I Knew Something Big Was Happening: A Guest Post from Leila Philip
Leila Philip’s book, Beaverland, is an extraordinary feat of curiosity about an unassuming animal. As one of our February monthly picks, there’s so much to dive into in this narrative. Here’s Leila to tell us all about how this wonderful journey started.
Paperback
$16.99
$19.99
Beaverland: How One Weird Rodent Made America
Beaverland: How One Weird Rodent Made America
By Leila Philip
In Stock Online
Paperback
$16.99
$19.99
For fans of the kind of natural history found in Hidden Life of Trees and Fuzz, Beaverland is a broad-sweeping narrative detailing the impact the beaver has had on the American landscape, from Native American tribes to the fur trade. Resonating with modern themes, this is a timely and fascinating narrative that is packed with intrigue.
For fans of the kind of natural history found in Hidden Life of Trees and Fuzz, Beaverland is a broad-sweeping narrative detailing the impact the beaver has had on the American landscape, from Native American tribes to the fur trade. Resonating with modern themes, this is a timely and fascinating narrative that is packed with intrigue.
I discovered beavers by accident. I was heading back from a walk through the woods with my dog, Coda, when I heard a loud bang. I literally jumped, thinking a gun had gone off, then I looked out and saw that the dry marshy area I was walking by was now brimming silver – curiously it was filled with water! Then came another bang and I saw a small brown head moving fast. A beaver had built a dam there and was swimming back and forth, slamming her tail to try to scare us away. I was transfixed. Over the next few weeks, I watched the shallow woodland valley become a pond. Soon I was seeing and hearing the rustling and movements of so many birds and animals. Mornings, the whole area rang with a complexity of bird song I’d never heard before. I knew something big was happening I just didn’t know yet what it was. Thinking back now I would describe my encounter with the beaver that day as a moment of awe, an experience when I was shifted out of my self and connected to something much larger that I hadn’t been in touch with just moments before. That was the book’s start.
I went back and watched the beaver every day, then started poking at two simple questions. What was a beaver – this wonderfully weird and determined animal? And what was this huge transformation that I could feel completely changing the woods around her new pond? Little did I know these questions would lead me to more and more questions and become a six-year journey that would take me to so many incredible places and led me to meet so many of the amazing people, past and present that I write about in the book.
I am a writer by nature but a journalist by training so to start my research on my local beavers I reached out as a reporter and interviewed descendants of the Algonquian people who have always lived here as well as local fur trappers. This gave me critical perspectives which helped guide the research I later conducted in libraries and archives.
I had so much fun writing this book, I truly felt like beavers were leading me on. The more I learned the more fascinated I became. Beavers have changed the way I see the world. Truly. I have learned that beavers change the world for the better environmentally. They are powerful connectors, highly adaptive and when it comes to creating a pond, they never give up. When I look at a swamp now, I no longer see just a messy area without trees, I see a coral reef of bio-diversity and I see a critical wetland that is storing, managing and cleansing the water we need to survive.
I hope readers feel the same way I do once they finish Beaverland. Wow. Beavers are so ordinary they are extra ordinary. And yes, they really did make America. What else about the natural world did I not know yet?