore to a boulder, from the boulder to a willow-clump, and finally, perhaps, from willow-clump to some outstretching peninsula on the further shore. ”

“ 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 [Pg 86] 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 circumference. ”

“ Every beaver pond is a settling-basin that takes sediment and soil from the water that passes through it. If this soil were carried down it would not only be lost, but it would clog the deep waterway, the river channel. Deposited in the pond, it will in time become productive. During past ages the millions of beaver dams in the United States have spread soil over thousands of square miles and rendered them productive. Beavers prepared the way for numerous forests and meadows, for countless orchards and peaceful, productive valleys. ”

“ In 1886 and 1887 the State built a dam on Beaver river at Stillwater, raising the water 9 feet. Great areas of timber land for a distance of 20 miles were flooded and the trees killed. The whole basin became filled with a tangle of drift-wood; great swamps were created beyond the flow line, springs were covered up and polluted, and the region rendered so unhealthy that land became unsalable. Lovely lakes and ponds were submerged, and favorite camp-sites obliterated; feeding grounds for game were destroyed ”

“ A considerable quantity of snow fell during the night, and the morning of the 8th was very boisterous. At 5 a.m. we started, and, following a few turns of the stream by which Green Lake discharges itself into Beaver River, we turned off into a very bad, swampy track, leading to the two Duck Lakes, each half a league long, and nearly as far asunder. A short portage brought us to the banks of Beaver River, which is about the same size as Swan River, and similarly wooded. ”

“ Beaver, Chipuxet, Queen, Wood, and Pawcatuck Rivers, Rhode Island and Connecticut– The approximately 10-mile segment of the Beaver River from its headwaters in Exeter, Rhode Island, to its confluence with the Pawcatuck River; the approximately 5-mile segment of the Chipuxet River from Hundred Acre Pond to its outlet into Worden Pond; the approximately 10-mile segment of the upper Queen River from its headwaters to the Usquepaugh Dam in South Kingstown, Rhode Island, and including all its tributaries ”

“ These dams will easily support the weight of a man. In the pond area or on the dam, a conical mass of mud and twigs, (the beaver lodge) some three to five feet high may be found, which contains the home of the beavers using that pond. Each lodge has an underwater entrance which is constantly in use, winter and summer. While beavers work mostly at night, it has been a regular practice in the Park to observe them swimming in their ponds just before nightfall. The Mill Creek, Hidden Valley, and Colorado River Valley areas have been especially good locations for sight of beaver. ”

“ But though one man may write a poem while “waiting on the bridge at Coventry,” another may hardly, without presumption, write a long chapter on the top of a tower. Let me end, therefore, while descending, with a scrap of etymology. Beaver lake, that is, the lake of floating islands, sacred to the Druids, is said by one learned scribe to be the origin of the name Beverley. Another finds it in the beavers that colonized the river Hull, with lea for a suffix, and point to an ancient seal, which represents St. John seated, resting his feet on a beaver. ”

“ Only one beaver was taken in the 9 which were set yesterday. It is the opinion of the more ex- perienced hunters that there are a few beaver still in this part of the river, but owing to the height of the water they cannot be taken. People passed twice this way about this season of the year before but never saw the water so high as at present. We expected to have found some Indians here and obtained some eatables from them, either roots or anything or another, but none are to be seen in consequence of the height of the water; they cannot remain on the river but are off to the mountains. ”

“ The course of the river is generally about N. N. W. from Pittsburgh to Beaver, about twenty-eight miles. We continued to descend it, our attention occupied by frequent changes of prospect, caused by its winding course. From the point below Brunot’s island, is a fine vista of the river with hills on the right and {79} a bottom on the left; a very high hill in front cultivated on the top, Baldwin’s mill on the right three miles distant, reflected by the water to double its size; the well frequented road to Beaver on the same hand, and farms and farm houses in view of each other ”

“ In consequence, the river is able to force a passage into the lake, broad only in proportion to its utmost [Pg 441] strength; while it hollows for itself, behind the sand-banks, a basin of one, two, or three miles across. In these rivers we killed many wildfowl and beaver.
To kill beaver, we used to go several miles up the rivers, before the approach of night, and after the dusk came on suffer the canoe to drift gently down the current, without noise. The beaver in this part of the evening come abroad to procure food, or materials for repairing their habitations ”

“ We made a good start at five-thirty the next morning for St. George, which lay over on the other side of Beaver Dam Mountains, down on Clara Creek. We had a stiff pull to get up on the mesa and then a continual climb up over the rim. It grew cooler as we climbed, and after about fourteen miles we stopped for noon. From here we had a splendid view of the basin, saw where the Virgin River breaks through the mountains and where the Beaver Dam and Virgin wash come together. Then we drove on up and at 3 P. M. topped the crest and started down into Clara Creek Valley. ”

“ BEAVER DAM—FOUR FEET HIGH—ONE HUNDRED FEET WIDE.
But gradually the water receded from under our barks, and we were again forced to take to the stream and lift our canoes over the cruel rocks, until we reached a broad expanse of the river below.
This pond was the result of an enormous beaver dam four feet high and one hundred feet wide.
[98]
SLUICING A DAM.
[99]
“We better set our traps,” said Nichols; “many beaver here; me catch some to-night, a family of nine,” the Indian’s accuracy regarding the points of wood-craft being at times wonderful. ”

“ Beaver Creek, Clackamas County. The name of Beaver Creek community was first used for a school district in the early 50's, and came from the name of the stream that flows into the Willamette River near New Era. Beaver Creek community is south of Oregon City and has an elevation of 528 feet. The name of the post office is Beavercreek.
There are streams called Beaver creek in almost every county in the state. The beaver were very numerous through early days in Oregon, a fact that is attested by an examination of the journals of the various fur hunters. ”

“ A live beaver is far more valuable to us than a dead one. Soil is eroding away, river-channels are filling, and most of the streams in the United States fluctuate between flood and low water. A beaver colony at the source of every stream would moderate these extremes and add to the picturesqueness and beauty of many scenes that are now growing ugly with erosion. ”

“ If archeologists examine our gravesites 600 years from now, what will they learn about us?
14 Survival
Beaver Creek flows regardless of the season! Most of the time it is gentle and clear. However, dry periods may reduce streamflow to a trickle hidden beneath the rocky creekbed. Limbs and twigs are often lodged in the trees along the creek. This debris is evidence of the power and height of rampaging flood waters. The cliff dwellers probably knew and accepted all these moods.
Directly across the creek, buried beneath years of river deposits, are remnants of prehistoric irrigation ditches. ”

“ In the same sections, where the homesteaders had used aspen for their fence posts, the beavers, no doubt mistaking them for trees, cut them down. Sometimes their pluck and persistence won them the admiration of their enemies. In most cases they won out.
One day, far up near the headwaters of the Cache la Podre River in Colorado, I came upon a rancher trying to drain a number of beaver ponds to secure water for irrigation; it was a very dry season and water was scarce. During the day he tore gaps in the dams, during the night the beavers repaired the breaks. ”

“ The beaver that build their houses in small rivers or creeks, in which the water is liable to be drained off when the back supplies are dried up by the frost, are wonderfully taught by instinct to provide against that evil, by making a dam quite across the river, at a convenient distance from their houses. ”

“ Did not raise camp. The people
visited the traps & took only 5 beaver — 1 5 were taken yesterday. Went again accompanied by a man L. Kanota, up the valley where I was yesterday on discovery but on the opposite side of it. The river runs through an impass- able swamp all the way up the valley, the principal fork falls in at the head of it, it is of considerable size, well wooded & apparently well adapted for beaver but there is no appearance of any ever having been in it nor is there in two other small forks which fall in farther down. ”

“ Swamp lands often mean beaver-dams; and trappers always note what stops the current of a sluggish stream. Frequently it is a beaver colony built across a valley in the mountains, or stopping up the outlet of a slough. The trapper was sleeping under his canoe on the banks of the river where the swamp tumbled out from the ravine. Before retiring to what was a boat by day and a bed by night, he had set out a fish net and some loose lines—which the flow of the current would keep in motion—below the waterfall. ”

“ As soon as a dam is completed, it becomes a wilderness highway. It is used day and night. Across it go bears and lions, rabbits and wolves, mice and porcupines; chipmunks use it for a bridge, birds alight upon it, trout attempt to leap it, and in the evening the graceful deer cast their reflections with the willows in its quiet pond. Across it dash pursuer and pursued. Upon it take place battles and courtships. Often it is torn by hoof and claw. Death struggles stain it with blood. Many a drama, romantic and picturesque, fierce and wild, is staged upon the beaver dam. ”

“ At the first suspicious sound he would bring his broad tail down upon the water with a resounding slap that could be heard all along the dam, and all through Beaver City, for water is very mobile, and conducts motion or sound easily. At this well-known signal, the workers who, a moment before, might have been lifting and tugging logs or laying on mortar, would disappear as though the lake had opened and swallowed them. This was really just what happened, but the waters did not open; they were always waiting and ready to receive their little water folks. ”

“ Little by little he has seen his lake widen and broaden, and one by one new lodges have been reared, until now, as he sits upon his broad tail and views Beaver City from the vantage ground of the dam, he must be well satisfied with his planning, for it is all his world and he loves it as each wild creature does the element it inhabits. To his ears the sound of running water is sweetest music, and the roar of the freshet, which fills man with dismay has no terrors for him ”

“ Started as usual very early this morning, and in four miles came to Beaver Creek, a very beautiful stream of water. The stream is now full of beaver, and is much obstructed by their dams. The country is somewhat more broken to-day than it was yesterday; timber comes in view on the tops of the mountains, and the scenery becomes more grand with each mile as we proceed. Three miles beyond Beaver Creek, a high peak, called the Goose’s Neck, comes in view to the south of us ”

“ 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 canal from the edge of the pond to these groves. ”

“ Sometimes a small dam will be made—that may ultimately become a big one—by simply digging a ditch across the stream or basin and piling the excavated material into a dam.
Beaver, like men, are unequal in their skill, both in planning and in doing work, and the work of most beaver falls short of perfection. Errors are [Pg 68] not uncommon. More than one colony has commenced a dam apparently without knowing that there was not sufficient available material to complete it. Others have built in the wrong places, and have thus failed to flood the area which they desired to reach or cover with water. ”