The beaver – Castor canadensis – is Canada’s national animal.
But you already know that.
If you’re familiar with Canadian history, you’ll recall that from the 16th to the 20th centuries, an unrelenting demand for beaver pelts, used to create luxurious felt hats for wealthy Europeans, nearly led to the extinction of beavers.
But in the 21st century, with the fur trade long over, beavers are making a big comeback.
So, Alberta is now home to the world’s largest beaver dam.
Albertans love to do big things, and it looks like Alberta’s beavers feel the same way!
Dam Big!
In 2007, Dutch-born landscape ecologist Jean Thie posted a satellite photo of a beaver dam in Wood Buffalo National Park in northeastern Alberta on the Google Earth Community Forum.
Wood Buffalo National Park itself is huge!
The park is 44,741 square km – bigger than Switzerland.
It’s Canada’s largest national park.
Thie’s research on climate change suggested the park was also home to the world’s largest beaver dam.
Albertans got excited. We like to be number one!
The dam is enormous, almost a kilometre long; it created a 7-hectare (17-acre) lake!
Since Thie posted the photo, there have been no reports of other beaver dams that could rival Alberta’s champion dam.
As reported recently by The Tyee, CBC called park managers back when the story about the biggest beaver dam in the world first broke.
None of them knew about it or had seen the site.
The park is so large and the beaver dam so remote that to this day, no park staff have visited the beaver dam on the ground.
Only one person has been there.
Instagram This!
Ten years ago, Rob Mark of New Jersey, then 44 years old, battled his way to the dam.
It was a tough trip.
When he got there, he took a selfie, proudly standing atop the dam and holding the flag of the New York-based Explorers Club.
Mark achieved minor fame.
He appeared in a few newspapers and magazines.
Mark, now a blueberry farmer in Virginia, told The Tyee that he does solo extreme treks like the beaver dam adventure, unsponsored and for his own “type-2 fun”.
He thought of going to the world’s largest beaver dam.
Easier said than done. It took a few tries.
Bit Off More Than a Beaver Can Chew?
First, Mark planned to boat down the Athabasca River and then trek across the thick muskeg to the beaver dam.
But that proved impractical.
On his second attempt, he tried boating across Lake Claire for 40 km, with plans to then hike to the dam from another direction.
But the swampy lake was impassable at the time.
Mark waited three years until 2014, when Lake Claire’s water levels were much higher.
Mark hired someone from Fort Chipewyan to ferry him across the lake.
The boatman didn’t have a GPS, so they stuck a whip of willow in the muskeg along the shore of the lake and agreed to meet there in six days. Mark would hike from the willow marker to the Beaver Dam and back.
Bold move.
The mosquitos were intense, but he made it to the dam after three days.
When he arrived at the dam, a single beaver looked at him and slapped its tail. The animal was pissed off at being discovered, perhaps.
It took another three days to hike out.
Mark was exhausted. The boat arrived on time.
So ended his unlikely adventure, complete with a selfie.
A Beaver Optimist?
Jean Thie, the guy who started this biggest beaver dam obsession, had beavers on land he owned near Ottawa.
At first, his relationship with beavers was typical for humans – annoyance.
Just as they’re hardwired to do, the beavers built dams, made ponds, and cut down trees.
Thie hired a trapper to remove the beavers.
That was futile.
Where trees and water exist, beavers congregate. Remove one beaver, and new ones will take its place.
Beavers quickly returned to Thie’s land to fill the void.
So he gave up and decided to live with them.
Thie may be a climate pessimist, but he’s a beaver optimist.
“Of course, I’m not very positively minded about our own future on the planet,” he said.
“But I am an optimist about beavers. Their presence improves water management, reduces water flows, reduces the loss of runoff and creates and improves wetlands. In drier landscapes of the future, all this could be of benefit. I think the worldwide flourishing of beavers is a small step in a good direction.”
We couldn’t agree more and hope Alberta’s population of beavers will continue to increase for the good of us all.
Maybe one day, the 2007 record will be broken by an even more giant Alberta beaver dam.
If one is discovered, you can bet Rob Mark will get there, selfie stick in hand.
