Beavers by the book

Imagine traveling by canoe or guide boat 100 years ago on our mountain rivers. Even the smallest waterways were easy to navigate as there were no beaver dams to slow down an expedition. By 1900 beavers had been exterminated from most of the Northeast, with one last group of five beavers living in a remote colony somewhere in the western Adirondacks.

And then the rodent miracle. Thirty-four beavers were relocated to the Adirondacks from Canada and Yellowstone and by 1915 the beaver population was at least 15,000,