All Indian tribes in North America appear to have had one or more
legends concerning the beaver. Most of these legends credit him with
being a worthy and industrious fellow, and the Cherokees are said to
trace their origin to a sacred and practical beaver. Many of the
tribes had a legend which told that long, long ago the Great Waters
surged around a shoreless world. These waters were peopled with
beaver, beaver of a gigantic size. These, along with the Great Spirit,
dived and brought up quantities of mud and shaped this into the hills
and dales, the mountains where the cataracts plunged and sang, and all
the caves and cañons. The scattered boulders and broken crags upon the
earth were the missiles thrown by evil spirits, who in the beginning
of things endeavored to hinder and prevent the constructive work of
creation.
The beaver has been found in fossil both in Europe and in America.
Remnants of the dugout and the teeth of beaver, together with rude
stone implements of primitive man, have been found in England. Near
Albany, New York, gnawed beaver wood and the remains of a mastodon
were dug up from about forty feet below the surface in sediment and
river ooze. Fossil beaver were of enormous size.
Coming down to comparatively modern times, the animal as we now know
him appears to have been distributed over almost all Asia, Europe, and
North America. There was no marked difference in the individuals that
inhabited these three continents. The beaver is probably extinct in
Europe, but in July, 1900, I found a piece of wood floating in the
Seine that had been recently gnawed by a beaver. At this time I was
assured that not even a tame beaver could be found in Europe. It is
still found in parts of Siberia and Central Asia. That form which
inhabits South America is very unlike those in the Northern
Hemisphere, and may be called a link between the muskrat and the
beaver.
Reference is made to the beaver in ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics, and
Herodotus makes repeated mention of it. Pliny also gives a brief
account of this animal. In Germany, in 1103, the right of hunting
beaver was conferred along with other special hunting privileges; and
a bull of Pope Lucius III, in 1182, gave to a monastery all the beaver
found within the bounds of its property. A royal edict issued at
Berlin in March, 1725, insisted upon the protection of beaver.
Before the white man came, beaver--_Castor canadensis_--were widely
distributed over North America, perhaps more widely than any other
animal. The beaver population was large, and probably was densest to
the southwest of Hudson Bay and around the headwaters of the Missouri
and Columbia rivers. Their scantiest population areas in the United
States appear to have been southern Florida and the lower Mississippi
Valley. This scantiness is attributed by early explorers to the
aggressiveness of the alligators. All the southern half of Mexico
appears to have been without a beaver population; but elsewhere over
North America, wherever there were deciduous trees and water, and in
a few treeless places where there were only water and grass, the
beaver were found. Along the thousands of smaller streams throughout
North America there was colony after colony, dam after dam, in close
succession, as many as three hundred beaver ponds to the mile. Lewis
and Clark mention the fact that near the Three Forks, Montana, the
streams stretched away in a succession of beaver ponds as far as the
eye could reach. The statements made by the early explorers, settlers,
and trappers, together with my own observations,--which commenced in
1885, and which have extended pretty well over the country from
northern Mexico into Alaska,--lead to the conclusion that the beaver
population of North America at the beginning of the seventeenth
century was upwards of one hundred million. The area occupied was
approximately six million square miles, and probably two hundred
beaver population per square mile would be a conservative number for
the general average.
In the United States there are a number of counties and more than one
hundred streams and lakes named for the beaver; upwards of fifty
post-offices are plain Beaver, Beaver Pond, Beaver Meadow, or some
other combination that proclaims the former prevalence of this widely
distributed builder. The beaver is the national emblematic animal of
Canada, and there, too, numerous post-offices, lakes, and streams are
named for the beaver.
[Illustration: BEAVER PONDS]
Beaver skins lured the hunter and trapper over all American wilds.
These skins were one of the earliest mediums of exchange among the
settlers of North America. For two hundred years they were one of the
most important exports, and for a longer time they were also the chief
commodity of trade on the frontier. A beaver skin was not only the
standard by which other skins were measured in value, but also the
standard of value by which guns, sugar, cattle, hatchets, and clothing
were measured. Though freely used by the early settlers for clothing,
they were especially valuable as raw material for the manufacture of
hats, and for this purpose were largely exported.
From this animal were prepared many remedies which in former times
were believed to have high medicinal value. Castoreum was the most
popular of these, and from it was compounded the great cure-all. The
skin of the beaver was thought to be an excellent preventive of colic
and consumption; the fat of the beaver efficient in apoplexy and
epilepsy, to stop spasms, and for various afflictions of the nerves.
Powdered beaver teeth were often given in soup for the prevention of
many diseases. The castoreum of the beaver was considered a most
efficient remedy for earache, deafness, headache, and gout, for the
restoring of the memory and the cure of insanity. Next in importance
to its skin, the beaver was valued for the castoreum it yielded.
The old hunters, trappers, and first settlers forecast with confidence
the weather from the actions of the beaver. This animal was credited
with being weather-wise to a high degree. From his actions the nature
of the oncoming winter was predicted, and plans to meet it were made
accordingly. Faith in the beaver's actions and activities as a basis
for weather-forecasting was almost absolute. If the beaver began work
early, the winter was to begin early. If the beaver laid up a large
harvest, covered the house deeply with mud, and raised the
water-level of the pond, the winter was, of course, to be a long and
severe one.
Extensive autumn rambles in the mountains with especial attention to
beaver customs compels me to conclude that as a basis for weather
prediction beaverdom is not reliable. In the course of one autumn
month in the mountains of Colorado more than one hundred colonies were
observed. In many colonies work for the winter commenced early. In
others, only a few miles distant, preparations for the winter did not
begin until late. In some, extensive preparations were made for the
winter. In a few the harvest laid up was exceedingly small. Thus in
one month of the same year I saw some beaver colonies preparing for a
long winter and others for a short one, many preparing for a hard
winter and others almost unprepared for winter. From these varied and
conflicting prognostications, how was one accurately to forecast the
coming winter? The old prophets in one colony frequently disagreed
with aged prophets who were similarly situated, but in a neighboring
colony. At one place thirty or more beaver gathered an enormous
quantity of food, sufficient, in fact, to have supplied twice that
number for the longest and most severe winter. The winter which
followed was as mild a one as had passed over the Rocky Mountains in
fifty years. Not one tenth of the big food-pile was eaten.
I have not detected anything that indicates that the beaver ever plan
for an especially hard winter. Goodly preparations are annually made
for winter. Apparently the extent of the preparation in any colony is
dependent almost entirely upon the number of beaver that are to winter
in that colony. Winter preparations consist of gathering the
food-harvest, repairing and sometimes raising the dam, and commonly
covering the house with a layer of mud. Beaver display forethought,
intelligence, and even wisdom, but being weather-wise is not one of
their successful specialties. Local beaver now and then show unusual
activity, and unusually large supplies are gathered and stored for the
winter. This kind of work appears to be local, not general. The cases
in which unusually large preparations were made for the winter could
have been traced to an increased population of the colony that showed
these activities. On the other hand, colonies with less preparations
one year than on the preceding one probably had suffered a decrease of
population. Increase of population in a beaver colony may be accounted
for through the growing up of youngsters, or by the arrival of
immigrants, or both; where the temporary inactivity of trappers in one
locality might allow the beaver colony in that region to increase in
numbers; or where the beaver population of that colony might be
increased by the arrival of beaver driven from their homes by
aggressive hunters and trappers in adjoining localities. At any rate,
in the beaver world, some colonies each year commence work earlier
than do others, and some colonies make extensive preparations for the
winter, while others make but little preparation. This preparation
appears to be determined chiefly by the number of colonists and the
needs of the colony.
The beaver hastened, if it did not bring, the settlement of the
country. Hunters and trappers blazed the trails, described the natural
resources, and lured the permanent settlers to possess the land and
build homes among the ruins left by the beaver. Early in the fur
industry companies were formed, the Hudson's Bay Company becoming the
most influential and best known. Its charter was granted by Charles II
of England on the 2d day of May, 1669. This company finally developed
into one of the greatest commercial enterprises that America has ever
known. The skin of the beaver furnished more than half its revenue.
There are many features in the history of this company that have never
been surpassed in any land. For more than two hundred years it held
absolute sway over a country larger than Europe, and for the first one
hundred and fifty years of its existence it was the government of the
territory where it ruled, and thus determined the social and other
standards of life within that territory. One of the early officials of
this company declared that they were on the ground ahead of the
missionaries, and said that the initials "H. B. C." on the banner of
the company might well be interpreted as "Here before Christ."
Kingsford's History of Canada says that in the eighteenth century,
Canada exported a moderate quantity of timber, wheat, the herb called
ginseng, and a few other commodities, but from first to last she lived
chiefly on beaver skins. Horace T. Martin, formerly Secretary of
Agriculture for Canada, calls the beaver's part in Canadian
development "a subject which has from the inception of civilization
been associated with the industrial and commercial development, and
indirectly with the social life, the romance, and to a considerable
extent with the wars of Canada."
The American Fur Company and the Northwestern Fur Company were two
large fur-gathering enterprises whose trappers ranged afar and who
left their mark in the history and the development of the Northwest.
The colossal Astor fortune really had its beginning in the wealth
which John Jacob Astor amassed chiefly through the gathering and the
sale of beaver skins. Beaver skins are now economically unimportant in
commerce, but their value has already led to the establishment of a
few beaver farms.
To-day beaver are apparently extinct over the greater portion of the
area which they formerly occupied, and are scarce over the remaining
inhabited area. Scattered colonies are found in the Rocky Mountains
and in the mountains of the Pacific Coast, and there are localities in
Canada where they are still fairly abundant. In many places in the
Grand Cañon of the Colorado they are common. A few are found in
Michigan and Maine. Some years ago a few brooks in the Adirondacks
were successfully colonized with these useful animals. They have
reappeared in Pennsylvania, and there probably are straggling beaver
all over the United States which, if protected, would increase.
There is a growing sentiment in favor of allowing the beaver to
multiply. In 1877 Missouri passed a law protecting these animals; so
did Maine in 1885 and Colorado in 1899. Other States to the total
number of twenty-four have also legislated for their protection. The
Canadian government has also passed protective laws. A noticeable
increase has already occurred in a few localities. Beaver multiply
rapidly under protection, as is shown in the National Parks of both
Canada and the United States.