The Beaver's Engineering

Realizing that the supply of aspens near the waters of the Moraine Colony close to my home was almost exhausted, I wondered whether it would be possible for the beavers to procure a sufficient supply downstream, or whether they would deem it best to abandon this old colony and migrate.

Out on the plains, where cottonwoods were scarce, the beavers first cut those close to the colony, then harvested those upstream, sometimes going a mile for them, then those downstream; but rarely were the latter brought more than a quarter of a mile. If enemies did not keep down the population of a colony so situated, it was only a question of time until the scarcity of the food-supply compelled the colonists to move either up or down stream and start anew in a place where food trees could be obtained. But not a move until necessity drove them!

Not far from my home in the mountains the inhabitants of two old beaver colonies endured hardships in order to remain in the old place.

One colony, in order to reach a grove of aspens, dug a ca.n.a.l three hundred and thirty-four feet long, which had an average depth of fifteen inches and a width of twenty-six inches. It ended in a grove of aspens, which were in due time cut down and floated through this ca.n.a.l into the pond, alongside the beaver house. The other colony endured dangers and greater hardships.

During the summer of 1900 an extensive forest fire on the northerly slope of Long's Peak wrought great hardship among beaver colonies along the streams in the fire district. This fire destroyed all the aspens and some of the willows. In order to have food while a new growth of aspens was developing, the beavers at a colony on the Bierstadt Moraine were compelled to bring their winter supply of aspens the distance of a quarter of a mile from an isolated grove that had escaped the fire. This stood on a bench of the moraine at an alt.i.tude about fifty feet greater than that of the beaver pond. Aspens from the grove were dragged about two hundred feet, then floated across a small water-hole, and from this taken up the steep slope of a ridge, then down to a point about one hundred feet from the pond.

Between this place and the pond was a deep wreckage of fire-killed and fallen spruces. To cut an avenue through these was too great a task for the beavers; so with much labor they dug a ca.n.a.l beneath the wide heap of wreckage, and through this, beneath the gigantic fallen trees, the harvested aspens were dragged and piled in the pond for winter food. The gathering of these harvests, even by beavers, must have been almost a hopeless task. In going thus far from water many of the harvesters were exposed to their enemies, and it is probable that many beavers lost their lives.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE 334-FOOT Ca.n.a.l]

Beavers become strongly attached to localities and especially to their homes. It is difficult to drive them away from these, but the exhaustion of the food-supply sometimes compels an entire colony to abandon the old home-site, migrate, and found a new colony. Some of the beavers' most audacious engineering works are undertaken for the purpose of maintaining the food-supply of the colony. It occasionally happens that the food trees near the water by an old colony become scarce through excessive cutting, fires, or tree diseases. In cases of this kind the colonists must go a long distance for their supplies, or move. They prefer to stay at the old place, and will work for weeks and brave dangers to be able to do this. They will build a dam, dig a new ca.n.a.l, clear a difficult right-of-way to a grove of food saplings, and then drag the harvest a long distance to the water; and now and then do all these for just one more harvest, one more year in the old home.

The Moraine Colony had lost its former greatness. Instead of the several ponds and the eight houses of which it had consisted twenty years before, only one house and a single pond remained. The house was in the deep water of the pond, about twenty feet above the dam. A vigorous brook from Chasm Lake, three thousand feet above, ran through the pond and poured over the dam near the house. The colony was on a delta tongue of a moraine. Here it had been established for generations. It was embowered in a young pine forest and had ragged areas of willows around it. A fire and excessive cutting by beavers had left but few aspens near the water. These could furnish food for no more than two autumn harvests, and perhaps for only one. Other colonies had met similar conditions. How would the Moraine Colony handle theirs?

The Moraine colonists mastered the situation in their place with the most audacious piece of work I have ever known beavers to plan and accomplish. About one hundred and thirty feet south of the old pond was a grove of aspens. Between these and the pond was a small bouldery flat that had a scattering of dead and standing spruces and young lodge-pole pines. A number of fallen spruces lay broken among the partly exposed boulders of the flat. One day I was astonished to find that a dam was being built across this flat, and still more astonished to discover that this dam was being made of heavy sections of fire-killed trees. Under necessity only will beavers gnaw dead wood, and then only to a limited extent. Such had been my observations for years; but here they were cutting dead, fire-hardened logs in a wholesale manner. Why were they cutting this dead wood, and why a dam across a rocky flat,--a place across which water never flowed? A dam of dead timber across a dry flat appeared to be a marked combination of animal stupidity,--but the beavers knew what they were doing. After watching their activities and the progress of the dam daily for a month, I realized that they were doing development work, with the intention of procuring a food-supply. They completed a dam of dead timber.

At least two accidents happened to the builders of this dead-wood dam.

One of these occurred when a tree which the beavers had gnawed off pinned the beaver that had cut it between its end and another tree immediately behind the animal. The other accident was caused by a tree falling in an unexpected direction. This tree was leaning against a fallen one that was held several feet above the earth by a boulder.

When cut off, instead of falling directly to the earth it slid alongside the log against which it had been leaning and was shunted off to one side, falling upon and instantly killing two of the logging beavers.

The dam, when completed, was eighty-five feet long. It was about fifty feet below the main pond and sixty feet distant from the south side of it. Fifty feet of the new dam ran north and south, parallel to the old one; then, forming a right angle, it extended thirty-five feet toward the east. It averaged three feet in height, being made almost entirely of large chunks, dead-tree cuttings from six to fifteen inches in diameter and from two to twelve feet long. It appeared a crude windrow of dead-timber wreckage.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Moraine Colony with Dead-Wood Dam]

The day it was completed the builders shifted the scene of activity to the brook, a short distance below the point where it emerged from the main pond. Here they placed a small dam across it and commenced work on a ca.n.a.l, through which they endeavored to lead a part of the waters of the brook into the reservoir which their dead-wood dam had formed.

There was a swell or slight rise in the earth of about eighteen inches between the reservoir and the head of the ca.n.a.l that was to carry water into it. The swell, I suppose, was not considered by the beavers. At any rate, they completed about half the length of the ca.n.a.l, then apparently discovered that water would not flow through it in the direction desired. Other ca.n.a.l-builders have made similar errors. The beavers were almost human. This part of the ca.n.a.l was abandoned and a new start made. The beavers now apparently tried to overcome the swell in the earth by an artificial work.

A pondlet was formed immediately below the old pond by building a sixty-foot bow-like dam, the ends of which were attached to the old dam. The brook pouring from the old pond quickly filled this new narrow, sixty-foot-long reservoir. The outlet of this was made over the bow dam at the point nearest to the waiting reservoir of the dead-wood dam. The water, where it poured over the outlet of the bow dam, failed to flow toward the waiting reservoir, but was shed off to one side by the earth-swell before it. Instead of flowing southward, it flowed eastward. The beavers remedied this and directed the flow by building a wing dam, which extended southward from the bow dam at the point where the water over-poured. This earthwork was about fifteen feet long, four feet wide, and two high. Along the upper side of this the water flowed, and from its end a ca.n.a.l was dug to the reservoir.

About half of the brook was diverted, and this amount of water covered the flat and formed a pond to the height of the dead-wood dam in less than three days. Most of the leaky openings in this dam early became clogged with leaves, trash, and sediment that were carried in by the water, but here and there were large openings which the beavers mudded themselves. The new pond was a little more than one hundred feet long and from forty to fifty feet wide. Its southerly sh.o.r.e flooded into the edge of the aspen grove which the beavers were planning to harvest.

The ca.n.a.l was from four to five feet wide and from eight to twenty inches deep. The actual distance that lay between the brook and the sh.o.r.e of the new pond was ninety feet. Though the diverting of the water was a task, it required less labor than the building of the dam.

With dead timber and the ca.n.a.l, the beavers had labored two seasons for the purpose of getting more supplies without abandoning the colony. If in building the dam they had used the green, easily cut aspens, they would have greatly reduced the available food-supply. It would have required most of these aspens to build the dam. The only conclusion I can reach is that the beavers not only had the forethought to begin work to obtain a food-supply that would be needed two years after, but also, at the expense of much labor, actually saved the scanty near-by food-supply of aspens by making their dam with the hard, fire-killed trees.

A large harvest of aspen and willow was gathered for winter. Daily visits to the scene of the harvest enabled me to understand many of the methods and much of the work that otherwise would have gone on unknown to me. Early in the harvest an aspen cl.u.s.ter far downstream was cut. Every tree in this cl.u.s.ter and every near-by aspen was felled, dragged to the brook, and in this, with wrestling, pushing, and pulling, taken upstream through shallow water,--for most mountain streams are low during the autumn. In the midst of this work the entrance or inlet of the ca.n.a.l was blocked and the bow dam was cut.

The water in the brook was almost doubled in volume by the closing of the ca.n.a.l, thereby making the transportation of aspens upstream less laborious.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE DEAD-WOOD DAM, LOOKING SOUTH]

When the downstream aspens at last reposed in a pile beside the house, harvesting was briskly begun in the aspens along the sh.o.r.e of the new pond. Then came another surprise. The bow dam was repaired, and the ca.n.a.l not only opened, but enlarged so that almost all the water in the brook was diverted into the ca.n.a.l, through which it flowed into the new pond.

The aspens cut on the sh.o.r.e of the new pond were floated across it, then dragged up the ca.n.a.l into the old pond. Evidently the beavers not only had again turned the water into the ca.n.a.l that they might use it in transportation, but also had increased the original volume of water simply to make this transportation of the aspens as easy as possible.

Their new works enabled the colonists to procure nearly five hundred aspens for the winter. All these were taken up the new ca.n.a.l, dragged over the bow and the main dams, and piled in the water by the house.

In addition to these, the aspens brought from downstream made the total of the harvest seven hundred and thirty-two trees; and with these went several hundred small willows. Altogether these made a large green brush-pile that measured more than a hundred feet in circ.u.mference, and after it settled averaged four feet in depth. This was the food-supply for the oncoming winter. The upper surface of this stood about one foot above the surface of the water.

Five years after the completion of this dead-wood dam it was so overgrown with willows and gra.s.s that the original material--the dead tree-trunks that formed the major portion of it--was completely covered over. The new pond was used but one season. All the aspens that were made available by the dam of the pond were cut in one harvest. The place is now abandoned, old ponds and new.

The Ruined Colony

Twenty-six years ago, while studying glaciation on the slope of Long's Peak, I came upon a cl.u.s.ter of eight beaver houses. These crude conical mud huts were in a forest pond far up on the mountainside. In this colony of our first engineers were so many things of interest that the fascinating study of the dead Ice King's ruins and records was indefinitely given up in order to observe Citizen Beaver's works and ways.

A pile of granite boulders on the edge of the pond stood several feet above the water-level, and from the top of these the entire colony and its operations could be seen. On these I spent days observing and enjoying the autumnal activities of Beaverdom.

It was the busiest time of the year for these industrious folk.

General and extensive preparations were now being made for the long winter amid the mountain snows. A harvest of scores of trees was being gathered and work on a new house was in progress, while the old houses were receiving repairs. It was a serene autumn day when I came into the picturesque village of these primitive people. The aspens were golden, the willows rusty, the gra.s.s tanned, and the pines were purring in the easy air.

The colony-site was in a small basin amid morainal debris at an alt.i.tude of nine thousand feet above the sea-level. I at once christened it the Moraine Colony. The scene was utterly wild. Peaks of crags and snow rose steep and high above all; all around crowded a dense evergreen forest of pine and spruce. A few small swamps reposed in this forest, while here and there in it bristled several gigantic windrows of boulders. A ragged belt of aspens surrounded the several ponds and separated the pines and spruces from the fringe of water-loving willows along the sh.o.r.es. There were three large ponds in succession and below these a number of smaller ones. The dams that formed the large ponds were willow-grown, earthy structures about four feet in height, and all sagged downstream. The houses were grouped in the middle pond, the largest one, the dam of which was more than three hundred feet long. Three of these lake dwellings stood near the upper margin, close to where the brook poured in. The other five were cl.u.s.tered by the outlet, just below which a small willow-grown, boulder-dotted island lay between the divided waters of the stream.

A number of beavers were busy gnawing down aspens, while others cut the felled ones into sections, pushed and rolled the sections into the water, and then floated them to the harvest piles, one of which was being made beside each house. Some were quietly at work spreading a coat of mud on the outside of each house. This would freeze and defy the tooth and claw of the hungriest or the strongest predaceous enemy.

Four beavers were leisurely lengthening and repairing a dam. A few worked singly, but most of them were in groups. All worked quietly and with apparent deliberation, but all were in motion, so that it was a busy scene. "To work like a beaver!" What a stirring exhibition of beaver industry and forethought I viewed from my boulder-pile!

At times upward of forty of them were in sight. Though there was a general cooperation, yet each one appeared to do his part without orders or direction. Time and again a group of workers completed a task, and without pause silently moved off, and began another.

Everything appeared to go on mechanically. It produced a strange feeling to see so many workers doing so many kinds of work effectively and automatically. Again and again I listened for the superintendent's voice; constantly I watched to see the overseer move among them; but I listened and watched in vain. Yet I feel that some of the patriarchal fellows must have carried a general plan of the work, and that during its progress orders and directions that I could not comprehend were given from time to time.

The work was at its height a little before mid-day. Nowadays it is rare for a beaver to work in daylight. Men and guns have prevented daylight workers from leaving descendants. These not only worked but played by day. One morning for more than an hour there was a general frolic, in which the entire population appeared to take part. They raced, dived, crowded in general mix-ups, whacked the water with their tails, wrestled, and dived again. There were two or three play-centres, but the play went on without intermission, and as their position constantly changed, the merrymakers splashed water all over the main pond before they calmed down and in silence returned to work.

I gave most attention to the harvesters, who felled the aspens and moved them, bodily or in sections, by land and water to the harvest piles. One tree on the sh.o.r.e of the pond, which was felled into the water, was eight inches in diameter and fifteen feet high. Without having even a limb cut off, it was floated to the nearest harvest pile. Another, about the same size, which was procured some fifty feet from the water, was cut into four sections and its branches removed; then a single beaver would take a branch in his teeth, drag it to the water, and swim with it to a harvest pile. But four beavers united to transport the largest section to the water. They pushed with fore paws, with b.r.e.a.s.t.s, and with hips. Plainly it was too heavy for them.

They paused. "Now they will go for help," I said to myself, "and I shall find out who the boss is." But to my astonishment one of them began to gnaw the piece in two, and two more began to clear a narrow way to the water, while the fourth set himself to cutting down another aspen. Good roads and open waterways are the rule, and perhaps the necessary rule, of beaver colonies.

I became deeply interested in this colony, which was situated within two miles of my cabin, and its nearness enabled me to be a frequent visitor and to follow closely its fortunes and misfortunes. About the hut-filled pond I lingered when it was covered with winter's white, when fringed with the gentian's blue, and while decked with the pond-lily's yellow glory.

Fire ruined it during an autumn of drouth. One morning, while watching from the boulder-pile, I noticed an occasional flake of ash dropping into the pond. Soon smoke scented the air, then came the awful and subdued roar of a forest fire. I fled, and from above the timber-line watched the storm-cloud of black smoke sweep furiously forward, bursting and closing to the terrible leaps of red and tattered flames.

Before noon several thousand acres of forest were dead, all leaves and twigs were in ashes, all tree-trunks blistered and blackened.

The Moraine Colony was closely embowered in a pitchy forest. For a time the houses in the water must have been wrapped in flames of smelter heat. Could these mud houses stand this? The beavers themselves I knew would escape by sinking under the water. Next morning I went through the hot, smoky area and found every house cracked and crumbling; not one was inhabitable. Most serious of all was the total loss of the uncut food-supply, when harvesting for winter had only begun.

Would these energetic people starve at home or would they try to find refuge in some other colony? Would they endeavor to find a grove that the fire had missed and there start anew? The intense heat had consumed almost every fibrous thing above the surface. The piles of garnered green aspen were charred to the water-line; all that remained of willow thickets and aspen groves were thousands of blackened pickets and points, acres of coa.r.s.e charcoal stubble. It was a dreary, starving outlook for my furred friends.

I left the scene to explore the entire burned area. After wandering for hours amid ashes and charcoal, seeing here and there the seared carca.s.s of a deer or some other wild animal, I came upon a beaver colony that had escaped the fire. It was in the midst of several acres of swampy ground that was covered with fire-resisting willows and aspens. The surrounding pine forest was not dense, and the heat it produced in burning did no damage to the scattered beaver houses.

From the top of a granite crag I surveyed the green scene of life and the surrounding sweep of desolation. Here and there a sodden log smouldered in the ashen distance and supported a tower of smoke in the still air. A few miles to the east, among the scattered trees of a rocky summit, the fire was burning itself out; to the west the sun was sinking behind crags and snow; near by, on a blackened limb, a south-bound robin chattered volubly but hopelessly.

While I was listening, thinking, and watching, a mountain lion appeared and leaped lightly upon a block of granite. He was on my right, about one hundred feet away and about an equal distance from the sh.o.r.e of the nearest pond. He was interested in the approach of something. With a nervous switching of his tail he peered eagerly forward over the crown of the ridge just before him, and then crouched tensely and expectantly upon his rock.

A pine tree that had escaped the fire screened the place toward which the lion looked and where something evidently was approaching. While I was trying to discover what it could be, a coyote trotted into view.

Without catching sight of the near-by lion, he suddenly stopped and fixed his gaze upon the point that so interested the crouching beast.

The mystery was solved when thirty or forty beavers came hurrying into view. They had come from the ruined Moraine Colony.