Beaver Talk for Historic Calgary Week

“From Hats to Habitat Creators” – Thursday, July 29, 2021 at 2:00pm MST

I’m making a virtual trip back to my hometown to give an online talk for Historic Calgary Week presented by the Chinook Country Historical Society. Join me and the Friends of Fish Creek Provincial Park Society’s Katie Bakken to learn about the changing roles of beavers in Calgary.

When Morris Shumiatcher launched Smithbilt Hats near the Calgary Stampede grounds in 1919, most people still thought beavers were good for one thing only: their pelts. Today, we recognize the importance of beavers as habitat creators, water stewards and climate change allies – and organizations like the Friends of Fish Creek Provincial Park Society are working hard to figure out how to coexist with these ecosystem engineers. In many ways, our present-day conflicts with beavers are a legacy of the colonial fur trade. But the beaver benefits that we’re still learning about go back much further in time. This brief history of beavers will begin with their debut 37 million years ago, fast forward through the rise and fall of the dozens of early species, and then zero in on what has happened to North American beavers since Europeans showed up 500 years ago. As our relationship with beavers continues to evolve, a historical perspective can help inform the future.

To register for this event, please visit Historic Calgary Week’s program page.

Hat bodies and traditional wooden hat blocks at the Smithbilt Hats workshop in Calgary. (© Frances Backhouse)

Zooming to Fish Creek Provincial Park

Join me on Nov. 19, 2020, for “Once They Were Hats: A Brief History of a Radical Rodent” – a Zoom presentation.

As part of the Friends of Fish Creek speaker series, I’ll be making a virtual visit to Calgary this month to talk about beavers. My presentation will run from 7:00 to 8:00 pm MT on Thursday, Nov. 19, and since it will happen online, anyone can attend.

There is a lot of history behind our present-day dealings with Castor canadensis. The beaver conflicts that we are working to manage today are in many ways a legacy of the colonial fur trade. And the beaver benefits that we are still learning about are rooted in millennia of beaver presence on this continent. This brief history of beavers will begin with their debut 37 million years ago, fast forward through the rise and fall of the dozens of early species, and then zero in on what’s happened to North American beavers since Europeans showed up 500 years ago. As our relationship with beavers continues to evolve, a historical perspective can help inform the future.

The talk is free for Friends of Fish Creek Members and for youth 16 years of age and younger with a registered adult. It’s $10 for non-members. You can purchase tickets and register through eventbrite.

Beavers in Baltimore

I’m excited to be heading to Baltimore in early March for BeaverCON2020, North America’s very first East Coast beaver conference. This three-day event (March 3-5, 2020) is aimed at resource professionals, researchers and practitioners who want to learn what works in beaver conflict management and watershed restoration.

Organizers Mike Callahan, founder and president of the Beaver Institute, and Scott McGill of Ecotone, a beaver-friendly ecological restoration firm, have put together a dynamite agenda. I’m presenting on the first morning. Then I get to sit back and take in all the other talks. Reading the speakers‘ bios and their presentation abstracts, I know it’s going to be a fascinating few days. Interested? Registration is still open.

If you’re looking for beaver enlightenment on the west side of the continent, watch for the 2021 State of the Beaver Conference. This “international conclave for beaver ecology” is held every two years in Oregon. The 2019 version was the sixth and given the enthusiasm of participants, it’s sure to continue.

Putting Beavers to Work Symposium – Oct. 23-24, 2019

I recently had the pleasure of taking part in a symposium on Putting Beavers to Work for Watershed Resiliency and Restoration in Calgary. This two-day event was organized by the Miistakis Institute and the Alberta Riparian Habitat Management Society, more commonly known as Cows and Fish. It brought together more than 60 people with a range of beaver interests, including landowners, land managers, academics, policy makers and independent Castorophiles from across western Canada and the U.S.

Day 1 was filled with fascinating presentations and panel discussions. Most of the presentations, including mine, have now been uploaded to the Miistakis Institute’s website and can be accessed here (under the box titled “Symposiums, Webinars, and Workshops” click on “Videos, Factsheets, and More!”). On Day 2, we all boarded a bus for a field trip to look at coexistence tools installed in Calgary and surrounding area. And outside of the formal presentations, there were many exchanges of ideas and insights. Stay tuned for the next Putting Beavers to Work symposium, a year or two from now.

Norine Ambrose, Executive Director of symposium co-sponsor Cows and Fish.

Inspecting a pond leveler in Calgary’s Griffith Woods Park.

Pierre Bolduc explains how he brought beavers back to his property near Bragg Creek.

 

Beaver talk with Dan Rodricks of The Baltimore Sun

Dan Rodricks of The Baltimore Sun produces a podcast called Roughly Speaking. In episode 352, he ponders the question “Can the Mighty Beaver Save the Bay?” — meaning, of course, the Chesapeake Bay. To find answers, he visits a beaver dam at Bee Tree Run, and interviews Mike Callahan, the founder of the Beaver Institute, Scott McGill, the founder and CEO of Ecotone, and me.

You can listen to the 42-minute episode via The Baltimore Sun or on the Ecotone website. Hear what Rodricks discovered about the history of beavers in the Chesapeake region and how beaver dams create critical habitat for a multitude of species, while filtering sediment and damaging nutrients from waters that flow to the Chesapeake Bay. We can’t expect beavers to undo all the damage that has been done, but if we let them go about their business, they can be allies in saving the Bay.

Rethinking the Beaver on the Radio

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking, writing and talking about beavers over the past ten years – ever since I started researching Once They Were Hats. And I’ve been gratified to see so much interest in this species that is so vital to our well-being. As I often say, “Beavers are trending.” But not everyone is happy about the beaver’s rebound. Sharing territory with such a gifted and persistent ecosystem engineer challenges our desire to be in control of landscapes and waterways, and we often forget that things looked very different back when North America had a full complement of beavers. With all this in mind, I decided to do some more writing about beavers, but this time for the ear. To my delight, one of my favourite CBC radio programs, Ideas, embraced my idea.

My radio documentary, Rethinking the Beaver, debuts on November 28, 2018. Tune into CBC Radio One at 9:00 p.m. local time (9:30 p.m. in Newfoundland) to listen to the broadcast. You can also listen online or download the podcast.

Capturing the sounds of a thriving beaver pond in the Alberta foothills. (Photo credit: Pierre Bolduc).

 

 

“Four centuries of fur-trade trapping nearly wiped beavers off the North American map. Now they’re back, big time, and we’re discovering that sharing the landscape with such tenacious ecosystem engineers isn’t always easy. We’re also learning that there are compelling reasons to try to coexist with this iconic species. Contributor Frances Backhouse explores how two control freaks — humans and beavers — can get along.”

 

The Last Cannery Standing

The British Columbia coastline once pulsed with action around salmon canneries. Today, guided by Indigenous leadership, only one cannery processing wild salmon remains. Hakai Magazine, August 14, 2018.

“The stench of fish offal and the screams of gulls: a century ago, the presence of a cannery on the British Columbia coast was unmistakable, even with your eyes closed. Open them and you saw gulls and eagles circling and diving to pluck discarded fish heads and entrails from the ocean around the wooden buildings perched on pilings. A steady parade of fishing boats navigated the bloodied water to pull alongside the cannery and offload their catches. Inside, an ankle-deep layer of slippery salmon awaiting butcher knives covered the gut shed’s plank floor, and the production line operated at a dizzying pace as ranks of workers scaled, washed, and chopped up the salmon, before sealing it in tin cans.

“British Columbia’s salmon runs seemed infinite in those days, and businessmen determined to profit from this bounty by turning it into a commodity that could be shipped worldwide staked out their ground along the coast. In 1918, shortly before the industry began to consolidate, the number of canneries peaked at 80. Now, 100 years later, only a single commercial cannery dedicated to processing wild British Columbia fish remains on Canada’s west coast. Far from being an archaic relic, St. Jean’s Cannery and Smokehouse is at the forefront of a new era in the province’s fishing industry—an era in which First Nations communities are regaining control of the marine resources that have sustained them for tens of thousands of years.”

Read the full article or listen to the audio version >>

“The Last Cannery Standing” was also featured on the Great Canadian Longform website.

The writer at work (© Frances Backhouse).

Words on Ice reading – March 16, 2018

Words on Ice is the kick-off event for The Malahat Review‘s annual Words Thaw literary festival. I’m delighted to be one of the eight writers who will be reading from their work at this event on Friday, March 16.

Since 2013, The Malahat Review has invited dozens of poets, novelists, short fiction writers, and journalists to mark the coming of spring with a symposium celebrating Canadian literature. Held each year at the University of Victoria, the event brings together writers, students, editors, publishers, and others with an interest in creative writing for a weekend of readings, panel discussions, workshops, and socializing. It’s always stimulating and inspiring.

Words on Ice will be held in Room 105 in the University of Victoria’s Harry Hickman Building. Tickets are $10 ($5 for students) at the door, and they include a complimentary copy of the Malahat‘s Autumn 2017 issue.

What do beavers and ghosts have in common?

They’re both on the program for an upcoming Sidney and Peninsula Literary Festival event: Friday, Oct. 20, 7 p.m. at the Shoal Centre, 10030 Resthaven Drive, Sidney, B.C.

Join me and Ian Gibbs for an evening of readings from our most recent books. Ian’s is Victoria’s Most Haunted: Ghost Stories from BC’s Historic Capital City. He says he has always been fascinated by storytelling, ghosts and hauntings, and has even found himself assisting friends with their ghost problems. He lives in Victoria, billed as one of the most haunted places in Canada, where he acts as a guide for the popular Ghostly Walks walking tours.

I, too, live in Victoria. I’ve never encountered any ghosts here, but I have seen beavers in the vicinity and I’ll be reading from Once They Were Hats: In Search of the Mighty Beaver.

Tickets are $10 (including refreshments) at Tanner’s Books and online. All proceeds from ticket sales will go to support the 2019 Sidney and Peninsula Literary Festival. More info here.

Women of the Klondike headed for the big screen

Award-winning writer-director Kate Melville has big plans for Women of the Klondike. At the recent TIFF film festival in Toronto, she announced that her production company, Snitch Pictures, has optioned my book, in association with Hawkeye Pictures. I’m excited about Kate’s goal of adapting it into what she describes as a “feminist western.”

In a press release put out by Snitch Pictures, Kate says: “Women of the Klondike is bursting with characters so vividly drawn, I was up all night reading it like a novel. Many different women lived in Dawson: Salvation Army missionaries, vaudeville performers, cooks, laundresses, women who panned for gold themselves, Tagish and Tlingit locals, society wives and nuns. Reading about these bold, adventurous characters, I wondered what their version of ‘frontier justice’ might look like. I’ve always loved Westerns, and these forgotten women from Gold Rush history deserve a movie of their own.” I couldn’t agree more!

Writer-director Kate Melville (photo courtesy of Snitch Pictures).

Snitch Pictures is known for Kate Melville’s directorial debut feature Picture Day, which premiered at TIFF in 2012, and won the Borsos Prize for Best Feature at Whistler and a 2013 ACTRA award for Maslany. Hawkeye Pictures is a Toronto-based production company working with some of Canada’s most exciting talents. Its latest feature, Mary Goes Round premiered at TIFF17. Bell Media’s Harold Greenberg Fund is supporting the project through the Script Development Program.

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