368 EARLY NOTICES OF THE BEAVER. 



render its continuance inconapatible with the aggressive encroachments 

 of the colonist and settler ; the respite which it has thus found, added 

 to its rapid reproduction when left unmolested, might ere long restore 

 it to many of its forsaken haunts. Even now beaver dams are to be 

 met with, comparatively near large settlements, as on the Otonabee, 

 within a few miles of Peterborough, and in the Nottawasaga district ; 

 and the beaver may even be described as of frequent occurrence to the 

 north of the Ottawa, and in the head waters of the streams which flow 

 southward into the St. Lawrence. By the Indian, however, it is 

 greatly prized as an article of food, while its tail is sought after both 

 by the Indian and the white trapper as a peculiar delicacy ; nor can 

 its skin ever become altogether valueless to the fur trader. Under all 

 these combined influences it would be vain to hope that the beaver 

 can long survive the encroachments of the clearings on the chosen 

 scenes of its ingenious labours. The extent, however, to which such 

 labours were carried, in localities where the gregarious instincts of 

 the builders had full play, may be inferred from the following note 

 recorded by Mr. David Thompson in 17^, introductory to his report 

 of a curious dialogue with an old Indian, relative to the native ideas'- 

 and traditions concerning this favourite prizte of the north-west trapper. 

 From this it will be seen that even sixty years ago Mr. Thompson 

 speaks of the total destruction of the beaver as inevitable. 



" Oa a fine afteroocm in October 1794, the leaves beginniDg to fall tvith every 

 breeze, my guide informed me that we should have to pass over a. long beaver 

 dam. I naturally expected we should have to lead our horses c^efully over it* 

 When we came to it, we found it a stripe of apparently old solid grotrnd, covered 

 with short grass, and wide enough for two horses to walk abreast. The lower side 

 showed a descent of seven feet, and steep, with a rill of water from beneath- it f 

 the side of the dam next to the water was- a gentle slope. To the southward was 

 a sheet of water of about one mile and a half scjuare, surrounded by low gi'assy 

 banks. The forests were mo&tly of aspeo aod poplar, with numerous stumps of 

 the trees cut down and partly carried away by the beavers-. In two places of this- 

 pond were a cluster of beaver houses, like miniature villages. 



" When we had proceeded more than half-way over the dam, which was a full 

 mile in length, we came to an aged Indian, his arms folded across his breast, with 

 a pensive countenance looking at the beavers awiming in the water, and carrying: 

 their winter's provisions to their bouses. His form was tall and erect, and hia- 

 hair almost white, the only effect that age seemed to have on him, though we 

 concluded he most be about eighty years of age, and in this opiMon we were after- 

 wards confirmed by the ease and readiness with which he spoke of things long: 

 past. I enquired of him how many beavers' bouses there were in the pond before 



