Nature in the City: by Sarah Walker, from the September 2005 Newsletter
This month the haphazard path of my summer reading took me to The Thunder Tree, by Robert Michael Pyle. Pyle says:
“We all need spots near home where we can wander off a trail, lift a stone, poke about and merely wonder: places where no interpretive signs intrude their message to rob our spontaneous response . . . open space with no rule but common courtesy, no sign besides animal tracks. Developers, realtors and the common parlance refer to such weedy enclaves as “vacant lots” and “waste ground.” But these are two of my favorite oxymorons: What, to a curious kid, is less vacant than a vacant lot? Less wasted than waste ground?
“For special places to work their magic on kids, they need to be able to do some damage. They need to be free to climb trees, muck about, catch things, and get wet—above all, to leave the trail.”
I’ve experienced what Pyle is talking about, right in Moscow. On my daily walks to campus last February, I noticed signs of beavers along one of the branches of Paradise Creek that meander through town. I saw gnaw marks around the bases of willows and the odd floating stick with bright, freshly chewed ends, floating in the creek. Each day the creek seemed to be a little higher. Then one day I found myself leaving the paved path, drawn to the tangle of tall grass and brush along the creek—which satisfied my curiosity but made me quite late for work.
As I crept along I discovered one, then two, freshly worked beaver dams. Then, right by a major city intersection where the impatient roar of cars, trucks and motorcycles filled the air, I came upon a large beaver lodge. The igloo-shaped mound rose out of the water, built of sticks and mud. Beavers lived in there! Their entrance hole was under water, their comings and goings secret. Fresh mud told me this was an “active lodge” not of a fraternal order but of a furry clan of aquatic rodent engineers.
Standing under branchy European willows amid tangles of shrubs and last summer’s faded grass stalks, time stood still for a little while. A male song sparrow sang from the creekside thickets. The hustle of traffic that usually demands my attention when I cross streets on foot, faded into white noise. By now I was really, really late for work.
I looked around at the symmetrical lodge and the well-maintained dams, built and tended by nocturnal beavers. So much was happening here, a few blocks from my fenced yard and flower beds.
I felt quite alone there, but along the creeks of Moscow I have seen signs that others too explore and hang out in the unmown and untrailed areas. I have come across forts and secret hideouts in willow trees, and overhanging branches for crossing the creeks. In August when the reed canary grass is over my head I follow paths that have been squashed down by someone else. Apparently people explore, hang out or putter about here, where sunlight makes mosaics through willows and progress is slowed by messy undergrowth. Others besides me must have seen the beavers and muskrats tending their lodges and burrows, patrolling their section of stream bank, or poking a stick into a dam. But I never see anyone else, only paths where they’ve been.
When I saw this beaver lodge last February I thought about writing a spring column on Moscow’s beavers. But most likely the beavers that work hard to dam the creek and flood it for their small beaver families aren’t popular with city engineers, who work hard to keep water flowing, unimpeded, through town.
I didn’t need to tell anyone about the beavers because plenty of people have been in that area anyway. These rougher unkempt places are wild n’ free for roaming, exploring, and spying on the doings of animals and birds.
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