Pilgrims of the Wild. Grey Evil Owl
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hour of pleasure to just a few of those who love the Great Outdoors, or who have a kindly thought for a simple people or for a lowly animal, or should I perchance touch somewhere a chord of sympathy, or make some slight appeal to the sense of fair play of any of those true sportsmen to whom wildlife owes so much today, I will count my work, with all its imperfections, as having been worthwhile.
Grey Owl (Wa-sha-quon-asin)
Beaver Lodge, Prince Albert National Park, Saskatchewan
November 7, 1933
My road calls me, lures me
West, east, south, and north;
Most roads lead me homewards,
My road leads me forth
To add more miles to the tally
Of grey miles left behind,
In quest of that one beauty
God put me here to find.
— John Masefield
Outside a window from which the sash has been removed stands a man, alert, silent, watchful.
The cabin beside which he keeps post faces out onto a lake, its frontage at the water’s edge. The slopes of the surrounding hills are covered with a heavy forest, the tall grey poplars and giant spruce standing close in a dark and serried palisade about the camp.
The water is calm and unruffled; the lake appears to sleep. There is no sound and no movement save the desultory journeyings of a squirrel, engaged in salvaging cones he has been dropping from the spruce tops.
In front of the man, and directed through the aperture into the building, is a motion picture camera, trained on the door, which is closed. The interior of the building is equipped with the rude but comfortable furnishings, and the simple utensils of a woodsman’s home, for the greater part of the dwelling is given over to human occupancy, and is a permanent abode, although it has one peculiarity. Across one end of it is a large erection having the appearance of a massive earthwork, shoulder high and occupying easily one-third of the floor space.
Outside, in strategic positions commanding the door and the approach from the lake, are other men, holding cameras. Inside the building a man sits in a chair, waiting. Suddenly:
“All right! Here he comes,” cries a watcher. The man at the window sights his machine afresh, makes small adjustments and stands poised, ready. There can now be heard, approaching the entrance, a heavy measured tread. The camera man’s face becomes suddenly tense, the camera commences to whir and simultaneously with a resounding thump the door is thrown widely open and there steps over the threshold, not the leading lady of a cast of players, not the handsome hero of a screen romance, nor yet the villain, but a full-grown beaver, erect, and bearing in his arms a load of earth and sticks.
Walking upright like a man, steadily, purposefully, looking neither to the right nor to the left, past the stove, round the table, between the benches, he pursues his undeviating way towards the earthwork, advancing with the resolute step of an unfaltering and unchangeable purpose. The camera swings, follows him, grinding. But for that sound and the thudding of the beaver’s heavy steps, there is silence. Straight up the side of the lodge, for such the earth work is, the beaver marches, deposits his load, tamps it in with his hands; he pushes in a stick to bind it, cuts off the protruding end and potters at some small repairs. At this moment another and a larger beaver enters hauling a six foot stick which she skillfully manoeuvres through the opening, drawing it over to the house and up the side of it. The two animals work with the heavy pole, placing it; they are very particular and take some time at this. Meanwhile the man in the chair rises, shuts the door, and resumes his seat.
The camera drones on.
Another beaver, small, brisk, business-like, emerges from a hole in the side of the lodge, places two sticks very carefully, looks around, becomes fidgety, and scampers in again. The operator’s face is a study; he is getting it all. Yesterday he got a moose passing through the door yard, the day before a group of muskrats.
The two big beaver at last finish their job to their complete satisfaction; and now their purposeful, sober mien deserts them. On all fours and at a little trot, they run over to the seated man and stand erect beside him, looking up at him. Their enquiring faces reach waist high on him as he sits. They must weigh one hundred pounds between the two of them. The larger one, the female, plucks at his sleeve trying to attract his attention. The camera grinds steadily and the beavers undoubtedly hear it. But they pay no heed; this is their fourth year at the business.
The man strokes the animals’ heads.
“Well! How is it going today, old-timers?” he asks.
A series of short, sharp, ejaculations from the larger one as she pulls impatiently at his hand with her forepaws.
“All right, here’s your apple,” says the man, and seizing the offering, she runs, hops, and trots over to the door, opens it inwards, with a quick pull at a leather loop, and runs outside. The other, her consort, patient, more sedate, gently takes his apple, and slips quietly out.
The camera at the window stops. Outside other machines click and drone according to their kind, as the expert passes from one to another of his sentries; for down at the so-lately deserted waterfront, a scant thirty feet away, are more beavers, swimming, playing, eating.
All at once one of them stands upright, sniffing the air, listening, a stiff brown pillar of attention; a foreign scent has drifted down from that dark unknown forest with its threat of a thousand dangers. Without warning the beaver leaps into the water with a terrific plunge, slaps his tail. Immediately there is a violent commotion, cries, splashes, heavy thudding of broad flat tails, and in a moment not a beaver is to be seen.
Silence falls, the water quickly subsides. There is nothing visible, though the machines are cocked and ready. But their work is finished. They will get nothing more today.
Far out on the lake, but out of range, black heads bob up; Vs stream away from them as the workers, not seriously alarmed after all, proceed to the scene of their various occupations.
It has all been very casual, in a way. No rehearsing has been done, no commands given; the actors have done just about as they liked. The beaver are free and unrestrained and could be gone beyond all hope of recovery in an hour. But they prefer to stay here, and year by year have made this place their home, have even built their domicile within the human habitation, a subterranean passage leading from it to the bottom of the lake.
Extraordinary behaviour for an animal supposed to be wild and unapproachable! Perhaps it is. But the story that lies behind this little scene is even stranger.
Yet it is a very simple one, of happenings and small but queer events that did not much affect the history of the world, or of a whole town full of people, or even a room full, but which were so very important to those who played a part in them.
It is not a tale of heroism, or hazard, or very high accomplishment, but has more to tell of loyalty and tolerance, and gentle wistful beasts; and of the bond between a woman and a man. There is much joy in it, a little sorrow, some loneliness and struggle, and some rare good fun. It plumbed the depths of human souls and sometimes touched the heights, and much of everything that goes between.
I know that story very well, and how it all began, in the Unforgotten Days of Long Ago.
And because it is a tale of ways and means and a manner of living which you may be unfamiliar with, its strangeness may compensate in some degree for my lack of skill in the telling of it.
The town of Bisco was