The Chief Engineer

It was a dark night in July – very dark. There was no moon and clouds hid the stars. We were sitting by the camp fire. Bige had just kicked the burning logs together so that a shower of sparks shot straight up toward the tree-tops, indicating that there was no wind, when he said, "If you want to make that picture of deer this is just the kind of a night to go for it. You must have it dark so you can get close enough to get a good photograph. Also, this is just the kind of weather when we are likely to find deer feeding near the mouth of the river."

So with camera and flash-light apparatus I climbed into the bow end of our light-weight cedar boat, while Bige with paddle sat in the stern. We aimed toward the mouth of the river about half of a mile from camp and across the pond. No land-marks were visible, so we steered by "dead reckoning." Bige was feathering his paddle, Indian fashion without lifting it out of the water, so we silently proceeded, making no ripple on the surface and yet, at first, rather swiftly.

A few minutes later, the bow of the boat struck some yielding obstacle. My first thought was that we had hit a mossy, overhanging bank on the opposite shore of the pond. In times of stress, thoughts follow each other in rapid succession. My second thought was that the opposite shore was not mossy and overhanging, but rocky; third, that we had not been out long enough to get across; and fourth that we must have hit some animal who was swimming. But things were happening now, more rapidly than thoughts, and very much quicker than the time required to tell about them; and this latter thought was confirmed long before it was completely formulated.

Instantly, after we struck, a violent commotion occurred under the bow of the boat, water splashed in my face, there was the sound of scratching, gnawing and splintering wood, then a paw appeared on the gunwale beside me, the boat rocked and I yelled to Bige, "He is climbing aboard!!" while I lifted the camera intending to brain this indistinct shape as soon as I could see its head. This was immediately followed by the release of the weight on the side of the boat, its rocking in the opposite direction, a resounding slap on the water which threw a shower of spray over my head, in my eyes and ears. Then silence.

"Must have hit a muskrat," said Bige.

"More like a collie dog or a young bear," said I. "He surely would have swamped the boat if you had not slapped the water with the paddle, and I would have smashed my camera over his head."

"I didn't slap anything with the paddle. I wouldn't spoil your fun that way. Your friend in the water made all the noise. Wonder what he was," said Bige.

"Well, it was no measly muskrat, I'll stake my reputation and experience on that," said I.

There ended our photographing operations for that occasion, since after such a racket no deer could be expected to show himself at the pond, so we turned back to camp. On the way we discussed the possible identity of the animal with whom we had just been in collision, and who had upset our plans for the evening.

Most wild animals swim; some for pleasure, others only when it cannot be avoided. In the darkness we failed to get a clear idea of the size or shape of this fellow, we could only judge by the jolt our boat got, and the commotion he made in the water. We canvassed the possibility of its being a coon, a fox, an otter, a porcupine, a marten, a lynx or a wolf; but there was something about the habits of each that would not fit the incident and we went to bed with the problem still unsolved.

After breakfast the following morning, we went down to the shore and examined our boat. The thin part of the prow above the water line had been bitten through and a splinter a half-inch thick and eight inches long had been torn out. The marks of very sharp clean cutting teeth plainly showed at the upper end of the break. Short brown hairs were sticking to the rough edges of the bow, and on the keel for a space of eighteen inches back of the bow.

"That fellow must have thought a tree fell on him," said Bige. The boat, we found did not leak, so we went fishing. Passing a small island about a mile up the pond, we noticed a young green poplar tree had fallen into the water. There had been no wind storm for months and we did not know of any other campers on the pond so we wondered who could have cut down that poplar, and why? We went ashore to investigate. The tree we found was about four inches in diameter at the butt and it had not been chopped, but had been gnawed off. The ground about the stump was strewn with chips and one branch had been gnawed off and carried away. The tooth marks on the stump were like those on the bow of our boat, and looked as if made by a curved chisel about a quarter inch wide. The chips were from two to four inches long and were clean cut on each end and split out as if they had come from a wood chopper's axe.

Bige said, "Gosh! that looks like the work of beaver, but there are no beaver in these woods, haven't been any here for sixty years."

A few minutes later we found the branch which had been cut from the fallen poplar floating on the water near shore opposite the island. The bark had been stripped from it down to the smallest twig and it appeared white and conspicuous when seen from a distance of fifty yards.

Proceeding on our way toward the fishing ground, we presently saw the head of some animal above the surface. It was swimming toward us and waves were spreading out fan wise in its wake, on the smooth surface of the pond. Instantly we became motionless and watched its approach. When within fifteen or twenty yards of our boat it stopped, eyeing us curiously, then swung to the right and again to the left, apparently for the purpose of viewing us from different angles. Its back appearing above the surface was covered with a reddish brown fur with long grey hairs showing at intervals. There was a large white spot on the top of his head (this we later learned was not a characteristic marking, a white spot being quite unusual on animals of this family, and it enabled us to recognize our first acquaintance from among the many members of his tribe whom we subsequently met.) Two large, projecting and curving cutting teeth on the upper and two on the lower jaw appeared when he opened his mouth. There were also eight molars on each jaw. His eyes were inconspicuous and his ears were small but he had a broad, flat tail, shaped somewhat like the blade of a paddle.

Having, apparently, decided that it would be unwise to cultivate a closer acquaintance with two men in a boat, our swimmer humped his back, lifted high his broad tail and with it struck the water a powerful slap, the noise of which reverberated from "Mud Pond Mountain to East Inlet Holler" and it threw a shower of water and spray eight or ten feet into the air, looking like some of the war pictures of exploding mines.

The animal disappeared under water but a long line of air bubbles coming to the surface marked his progress under water. These we followed about two hundred yards to where they ended at the opposite shore. A closer examination disclosed the entrance, about two feet under the surface, of a burrow which seemed to rise under the high bank.

"Well," said Bige, "that's the fellow who met up with our boat last night. He's a beaver all right, but where in tunket did he come from?"

The incidents here related occurred while we were camping at Cherry Pond, seventeen years ago. We had learned in many conversations with Mitchell Sabattis (an Indian who died at a very advanced age a few years ago, and who was the oldest inhabitant of this region), about the Indians trapping beaver here, and how they sold hundreds of skins to John Jacob Astor, who became rich dealing in furs which he purchased throughout the northern forests and in Canada.

Sabattis explained that it was the practice of the Indians to take only a few animals from each colony, when they would move their traps to another dam. Thus there were always enough beaver left for breeding and they increased rapidly. But the white trappers, when they came, caught every beaver and took every skin, big and little, with the result that in a few years' time, beaver had been exterminated from the Adirondack forests and none ever came in again.

A few days after our encounter with the animal as above related, we learned, while making inquiries, that during the previous season the Conservation Commission of the State had "planted" a family of six beavers on one of the streams emptying into Raquette Lake, and we concluded that the individual we met was an emigrant from that colony.

Upon studying the government map, we figured that if he followed a chain of lakes and ponds through the connecting streams, he must have traveled thirty-five miles. If he had come over the mountain and several foothills in a straight line, which seemed unlikely, he might have shortened his trip to about twenty miles.

We saw the white headed beaver many times during our visits to the pond that summer, sometimes on shore, or sitting on the trunk of a poplar or birch tree which he had felled near the water. His body was about thirty inches long, tail ten inches long and six inches wide, hind feet webbed, like those of a goose, fore feet resembled the hands of a child but with long, sharp toe nails. He might have weighed forty or fifty pounds. He was a slow and clumsy traveler on land but a very efficient citizen in the water. He could dive and remain under water from eight to ten minutes without apparent inconvenience. Swimming, he could tow a log twice his own weight and against the current when necessary.

Early in September, his wife arrived. Whether the "old man" went after her, whether he sent a wireless message or a telepathic command, or whether the date of her coming had been arranged between them before he left home, we never knew. It seems quite probable that she just naturally knew that it was high time for her husband to stop exploring and loafing and to get busy building a house and storing a supply of food for the winter, so she arrived.

She would have no difficulty in following his trail, which after the habit of his kind, he doubtless marked at more or less frequent intervals by scooping up from the bottom of the pond or stream a double handful of soft mud, which he would place on the shore, shape it up into a nice round mudpie and deposit in its center a few drops of "Castoreum." This material has a peculiar, pungent and individual odor easily recognized by members of a beaver family. The Indians also highly prized the castoreum of the beaver for its supposed medicinal properties.

Immediately on the arrival of the female beaver the two began work building a house. This was placed on a point of land between the mouth of the river and a shallow bay or slough. The base of the house was about a foot above the normal level of the pond. Straight sticks and crooked branches two to four inches in diameter and about five feet long were placed on the ground for a foundation and were arranged in a circle like the spokes of a wheel. On these were piled other sticks, brush, stones, sod and mud, which latter was used as cement or mortar to bind the other materials together. An open space was left in the center, which grew smaller in diameter as the walls were carried up and was finally arched over. The house when finished was fourteen feet in diameter at the base; it was cone shaped and six feet high. It had no door or entrance visible on the surface; but as the side walls were being carried up one of the beavers dug a round hole twelve inches in diameter, straight down from the center of the house about eighteen inches, when it was curved toward the river and opened out in the bottom. Then he dug a second entrance, close to the first one, but this curved toward the slough. The water there being shallow, a ditch or canal dug in the bottom carried the outer end of the burrow down about three feet below the surface and a hundred feet or more out to deep water. The mud procured in digging the entrance and exit was used in plastering the walls of the house. No mud was used on the ventilating flue, which was a space about a foot in diameter in the center of the cone. This was thoroughly protected from outside enemies by two feet in thickness of criss-crossed sticks, but air could freely pass through the interstices.

The house building proceeded rapidly, much of the work being done at night, but we were able to inspect the building daily, and several times we found the beavers working in the daytime. Always the white crowned beaver was the leader and seemed to be directing the work of the other. When the structure was completed it proved to be an excellent example of reinforced concrete work of a most substantial character. Nevertheless, six weeks later, just before freezing weather started, a final coating of mud three inches thick was plastered over the entire outside surface of the house. When frozen, this armor plate would furnish complete protection to the furry inhabitants against their most ferocious enemies during the long and hungry months of winter.

Some years later, a beaver house, the side of which had been cut away, afforded an opportunity for us to learn how our white-headed friend finished the inside of his castle. The rough projecting inner ends of sticks, branches and brush were gnawed off making a roomy, smooth-walled, dome ceilinged space divided into two parts. The first, or ground floor, contained the openings for entrance and exit. It also was used as a drying room; for no self-respecting beaver would ever permit himself, his family or guests to go to bed in wet clothes. Coming in from swimming in the pond or river he must sit in the vestibule until his wet fur is thoroughly dry before he climbs into the bunk.

The drying floor also serves the purpose of a dining room in winter, when the pond is covered with ice, as will later appear.

The sleeping apartment had its floor about six inches higher than the drying floor. The bed was made of thin shreds or splinters of dry poplar wood. A quantity of this material had been split out with an expenditure of much time and patience. A mattress three inches or more thick, made of this soft, elastic material would make a far better bed than many campers can boast of.

Mud for use in house building was procured, not only from the tunnel entrances and from the canal, but excavations were made in the river bottom near the house. A pocket was there dug out, about twenty feet in diameter, making the water six feet deep.

Into this hole the two beavers now proceeded to store their food for the winter. This consisted chiefly of the trunks of poplar saplings, two to six inches in diameter, cut into lengths of four to six feet, the sticks of larger diameter being the shorter. In the wood pile were also placed the branches of the same trees. Mixed in with the poplar were some alders and a few birch and soft maple sticks. The birch and alder apparently were used to add spice and tang to the otherwise sameness of their more staple food.

In the edge of the forest next the slough a few years before, a fire (doubtless started by some careless hunter), had burned over several acres, and this was now covered by a "second growth" of poplar. It was there that the beavers cut most of their lumber. The water in the slough was shallow and filled with pond lilies, so a canal three feet wide, two feet deep and two hundred and twenty feet long was dug across this mudhole. Through this canal the beavers floated their sticks and brush and placed them on their storage pile under water so that the bark, which they eat, might be kept soft and fresh for winter use. Also, so that it might be reached from their house under the ice, after pond and river were frozen.

Day after day Bige and I watched the progress of this harvest. Saw the beaver towing the floating logs through the canal into the pond and up the river to the lumber pile where the beaver would dive with his stick and presently come to the surface again, leaving the stick under the water; and we wondered how he did it. Also we discussed possible ways of making a floating stick sink. From our boat we could see the pile of wood below the surface of the water and we could see no stones on the pile.

Bige stoutly argued in support of the theory that the beaver sucked the air out of the pores in the wood, that the water flowed into the vacuum thus produced, making the stick heavy enough to sink. In order to demonstrate his theory, Bige took the axe from camp, cut a poplar sapling an inch and a half in diameter and the usual beaver length, put one end in the water and sucked on the other end of the stick. After repeated trials and failures to make the stick do anything but float, Bige decided that his "sucker was not powerful enough." The next day, looking down into the water from our boat, we saw one end of the axe-cut stick in the wood pile with other sticks cut by beaver teeth.

After my return to the city, Bige reported from time to time, making visits to the beaver house, seeing beaver swimming under the ice, carrying sticks from the wood pile into the tunnel leading to the house; also later, beaver bringing peeled sticks out of the house and placing them in a very orderly manner on another pile. Reports also reached me of beaver under the ice digging pond lily roots and carrying them into the house.

In the following April after the ice in the pond had broken up, the beavers came out of their winter home and brought with them six young beaver puppies. The father beaver with the white head now went away on his summer exploration trip. We later learned that it was the habit of all male beavers to wander far from home during the summer months. The mother remained at the pond and took care of her six young ones; but with them she moved into the burrow in the bank where we had first seen the old male beaver go to hide.

Many times during the summer we saw the young beavers sunning themselves on the bank or playing in the water near the shore. The mother was always somewhere near, and invariably sounded a warning by pounding the water with her broad tail, whereupon the youngsters would scamper for cover and each would precede his dive by slapping the water with his little ladle-like tail, in feeble imitation of the mother.

One day in June a hawk swooped down, grabbed one of the young beavers and carried him away. Later, a pekan, sometimes called a fisher, killed another one. Apparently the mother scared him off. We found the dead baby beaver, and tracks in the mud gave us the name of his murderer.

Early in July of that summer, while on a fishing trip to Wolf Pond, six miles to the east, Bige and I met our white-headed beaver friend. A slap on the water and a shower of spray informed us that we were recognized. It also spoiled our fishing for at least half an hour.

Toward the end of the same month we met him at the mouth of West Bay Brook on Cedar Lake. This was nine miles west of his home and fully fifteen miles from Wolf Pond, where we last saw him.

In the third week in August we again saw our beaver with a white cap. This time on Pine Brook where he was assisting two other beavers (possibly a brother and sister of his,) in building a dam across the brook. We were fortunate in being able to conceal ourselves, and for a time watched operations. Apparently, our friend was bossing the job and directing the operations of the other two. It seemed that his ability as an engineer was recognized in beaver world, and he therefore had been called in to supervise a difficult undertaking. Thereafter we called him the Chief Engineer, and he many times proved his right to the title.

In September the Chief Engineer returned to his home at Cherry Pond, and there followed a season of great activity among the beavers. Some of their work we were privileged to see in progress, all of it we saw after completion. The young beavers were now about one third the size of their parents, but they all worked.

First, the entire family visited the outlet of the pond, where the Chief demonstrated to the others that with the rocky stream bed and the accumulated drift-wood, a dam would be unnecessary to maintain water in the pond at its present level. Next the house must be enlarged to make room for a family of six instead of two, as in the previous winter. When completed, the house was elliptical in shape, twenty-two feet across its base in the short diameter and thirty feet in its longer dimension. It was also increased in height to eight feet. The peeled sticks piled up under the ice during the previous winter were now utilized in making additions to the house with other sticks and brush brought from the woods.

The interior of the house was enlarged to more than twice its former size by cutting away and dragging out through the tunnels, surplus materials. In doing this, several pillars were left standing for supports to the enlarged ceiling.

Three additional tunnels were dug, making five channels for entrance and exit. Those terminating in shallow water were continued as ditches to deeper water.

The storage warehouse also was made larger and deeper, not only to provide mortar for enlarging the building, but because more food must be stored for six mouths than was required for two. A very high grade of what is called "instinct" in animals must be required to calculate and determine just how much food to store for a winter's supply for a family of a given size. It has been asserted by those who think they know, that in this matter a beaver never makes a mistake. That he also stores an extra amount of food for an unusually long and severe winter. So far as I have observed, they seem to come through the winter in good physical condition.

A picture, which I have longed to secure on a film, but which, so far, I have only been able to fix on the retina of an eye, represents a young beaver about the size of a kitten, not fully grown, in an upright position, holding in his two hands and against his breast a gob of mud, while he laboriously and clumsily struggles up the steep side of his house, on the roof of which he is about to deposit his burden. In the water, towing a young log or a bushy branch, he is much more at home and more graceful in his movements.

The following spring there came out of our beaver house, the Chief Engineer, his wife, four yearlings and a new family of five babies. The "old man" now went off on his annual exploring trip, but he took with him the four older children, while the mother and the babies remained behind. As usual, the house was deserted during the summer months. We now noted several burrows under the bank at widely separate places along shore. Sometimes the beaver would be seen entering one of these holes and again another.

It is interesting and easy, to study the habits of wild creatures, and to note how uniform are their methods and practices. It is not so easy to determine reasons for their peculiar way of doing things. It is of course permissible to speculate, but one might be expected to furnish proof, when an assertion is made. For example, it has been stated by at least two writers, that beaver desert their homes in summer so that the vermin which infest their huts may die off from starvation during the absence of their fur coated hosts.

My own guess, if I were to hazard one, would be that since a beaver house must generally be placed in an exposed position, its owners find that with the sun beating down on its roof during June, July and August, the poorly ventilated interior becomes too hot for comfort. On the other hand, I have noted that the burrows in which they live in summer, are usually found under some overhanging tree, in a cool spot where the sun never penetrates.

During our wanderings through the woods that summer, Bige and I came upon a family of beavers at Mud Pond. These were doubtless also emigrants from the original Raquette Lake colony. Great improvements were in progress. An abandoned and broken down lumber dam at the outlet, which had not been used for lumber operations for many years, was being rebuilt by the beavers, and the Chief Engineer was on hand assisting and directing operations.

On a subsequent visit, we saw the completed dam which raised the waters of the pond about three feet. An area more than a mile long and a quarter mile wide was now flooded. A swamp at the upper end was entirely covered and afforded water transportation from a large grove of poplar trees, which without the dam could not have been reached. Five years later, on the shores of this pond, the beavers had completely cleared of trees more than ten acres of ground. At this time four beaver houses were observed on the shore and on islands in Mud Pond.