RELENTLESS

Posted On August 9, 2024

A True Story

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This story is dedicated to my father.

Dad, whether you knew it or not,

I was always watching, listening, and learning.

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Prelude

“Into the Forever Wild”

The Adirondack High Peaks Region, mid-July, circa 1978:

An olive-green station wagon eased its way through the gate and down a partially washed-out gravel road into a grass covered clearing that served as the South Meadows trailhead parking lot. A father and teenage son emerged from the mid 1970’s middle class station wagon, which, given the father’s station in life, was by its very pedestrian presentation, true testament to his nature.

The father, in his typical style, was clad in a lightweight tan NYSDEC work shirt over which he wore a light buffalo plaid woolen shirt as a jacket, a pair of green Khaki work pants held snug to his waist with a wide brown leather belt on which were attached his black leather sheathed Buck knife and Leatherman’s tool. On his feet were a working man’s pair of mink oiled leather Red Wing boots, and atop his head, honoring an illustrious career’s younger days, sat his signature waterproofed Forest Ranger Stetson. The son was much less distinctively clad in a windbreaker, t-shirt, blue jeans, baseball cap and hiking boots.

After generously double dousing each other from head to toe in a DEET heavy concoction of bug dope, father and son pulled their day packs from the station wagon and signed in at the South Meadows trailhead register:

“Thomas R. Monroe, NYSDEC Regional Director & son.

Destination: Lake Colden Interior Outpost.”

As they crossed the wooden bridge spanning South Meadows brook and made their way up the trail towards Marcy Dam, father and son reminisced about the many fall hunting trips they had shared along that stretch of terrain, pitching camp up along the stream gurgling down off the slopes of Phelps Mountain, the father sitting watch with his rifle up high on the ridges, hoping for a shot at a big Adirondack buck, whilst the son, shotgun armed, hunted the lowland balsam swamps hoping for a shot at a wary partridge or snowshoe.

But hunting was neither father nor son’s agenda this day. This day their objective was simple; make their way up the South Creek truck trail to Marcy Dam, hike up the aptly named Misery Mile to Trickle Falls, negotiate Avalanche Lake & it’s brilliantly constructed cliffside contingent of Hitch ’em up Matildas, and make their way up past Caribou Lean-to to their day hike destination, the NYSDEC Interior Outpost at Lake Colden. There they would share lunch as son listened attentively whilst father addressed certain NYSDEC matters, leaving the boot print of his presence as a somewhat less than subtle message for his highly valued and dedicated but often times rather independently minded crew of skilled, hardworking staff members.

The black flies were ravenous as father and son sweated their way upwards towards Avalanche Lake, but the deer flies were worse. They circled above and behind, wary and evasive, targeting like precision dive bombers the back of hikers’ necks and behind the ears, their most hard to defend places. By head gear, DEET, anything short of direct hard swat hit death, those blood thirsty deer flies remained undeterred. They were the very definition of relentless.

As father and son negotiated the last of the aforementioned Matildas and worked their way along the rocky shoreline past the Trap Dike towards the far shoreline of Avalanche Lake, father remarked to son,

“Beaver are active in here. I’ve had to get after my staff. They sometimes tear apart the beaver dams when they flood the trails.”

No sooner were those words out of son’s father’s mouth, when they came upon an Avalanche Lake beaver dam running alongside the trail. Right there, at that moment, crouched on the dam, was Lake Colden’s Interior Outpost caretaker. The caretaker saw the father and froze. His eyes got wide. He looked like the proverbial deer in the headlights, caught by the big boss, undeniably beaver dam destruction evidence double fistful red handed.

The father’s voice dropped three octaves and took on a tone with which his routinely rebellious aspiring outlaw teenage son was painfully all too familiar.

“This is a high peaks wilderness area, for Christ’s sake! How many times do I have to repeat myself?! I’ll say it one last time. This is the Adirondack Forest Preserve. Leave the beavers alone. Move the damned trail.”

It was one of those moments that all who were present shall forever remember.

That father was my father.

That son was me.

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Part I:

Confluence of the Dammed

Early May 2024, near the city of Watertown, NY:

It all began innocuously enough. It was the first week of May, which was also the first week of spring turkey season. I was out patrolling the trails out along the back side of my property line around behind what I call my “Swamp Pond”, something I most generally did after a morning of turkey hunting. The water in my pond was remarkably high. I didn’t think much of it initially. It had been an unusually wet spring, with more storms and heavy rainfall than I could remember having ever occurred over the course of the thirty-five years my wife and I had owned our seventeen-acre property.

As I assessed the pond’s water level, which appeared to me to be about six inches higher than normal for that time of year, a whiskered face surfaced, followed by a quick splash escape. I smiled to myself. “Muskrat” I thought. I enjoy having muskrats in my ponds. I get them there a lot. I call them my aquatic engineers. They keep the cattails in my ponds at bay so that I don’t have to and can be fun to photograph & watch.

My Swamp Pond is fed by one very small seasonally flowing intermittent stream that slices diagonally across the right rear corner of my property. It’s usually bone dry by mid-June and stays so until mid-late fall. I am usually in the position of hoping and praying my Swamp Pond retains enough water to draw in some woodies, hoodies & mallards come duck season.

I did not spot the dam initially. It was spring turkey season, and that section of land not having ever proven to be particularly good spring turkey terrain, I must not have walked the section of trail where the intermittent stream leaves my property to head down onto the farmland behind me. The first thing I noticed was a few small white sticks floating in the water, with all of the bark freshly gnawed off of them. “That’s not muskrat” I thought. “I’ve never seen muskrats chew sticks like that. That to me looks like the work of a beaver.”

That’s when I took a walk out around the back side of the pond and first spotted it. It was as if it had appeared out of nowhere. An interlocking construct of freshly gnawed willow and poplar limbs mixed with mud now blocked the course of the intermittent stream. It was about eight feet long, spanning bank to bank, six to eight inches high, running parallel to my own hand-built stringer bridge trail, even at one end tied into it. This new dam construct clearly confirmed that it wasn’t the muskrats I was accustomed to dealing with. My back lot swamp pond had a beaver.

In the thirty-five years my wife and I have owned and resided on our seventeen-acre lot, to the best of my knowledge and recollection, we’ve never once had a beaver. The only question now was, was the presence of a beaver on our property a good thing or not?

“Leave the beaver alone. Move the damned trail.”

Those son’s father’s words echoed.

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Part II:

Building Bridges & Dams

My father’s echoed words notwithstanding, truth be told, to that point in my life I had never before had any direct dealings with beaver. I knew very little about them. So, my father’s words ringing strong in my ear, I decided that before doing anything I needed to do some serious beaver research and homework.

I began researching beaver online, and also consulted with several trappers and wildlife friends who dealt routinely with beaver. From that effort it appeared the overall consensus was unanimous: Beaver are relentless in their dam building efforts and any trees in their area are in real jeopardy. On the flip side, they are experts at maintaining healthy pond water levels, their dam systems will filter and clear the water, and beaver ponds attract and provide habitat for a great variety of waterfowl, aquatic creatures and wildlife. In short, a beaver in the wrong place could quickly become a serious problem. However, beavers play an essential role in the earth’s ecosystem management and in the right location, beavers are a great asset.

Given those considerations, along with the facts that the intermittent stream and my swamp pond occupy the most remote sliver of my property and that there are really no trees there (other than the ones my wood duck boxes are mounted on) that I covet, I decided that if I have any place on my property that is the right place for beavers, my swamp pond is it. So, I made a decision. I would heed my father’s memory’s voice and do everything in my power to adjust my bridges and trails to accommodate mother nature’s reality. I would embrace the beaver.

So that’s just what I did. By that time, it was June. Turkey season was over. While the beaver stockpiled trees and built dams, I began upgrading my stringer bridge trail system to accommodate higher water levels. I positioned a pair of trail cams out there to monitor the beaver’s activity and progress.

I worked during the day. The beaver worked through the night. While I labored to upgrade and raise my series of stringers and bridges, the beaver’s efforts were focused on extending his dam network and raising the pond’s water level.

I added new support substructures and carried in solid concrete blocks to raise and widen each stringer bridge. My efforts quickly encountered a serious unforeseen problem. As the pond’s level rose, the ground on my surrounding trail network became so saturated that the trails could not support transporting supplies in via tractor.

As a result, I had to adjust. I transported everything to a staging area over seventy-five yards from where I was working. From there I had to carry each solid block, pressure treated stringer board and support log in, one at a time, manually. All in all, I moved nearly 200 solid concrete blocks and enough logs and lumber to upgrade and widen several hundred yards of pond trail and bridges. I carefully moved every existing bridge, added new blocks and support logs and widened those bridges that needed it. I seriously injured my left shoulder in the process. I gritted my teeth and labored on through the pain. I slept little and poorly. The beaver kept building dams. His efforts were relentless.

By the end of the third week, June turned towards July. I somehow managed to near a point of finishing my stringer bridge upgrades. I had spent nearly four thousand dollars to do so. By that time the beaver had extended his dam network by over fifty yards, raised my pond level over a foot, turning most of the bridges I had just upgraded and built into rafts.

In response I bought and drove into the ground several dozen heavy duty metal T- stakes to hold my most critical bridge infrastructure in place. I had no money, energy or enthusiasm left to raise my bridges further, so I evolved a “Plan B”. I re-opened an old trail along the crest of my swamp pond’s front side bank. Which is likely what any sane person not named me would have done in the first place. I even made my granddaughter Ari Rae her own special Overlook bench from which to enjoy the frog symphony serenading the pond.

Meet “Plan B” aka “The Overlook”

Ari Rae & Gypsy Rose approved

As the beaver’s efforts continued, the water kept rising. I realized at that point that this could not continue. By the second week of July, I more fully appreciated just how relentless the beaver’s dam building was. I knew something had to give before my whole property, and that of my neighbors, became flooded. So, I resolved to begin breaching the intermittent stream dam. I hoped that by breaching his dam and reducing the water level, that things would dry up as they normally did, the beaver would realize there wasn’t enough water there to long term support him and he would disappear back downstream to wherever he came from.

Despite my injured shoulder, fatigue level, and seriously depleted bank account, I felt no ill will towards the beaver. In fact, in many ways I felt kindred spirit to him, and had gained a great deal of respect for his ingrained work ethic and skill set. His dam building skills were amazing. He would channel out trails of mud with his tail, then use the mud like cement, mixing it with his craftily intertwined weave of freshly cut willow and alder in a manner that let just enough freshly filtered water flow through to keep the stream below flowing.

The water inside my swamp pond grew much clearer too. The beaver’s collection of leaf covered branches served not only as food stockpile and aquatic life habitat but slowed the water flow through the pond as it filtered it. Activity in and around my swamp pond flourished. My network of bridges turned into a highway. All manner of wildlife quickly moved in.

Still, despite all the positives and my respect for the beaver, I now knew I did not own enough land to support his dam building vision. It was just too much dammed water, and this wasn’t even spring runoff season. Not to mention the notion that he was likely to recruit reinforcements in the form of a mate. No, I had too much invested in my family’s property, not to mention a responsibility to my neighbors. The beaver’s dams simply could not remain. I knew what I had to do.

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Part III:

Battle of the Dammed

Once again, I worked by day. The beaver worked at night. The first morning I took out the intermittent stream dam, it took me nearly two hours. I bundled all of the interwoven brush as I removed it and carried it to one of my brush piles on dry land where I hoped the beaver would not retrieve it. I shoveled all of the mud well off into the bushes, trying not to leave the beaver any residual materials with which to rebuild.

The beaver once again proved relentless. To his chagrin, so did I. He rebuilt his dam each night for the next several nights. Every time it got smaller.

By the third morning, I was able to remove his night’s efforts in under fifteen minutes.

Over the next several days I removed the remainder of the beaver’s dam on my property section by section, all fifty yards of it. By the end of the week, there was no visible beaver dam work remaining on my land, though I could glimpse through the brush what looked to me like beaver channels and dam work along the intermittent stream on the farm lot behind me. My swamp pond’s water level quickly dropped by nearly a foot. I had hoped that would be enough to convince the beaver to vacate voluntarily. It was not. The beaver once again proved his spirit relentless.

So once again, I upped the ante. I began a routine of each morning at 6 a.m. wading into my swamp pond, barefoot, and removing every stick and stitch of the beaver’s food stockpile. Just as with the dam itself, the first morning took me nearly two hours, but each morning after that required far less.

However, as July neared its conclusion and August approached, even that proved insufficient. Battle Beaver continued.

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Part IV:

Cavalry Calls

I had made every effort to that point to deal with the beaver quietly, on my own. I bore no ill will towards the beaver. I did not wish him harm. I feared others would not harbor the same sentiments. My father’s words still echoed strong in my soul.

I now knew the beaver was highly unlikely to simply leave on his own. Resigned to his relentlessness, I reluctantly called one of the local NYSDEC forest rangers. The forest ranger advised that he was unable to assist me directly. He referred me to the DEC’s wildlife management unit for help.

I called the wildlife management unit and left a message stating that I was seeking advice and assistance regarding a beaver. In truth I was hoping that someone could simply live trap the beaver and take it to reside in a wildlife refuge or suitable body of water someplace else.

My wife and I got a call back from the wildlife management unit later that same afternoon. Unfortunately, the wildlife staff person advised me that live trapping a beaver was nearly impossible and something they did not do. He also advised me that a permit was required for everything I to date had done. Apparently, beavers have many rights, even in residential areas or on private property. That was something that had never occurred to me.

Fortunately, the wildlife staff person also advised me that the requisite NYSDEC nuisance beaver permit was easy to obtain, and if I applied for one immediately, he saw no reason to ticket me. So that’s what I did. With my wife’s help, I obtained and filled out the online nuisance beaver permit application later that same afternoon. Within the hour, my permit was approved. My beaver dam removal efforts were now fully above board and legal. I now not only had the right to remove the beaver’s dam, but if push came to shove, with the appropriate hunting (which I had) or trapping license (which I did not), to “euthanize” it.

My nuisance beaver permit was good until the end of the year. As I read through the permit’s conditions, several things struck me. First, the permit was good exclusively on my own land. Second, it only applied to beaver dams under two years old. Third, all dam removal had to be done in stages and by hand. Lastly, and the part I sincerely wished to avoid, if the beaver was “euthanized” outside of normal hunting or trapping seasons, it could not be sent to a taxidermist. It had to be buried.

Permit now in hand, I continued my ritual of sliding into my swamp pond every morning at 6 a.m. and removing the beaver’s newly gnawed haul of fresh trees and limbs from the previous night, which I could monitor via my pair of swamp pond focused trail cameras. Truth be told though, the echo of my father’s voice notwithstanding, I had long since reached beyond a point of mental and physical exhaustion. Something had to give, soon.

Since I had already notified the DEC and was now armed with a permit, I decided to take one more step, a step I to that point had avoided, and notify my neighbor, the farmer. The farm behind me sits on a couple hundred acres of land. The intermittent stream flows down from my land, across his, and empties into a local wildlife refuge from which I am certain my beaver kin emanated.

I had avoided interacting with my neighbor up to that point for two reasons. First and foremost, he simply does not like me. No, that’s not strong enough. For reasons I’ve never quite comprehended, my very existence is repulsive to him. I’m fairly certain he hates me. Second, once I did manage to make him aware, (if he was not already), of the beaver’s presence and activity along our shared intermittent stream, I was fairly confident I could guess his response.

Nevertheless, I trekked around the block, and on the second try accosted him. The exchange went pretty much as I had anticipated. Gauging from his response, I knew that what I had in essence just done was to call in the cavalry.

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Part V:

Last Call

Since I had the ominous feeling that I had already called in the cavalry and had in all truth in my mind reached that same point myself, I decided to make one final effort to convince the beaver to save himself and leave. I knew the beaver had no standard type log hut on my property. I suspected there was no such hut below me on the farmer’s land either, though I could not guarantee that with any degree of certainty.

What I did know from my own experience and previous swamp pond probing, was that there were three places in the pond bank where something had dug tunnels. Two of them I was fairly certain were old muskrat or mink hut entrances. The one I had my eye on was both newer and deeper. I had set up a third trail camera surveilling it several days earlier, and it seemed most of the newly gnawed beaver sticks I found each morning were floating in its general vicinity.

The water there was nearly thigh deep. Not knowing the beaver’s disposition or exact daytime whereabouts, I approached the pond bank there armed with a pick, a shovel and a great deal of caution. I first dug out the sod and opened up what my shovel handle probe told me was the entrance. Much to my surprise, several beaver logs floated out, each freshly gnawed to about two foot in length. Some had the bark still on. Some had the bark partially chewed off. On one it was gone.

The presence of those logs confirmed one thing for me though, I had indeed pinpointed the beaver’s active hut entrance. I continued my efforts with both pick and shovel. There was a huge rock positioned dead center directly above the entrance, I removed the dirt and sod around it and let it drop into the water. The rock did not block access to the hut, but my hope was that it would slow the beaver down in the event he was actually in the hut and decided to attack.

Right about that time, I felt a stinging sensation next to my right eye. I could feel my whole face swelling up. I soon could see why. In addition to the rock, a white-faced hornets’ ground nest was guarding the beaver hut. I had just swung my pick into the heart of their hive, and they were quite angry about it. I decided to beat a retreat to the house, assess the extent of my facial swelling, and arm myself with some more appropriate angry hornets’ nest ammo.

Back at the house, I could see in the mirror that my right eye and cheek had swollen up pretty good. There was a bit of swelling underneath my left eye as well, but my breathing was normal and beyond the sting’s lingering discomfort, I felt no other ill effects and determined I was fit to drive on. I grabbed two big cans of wasp and hornet spray. I keep a good stock on hand for ground hive encounters on my trails. I decided to wade in this time from a shallower slough on the back side of the beaver hut entrance to make my white face hornet assault.

To my surprise, when I swung into the bank from the back side with my pick, I discovered that the beaver actually had an ingeniously designed U-shaped hut entrance, with a front and back door. I exposed the wasp nest and fired off two full cans of ammo without further sting incident. All the contaminated dirt and sod dropped down into the water, some of it floated further back into what further shovel handle probes told me was the beaver’s actual hut.

I finished the task of completely exposing the inner beaver hut entrance without any sense or indication that the beaver was actually present. Ther was no noise or commotion from inside. Nothing pulled my shovel handle when I probed. So, I completed my work and left the swamp pond still uncertain of the beaver’s current disposition or whereabouts.

I returned to the house, left shoulder throbbing, right eye swollen, and out of non-lethal options. I told my wife “I’ve done everything I can do. I really just want the beaver to leave. I can’t keep this up. But he’s just relentless. I fear he never will.”

In deference to the echo of my father’s voice, I determined to give the beaver one more night, dams all removed, water levels dropping, food stockpiles gone, hut entrance exposed, to realize this was last call and make his escape. In preparation for anything other than that, I set myself up an observation post hunting blind on the Overlook where I would begin sitting the following night with my scoped .308.

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Epilogue

Later that same evening, my mom, who lives with us in an apartment facing the back of our property, came to the stairs just after dusk to advise me she had just heard several shots fired out back that sounded like they came from just beyond my swamp pond.

I did not see the beaver that night on camera. Nor did I see any sign of anything beaver related the next morning. My farmer neighbor was certainly not going to inform me of any action he may have taken, so I was left simply not knowing. I sat that night for two hours with my scoped .308, bipod mounted, focused on the hut entrance. I neither saw nor sensed anything. I repeated the same exercise the next night. All was quiet on the western front. No beaver signs of any kind appeared on my swamp pond.

Maybe exposing his hut was the final straw that convinced him to vacate my pond. Perhaps the residual wasp spray fouled the water inside his hut and inadvertently poisoned him. Or, and this is in my mind the most likely scenario, the shots my mother heard that one night sealed the beaver’s final fate outcome. Maybe the final chapter of this beaver tale has not yet been written. In truth, I don’t know.

What I do know is that I made every effort humanly possible to honor the memory of my father’s echoed instructions. I gained great respect for the beaver’s skill set and determination in doing so. He taught me many things along the way, both about beavers, and myself.

I am truly saddened to realize that I simply do not own enough land to support his dam building efforts. The beaver is one of nature’s most magnificent creatures. Smart, industrious, determined, filling an essential role in the earth’s ecosystem replenishment.

If I could sum up the beaver in a single word, that word would be…

Relentless

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Until Our Trails Cross Again:

ADKO