Once They Were Hats
In Search of the Mighty Beaver
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4.5 • 2 Ratings
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
“Unexpectedly delightful reading—there is much to learn from the buck-toothed rodents of yore” (National Post).
Beavers, those icons of industriousness, have been gnawing down trees, building dams, shaping the land, and creating critical habitat in North America for at least a million years. Once one of the continent’s most ubiquitous mammals, they ranged from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and from the Rio Grande to the edge of the northern tundra. Wherever there was wood and water, there were beavers—sixty million, or more—and wherever there were beavers, there were intricate natural communities that depended on their activities. Then the European fur traders arrived.
Once They Were Hats examines humanity’s fifteen-thousand–year relationship with Castor canadensis, and the beaver’s even older relationship with North American landscapes and ecosystems. From the waterlogged environs of the Beaver Capital of Canada to the wilderness cabin that controversial conservationist Grey Owl shared with pet beavers; from a bustling workshop where craftsmen make beaver-felt cowboy hats using century-old tools to a tidal marsh where an almost-lost link between beavers and salmon was recently found, it’s a journey of discovery to find out what happened after we nearly wiped this essential animal off the map, and how we can learn to live with beavers now that they’re returning.
“Fascinating and smartly written.” —The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Backhouse (Women of the Klondike) sets out to restore some respect to the waffle-tailed, buck-toothed, industrious Castor canadensis better known as the beaver in this thoroughly entertaining and informative cultural history. "The humble and much-maligned beaver is actually the Mighty Beaver, arguably North America's most influential animal, aside from ourselves," Backhouse writes. Beavers sculpt geographic landscapes, guide the evolutionary paths of other species, and even have their own unique, louse-like parasite. Backhouse begins her quest for beaver redemption with a pilgrimage to the Beaver Capital of Canada, a nondescript stretch of ponds and dams nestled in Saskatchewan's Pasquia Hills. From there, she charts the beaver's unique history in nine chapters covering the animal's prehistoric ancestors (including some giants), its centrality to First Nations peoples and fur traders (pelts were indeed made into hats), its return from the brink of extinction, and its canonization by biologists as an indispensable keystone species in North America. Backhouse's writing is casual but always illuminating, and she approaches her furry subject with both reverence and humor. This book should interest a wide general readership as it gives the beaver its well-deserved dues.
