BEAVERS: Next of Kin

She Who Watches Over - S.W. Washington - April 2004

Human representatives often pride themselves for their uniqueness among all animal species. But the very things that make humans unique are probably extremely recent developments. Huge egos, large brains, and the physical apparatus required for effective speech seem not to have appeared in hominids any earlier than 500 thousand years ago.

pictograph / petroglyph? / whatever - S.W. Washington - April 2004

The ability to use these physical attributes is even more recent so that language and speech and the propensity toward symbolic thought can really only be thought of as new evolutionary experiments.

Even so, metaphorical or symbolic thinking does seem to go hand in hand with a level of consciousness that appears to transcend common animal existence. Consequently vast segments of humanity have been led to posit an additional, supernatural, god granted element (often referred to as the soul) associated with the human body. No other animal builds complex cultures and civilizations and therefore it is reasoned that humans must hold a position at the apex of evolution/creation. This assumption is often suggested in humanity’s sacred writings.

Renegade Cows - Mt. Adams - S.W. Washington - Sept. 2007

Ironically, one of the benefits to owning a soul is that it makes it easier to justify eating animals that don’t have souls.

Or it makes it easier to make hats out of them.

Willamette Falls @ Oregon City - Jan. 2006 (Click on the image to view a somewhat larger version)

We like to point to our technology as evidence for the power of our big brains, but don’t quite grasp that the end result is no better and often worse than what other animals accomplish with instinct.

Beaver dam @ Bybee Lake - Northwest Oregon - (Click on the image to view a somewhat larger version)

Beaver construction projects actually turn out to be beneficial to life.

For little mammals with no obvious language skills, beavers have an extraordinary list of engineering accomplishments. This dam is the first in a series of dams or locks that shape one of the inlets to Bybee Lake. This dam apparently controls the water level around the beaver’s home lodge (located in the upper right hand corner of the photo).

Below the dam, additional locks and secondary dams control the seasonal variation of water levels. Massive beaver dredging projects maintain an open channel to the lake, even in the summer.

Note how silt and sediments are pushed to the sides of the channels.

Beaver construction techniques utilize wood acquired from their extensive lumberjack operations as well as local mud and clay.

Beaver canal to the open lake.

Back door to beaver lodge.

Underwater tunnel system exposed.

Ambitious tree felling project

Tree harvesting.

Distribution of resources - overland and overwater.

Beaver infrastructure

Waterfront property.

It all raises a question. If a beaver can build homes, dams, locks, roads, tunnels and canals – if a beaver can harvest and transport timber – if a beaver can plan ahead and store food for the winter – if a beaver can safeguard his family from predators – how is it that a beaver isn’t actually conscious?

Maybe consciousness like our own is only a matter of degree – and not the divine impartation of a magical element.

Maybe one day, we will see clues that our fellow mammals are taking the first steps to human-like consciousness. Perhaps here we see evidence of the first beaver inkling of the ‘linkin’ log’ concept that will allow future beavers to construct log cabins instead of lodges.

Here we might see evidence for a developing sculptural sensibility.

The resemblance between this unfinished beaver sculpture…

…and this famous Egyptian sculpture is remarkable.

Possible beaver-made duck decoy.

Just screwing around, or are beaver scientists beginning to unravel the secrets of the double helix?

In Stanley Kubrick’s movie, 2001: A Space Odyssey, a mysterious black monolith teaches a band of hominids to use tools. One of the hominids throws a bone ‘smashing implement’ into the air. The bone twirls up into the sky where it gradually morphs into a space craft. The whole technical evolution of our species is implied during the artful passage of a few seconds of celluloid.

Perhaps here in a similar fashion, on the bank of Bybee Lake, these implements mark the birthplace of beaver consciousness…

…as they struggle to come to grips with the ‘lever principle’.

Is this an example of beaver engineers using levers to raise rock obstructions out of their navigable canals?

Is this a beaver traffic signal?

Is this a beaver depiction (top left quadrant near the midline) of slumbering carp?

Is this a beaver rendering of James Dean?

Only time will tell.

TABLE MOUNTAIN: Columbia River Gorge Geology

In a previous blog entry, Bridge of the Gods (http://thenarrativeimage.blogspot.com/2007/03/bridge-of-gods.html), I noted that some geologists have posited a link between a landslide that likely occurred in the 1200s and local myths/legends describing a land-bridge across the Columbia.

Current, apparently misnamed, Bridge of the Gods.

John Eliot Allen, author of The Magnificent Gateway, writes, “The lobe of the latest (“Cascade”) slide covers about 5 ½ square miles. It diverted the river a mile to the south, and contained a dam long enough, in all probability, to give rise to the Indian legend of the “Bridge of the Gods”

Mr. Allen describes the unstable geologic situation like this. “Heavy Grande Rhone Basalt-flows cap Greenleaf Peak and Table Mountain, resting upon 1000 feet of weak, clay bearing Eagle Creek sediments.”

The trail I took to Table Mountain starts at the Bonneville trail head. It’s on the Washington side of the river across the highway from the Bonneville Dam’s visitor center parking lot. You can pick up a parking/forest pass at a Chevron station a couple miles west of the trail head (Five dollars for a day pass).

At the east end of the trail-head parking lot, find the Tamanous trail sign and proceed about a half a mile until you merge with the Pacific Crest Trail. A sign at the intersection almost counter intuitively points North and South. Go north, ultimately, along the Pacific Crest trail, though it will feel an awful lot like you are really going west. Whenever you come to an intersection, be sure you see the little metal Pacific Crest Trail diamonds posted in the trees when you resume your walk or you may be off track.

Heading down the trail toward Gillette Lake, I noted that were it not for the moss, you would think the landscape was still rolling. While some carbon dating results put the landslide event at about 1260 A.D., other geologists have attempted to date the slide by measuring lichen growth.

Gillette Lake has some nice camping sites and appears to periodically host beavers. There are remnants of lodge and dam building activities. I’m inclined to describe the color of Gillette lake as a green not found in nature, but that apparently can’t be accurate.

A little bit past Gillette Lake, the trail opens up onto what may be an old logging road and a clear cut area that affords a good view of the sheared away face of the mountain. This image shows Table Mountain as it appeared this year on March 3rd (left) and again on April 1st (right).

A former trail to the top of Table Mountain has been closed due to erosion and other environmental concerns. A posted sign encourages you to continue another half mile to this newer access point. If the trail so far has been a medium ‘5’, it is about to become a “9” and for old out of shape fat men, maybe an “11”.

Later on, there will be the additional psychological challenge of exposure to sheer drop-offs. I had to shield my eyes with my hands – like blinders – to keep focused on where I was placing my feet.

From this vantage point, you can see how the river bends to the south behind Bonneville Dam.

From the summit, looking east up the Columbia River gorge.

This ridgeline leads to the top (The point) of the sheer face of Table Mountain

In retrospect, I’m not sure it is a good idea to get this close to the edge of an unstable mountain with a demonstrated propensity to slide.



I thought it was hard going up the mountain, but my knees had a surprise for me when I started back down. Fortunately, I got off the rocky dangerous part well before dark. Limping past Gillette Lake on the way out, I was thankful I had my flashlight and my bag of survival gear – just in case (about 15 1/2 miles round trip).