Once I found where the beavers had utilized man's work. A huge log dam
had been built on a wilderness stream to secure a head of water for
driving logs from the lumber woods. When the pines and fourteen-inch
spruce were all gone, the works were abandoned, and the dam left--with
the gates open, of course. A pair of young beavers, prospecting for a
winter home, found the place and were suited exactly. They rolled a
sunken log across the gates for a foundation, filled them up with
alder bushes and stones, and the work was done. When I found the
place they had a pond a mile wide to play in. Their house was in a
beautiful spot, under a big hemlock; and their doorway slanted off
into twenty feet of water. That site was certainly well chosen.
Another dam that I found one winter when caribou-hunting was
wonderfully well placed. No engineer could have chosen better. It was
made by the same colony the lynx was after, and just below where he
went through his pantomime for my benefit; his tracks were there too.
The barrens of which I spoke are treeless plains in the northern
forest, the beds of ancient shallow lakes. The beavers found one with
a stream running through it; followed the stream down to the foot of
the barren, where two wooded points came out from either side and
almost met.
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