Beaver Island

Feb 23, 2012

by Lorraine Julien

With ice covering our little bay, we’re able to walk to our island now, which is perhaps 100 meters off shore. The island is well treed and is about ½ acre in size. At least it was well treed until a logger moved into the area. Our mysterious logger has a warm fur coat, which is just as well because most of his logging is done at night. He’s a hard worker but he’s also kind of cute with his big brown eyes and buck teeth. In fact, his teeth are so large he can, and does, literally eat trees. Of course, as you’ve probably guessed, our night visitor is Mr. Beaver and, by the number of felled trees, some of his family must have helped with the logging.

This furry creature could certainly put most chain saws to shame. He was either very lucky or quite skilled in bringing down trees almost exactly where he wanted them and where the tender bud shoots and twigs were easy to retrieve.

Our visitor started his logging on the island this past summer when he cut down about ten healthy birch trees and some maple saplings. We were able to retrieve the trees for firewood taking advantage of the ice this winter to move the wood by sled across the bay. We were shocked in January though to see that another dozen or so trees had been chopped down. We were even more shocked when we saw a hole in the ice about 2 feet square where, obviously, the beaver was swimming under the ice with tender shoots from the felled trees. There are no beaver lodges nearby that we know of but, on the far side of the lake when kayaking in the summertime, we have seen a beaver family.

I noticed that the beaver has even sliced off some young cedars along the far shoreline of the island. The remaining stems look like someone cut them off with a machete. If you’ve never seen a beaver’s wood chips, they are very large – about 2 or 3” across.

Although we are angry at losing so many healthy trees, we do find it amazing that this animal can travel under the ice for a long distance, especially when it is dragging small tree branches. He must have a very good GPS system to navigate such a distance under ice.

Many years ago we did manage to foil another attempt by beavers to eliminate some of our trees. Luckily, we noticed in time some obvious beaver damage to a couple of nice young maples. We saved the trees by coiling wire mesh about 4 feet high around the trunks. Once the trees got a bit bigger, we were able to remove the wire and they haven’t been bothered since.

Since we hadn’t visited the island for a couple of weeks, a few days ago we decided to snowshoe around to the other side just to check on things. Sure enough, the beaver’s hole in the ice was open again and showing signs of a lot of traffic. Also, the small branches and twigs that had previously been neatly piled near the hole had now been taken away.

The logging has stopped for the time being probably because Mr. Beaver did not like the sound of our chain saw sawing the logs into firewood. The hole in the ice has now frozen over so I guess he has moved on – for the time being. Across the lake there are a lot of trees that have also been cut and fallen onto the ice. The person who owns that piece of property will have a lot of work this spring – and a lot of firewood!

Please feel free to report any observations to Lorraine Julien at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.  or Steve Blight at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.