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Not everyone was eager.

Dam Threats

Every good hero story needs a villain and for beavers from the 1700 - 1900s, this villain’s name was: Being Made into A Hat. Despite millions of years surviving any number of impressive predators, the twig that nearly broke the beaver’s back was fashion itself, aka, the fur trade.

This is a piece of artwork created by Blackfoot tribe member Darrell Norma and Angelika Harden-Norman. The art is on an old yellow style of paper bordered by beaver track patterns. The beaver in the artwork is designed in a geometric style with red, yellow and blue shapes and a brown tail.

“BEAVER PAR FLÈCHE” by Blackfoot tribe member Darrell Norman and Angelika Harden-Norman. Shared with artists' permission.

It wasn’t that beavers had never encountered humans– far from it! The Blackfeet tribe, the Cherokee, the Ojibwa and many other Indigenous tribes traced their community origin stories to beavers and incorporated them into their sacred rituals. Beavers’ environmental usefulness and connection to water, particularly in drier landscapes like the Northern Plains, often outweighed their value as meat, so many Native tribes enforced restrictions against hunting them.​

But along the East Coast, beavers were prevalent. Because of their stable populations, the Algonquin people and other tribes allowed for the hunting of beaver, as long as the animal was honored by care for its carcass.​ This practice of reciprocity, of engaging with the inherent value of all living things through an equal give-and-take relationship, kept animal populations at healthy levels. Sadly, settler-colonialists didn’t have the same knowledge or restraint.

This is a historical illustration depicting the manufacturing of beaver-hair top hats from North-American produced pelts. The image shows three men modelling a few hat styles, a table of workers stretching the pelts, and machines used to process the fur.

From Charles Knight's Pictorial Gallery of the Arts, England, 1858. The manufacturing of beaver-hair top hats from North American-produced pelts.

The fur trade, with beavers and other furry species unwillingly at the helm, became one of the main industries of the North American West as white colonizers crossed the landscape. Eager for ways to maximize profit and opportunities of this perceived “New World,'' the boundless natural resources available seemed not only limitless, but there for the taking.

This is a black and white photograph from 1890 of a fur trader processing a roomful of animal furs, including fox, beaver, and mink.

From Library and Archives Canada/C-001229. Colin Fraser Jr., trader at Fort Chipewyan (Alberta), sorts fox, beaver, mink & other precious furs.

This is an illustration of a black top hat, one of the classic hats made from beaver pelts and very popular in the 1700-1900s.

While as many as 400 million beavers existed at the time, their fur became material for the most popular hat in Europe and the eastern United States. This devastating trend nearly wiped out the beaver population, with numbers dwindling to thousands.

This is an image of an old advertisement from 1958 featuring a cartoon of an orange beaver in a conductor hat. The advertisement says "Be an Eager Beaver" and promotes the Main Federal Saving and Loan Association company.

"Be an Eager Beaver" cartoon: Main Federal Savings and Loan Association, 1958 [9].

​​Indigenous people never forgot the importance of beavers, even as they were fighting to protect their sovereignty and homelands. Eventually, western science started to recognize the negative impacts of removing beavers from the landscape as well as their importance to ecosystems. Slowly, the messaging and feeling surrounding beavers changed. From furry commodity to relatable, even inspiring, architect, the general characteristics of these rodents aligned deeply with many personal and national value systems. 

Thankfully… this wasn’t the end of the story.

​This combination of factors allowed beavers to thrive before another problem arose: conflict with agricultural interests, which allowed for brutal pest management strategies towards beavers despite their broader popularity. But as the later half of the 20th century unfolded, two critical forces merged for their protection: environmental advocates and Indigenous communities, including the Tulalip, Cowlitz, Yurok, and others.

With social resolution and new technologies established, beavers have entered a new era of thriving.

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