Dear Friends,

This summer, the river belongs to the beavers. A colony of beavers – six, seven, or more? how many distinct families? – lives and labors in the quarter mile section of the river that my family habitually walks along, over, and in. They’ve applied their engineering know-how and technical skill to build an robust series of dams, ponds, and lodges that have remade the river in their own fashion. While some of the upstream dams have since been breached by the ebb and flow of rain and fluctuating water levels, the largest of the dams furthest downstream has grown massive and strong. It’s elegantly placed near a large outcrop of rock slab, the curvature of the structure suggesting some golden ratio harmonious with the grand morphology of the universe. Closer inspection reveals an artful assemblage of hefty rocks, many-sized hewn sticks and logs, and packed mud. No matter that this dam has made my favorite swimming hole deeper and more still, the water flowing slowly with a thin film of froth, pollen, and leaf debris – and therefore unswimmable (best not to risk the possibility of “beaver fever”, a nasty intestinal parasite called Giardia intestinalis). The beavers have ancient rights here.

We humans have no real purchase on the river, on the land. Our “ownership” is, in the end, temporary, misguided, misallocated. Misaligned with the ecological perspective of cohabitation and interdependence that governs the natural world. Not all humans have been so misaligned. In this part of Vermont, the western Abenaki, who were the stewards of this land before white European colonial settlers exerted their dominance over it, maintained a very different relationship to the earth, Turtle Island. Whether accidentally or not, remnants of a common use attitude to the land seem to exist – extraordinarily – in modern property law. So, navigable waters like our North Branch of the Winooski River are typically held in the public trust to be accessible by all for the common good. Which is to say: the river is not ours; we enjoy it in common with all the other creatures who rely on it as a habitat. But I’m out of my depth when it comes to the finer points of land use statutes. I’ll stick to what I can observe.

Mallard ducks, wood ducks, mergansers, all with ducklings in tow – nine, ten, eleven, twelve little creatures paddling furiously after, their daily parade along the river. Geese and their goslings, the mother and father standing watch and squawking amidst the tufted grasses on the river’s edge. There’s a prehistoric snapping turtle lurking deep near the swimming beach, delighting kids who squeal in mock terror of losing toes in one quick snap! Or a few painted turtles sunning themselves on a projecting log, who always quickly plop into the safety of the water when their comfort is disturbed. Black freshwater mussels drift along the riverbed of pebbles and stones, or their shells are picked clean and discarded after a pre-dawn breakfast. Hear the croak! of the green frog calling from its hidden place in the bankside pools under the shadow of black willow roots and mossy grasses. Standing still and knee deep in the brisk river, minnows dart back and forth, nibbling dead skin on calves like so many gentle kisses. If I’m still enough, with my hands cupped and submerged just below the water, I can quickly scoop a tiny, nearly translucent fish for us all to study.

Later, and very rarely, while sitting on the front porch as dusk settles in, a pair of nighthawks tear along the river corridor, gone before I reach for the binoculars. I walk to the road bridge across the way to see if there’s any sign of them doubling back. No luck, but I rouse the belted kingfisher, who rattles loudly and then flies down to its burrow home in the bank. Resting a moment against the rail, I see this part of the river I’ve started calling Beaver Town come eponymously alive. A beaver grooms itself on a stumpy bank with two of its kits (I guess) swimming nearby. Three of their kin swim silently in widening circles back and forth, up and down the bend, like a highway patrol. Their movements seem deliberate, designed with purpose, yet I don’t understand them – they may be just enjoying leisurely swim for all I know. Occasionally, one of the beavers lumbers up the river bank to munch on saplings. Or drags a gnawed branch into the river to attend to on a shallow sandbar, stripping bark and leaves away. They live their lives, indifferent to me, a distant curious observer, and their ambivalence (am I projecting too much?) makes me wonder about my place in the natural order of things. What is my relationship to this living ecosystem and its inhabitants? Antagonist or protagonist? Threat? Destroyer? Voyeur? Steward? Community member? Collaborator? Extractor? Learner? I am probably all of these in varying degrees at different times depending on the choices I make (or don’t make) as one of this strange band of homo sapiens, though seeking to rebalance and remake my relationship to the land, the river, and the beavers with every encounter.

In summer,

Jeremy