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Average weight
44-60 pounds,
but some can weigh up to 100 pounds!
Main Predators
wolf
fox
otter
humans | |
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Lesson
Plans | |
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Eating beaver, just like the voyageurs!
| When we met Raymond, Kerry, and Edwin at Edwin's trappers
cabin on Cotton Lake, I found myself face to face with a frozen beaver. I was
chatting casually with Edwin when I turned my head towards the wall and realized
there was a large beaver hanging from the wall less than a foot from my face.
At the time I had no idea that several days later the same beaver would be sitting
on my dinner plate. Edwin brought the two beavers that he trapped last
week back to Cross Lake and smoked them for a whole day in his smoke house. Then
Edwin used a hacksaw to cut the larger beaver into smaller pieces. He then put
the frozen chunks of meat into a pot and boiled the meat for about 5 hours. |
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When the beaver meat started to boil it gave off a very strong smell
and I was a little worried about how it would taste, but as the meat cooked longer
the strong smell went away. Several hours later dinner was ready and Adam and
I got to try beaver meat for the first time! The meat tasted pretty good and I
look forward to eating it again sometime. However, the main reason that people
trap beavers is for their fur, not their meat. In the 1500s, European fishermen
brought beaver robes purchased from the Indians back to Spain. The Europeans prized
the beaver fur because of its warmth and its ability to be made into felt hats.
Soon there was a quest in Europe to collect beaver skins from Canada and the US
to sell back home. In the 1600s British merchants traded with the local Cree Indians
for beaver skins. The Indians did all of the trapping and the Europeans traded
them blankets, weapons, and beads for the skins. The Europeans hired French Canadian
farm boys known as voyageurs to paddle huge birch bark canoes from Montreal to
the Indian villages to collect the beavers. Getting to try beaver meat brought
me a little closer to the good old days of the voyageurs! Keep exploring! Dave |
