Question Answered

Beaver shot

Day 4 (6/27/12)

If a tree falls in a forest… So today Eileen and I had got up kind of early for us, had breakfast, and headed out for Mauthe Lake. When we got there it seemed pretty much deserted. Even the little booth for collecting money was empty and locked. We decided to pay on our way out and headed down to the boat launch. We had the lake to ourselves. It isn’t often or never that we are the only ones on the lake so we headed for our favorite part, the river. Unfortunately, there was not an overabundance of wildlife but it was still very peaceful. We worked our way up river and under the bridge, still no sign of people or wildlife. It was on our way back down that things started getting more interesting. First of all, the wind that we knew was coming started. We had seen on the weather channel that it was going to be windy and had actually thought about not going out. This year it seems like every time we have a chance to get out kayaking the wind is blowing. So as we started back down river against the wind we heard a load crashing in the woods as, we guessed but did not see, an old dead tree fell to the forest floor. Eileen looked at me and said exactly what was going through my mind, “well I guess we now know the answer”. We continued down the river a little further to where I saw a beaver with a mouth full of reeds swimming up river towards us. I slowly turned on the video camera but because the sun was at my back wasn’t sure if I was actually filming it or not. I thought sure that he would see us and dive but perhaps because of his precious cargo he continued making his way up river right past the prow of my boat. He then swam over to a brushy area along the bank, dove, and never appeared again. He seemed rather small as beavers go but industrious. When we made it out of the mouth of the river my fears were realized. The wind was blowing directly from the direction that we had to go to get back to our Yak hauler. By now people could be seen at the beach and running around on shore. When we finally made it back we loaded up, stop and paid for our stickers and were off. We took a different way home than usual and came across the Beachwood cheese factory. We had seen a article on T.V. about it so we decided to stop and try the wares. 

More of the Beav

Right before he dove

Against the Wind