Rescue at Lake Wild

by Terry Lynn Johnson

  My heart leaps to hear him repeat something that Nana always said. Phrag and Cooler are in the right place.

  “Exactly!” I say.

  “If more people thought like you and did their part in their own backyards and communities to help wildlife, we’d be much better off. Of course,” he adds, “we frown on people keeping wildlife. That usually does more harm to the animals than good. Though I suppose in this instance, with your background, it’s a special circumstance.” He opens the gate to the enclosure.

  I scan over the secondary fencing surrounding the pond, searching for signs of the kits. His next words stop me.

  “I’m hoping later on you can come educate my interns about your work with the Township.”

  I gasp. All this time I’d been on my own, wishing I had someone to learn from. And now here’s a rehabber with interns, and he wants me to teach them what I know?

  “Uh, sure,” I squeak, not trusting my voice to say more.

  “Great. They’re looking forward to meeting the Beaver Whisperer.” Mr. Lee meets my eyes and I see his understanding.

  We continue toward the pond. In the center there’s a beaver lodge replica built on a platform. My heart starts to pound.

  “Your beavers seem to be enjoying their new habitat. They’re always so busy. Ah, here they are now.” Dr. Lee points to the far end of the enclosure.

  Two familiar fur balls approach the water. Cooler spots me first. He dives in and swims toward my side of the pond, Phrag right behind him.

  “Phrag! Cooler!” I race to greet them.

  Crying, they waddle out of the water. Meeeeee, meeeeee, meeee! They stick their large noses through the fence toward me and I touch their faces. My heart squeezes. They look bigger. And happy.

  Phrag grabs my hand with soft fingers.

  “Look at you guys in your new home!” I say. “It’s perfect!”

  Satisfied with a quick pat, both beavers turn and dive back into the water. It’s bittersweet to watch them disappear inside their lodge. I’ve wanted them to have the room to come and go as they wished, to live somewhere they could be beavers and not be locked secretly inside a tin shed. I want them to learn everything.

  But I still miss them so much.

  My throat feels tight as I imagine them growing up smart enough to one day return to live in the wild.

  * * *

  A week later my friends and I are sitting in the boat, fishing by the channel. The heavy sound of Lid’s panting is getting hard to ignore.

  He’s sprawled on his side, ribs chugging. His head is wedged in the shade beneath Aaron’s seat.

  “Never catch anything with all that noise,” Aaron complains.

  “He’s hot,” Jack says.

  “No wonder, with all that fur. Hey, let’s shave him.”

  “Let’s shave you.” Jack reels his bobber in slowly.

  Aaron frowns and pats his hair. “I’d sunburn.”

  “So would Lid.”

  “Not if we shave his bottom half. Like, just his underparts.” Aaron’s warming up to the idea.

  “Then he’d be black and pink,” I chime in.

  Aaron rubs the fur on Lid’s chest backwards to see the pink skin beneath. “Pink as a pig. That’s embarrassing,” Aaron murmurs.

  My phone rings. I dig it out of my pack.

  “Hello?” a worried voice says. “I was told to call this number. There’s a baby deer hiding in the grass at the back of my yard. With no mom around. You think it’s orphaned? Should I rescue it?”

  “No! The main thing to do is leave it alone. The mom hid it there so she could go eat.”

  Jack gives me a side-eye.

  “Probably,” I amend. “Just keep tabs on it from a window till she comes back.”

  I hang up and Jack rolls his head back in feigned boredom. “That’s the second call this week.”

  “Want to be my secretary?”

  “There needs to be more poaching cases to solve. I have a special skill set that’s not being utilized.” Jack spits for emphasis, and then adds, “At least I’m still the best spitter.”

  “That would be Aaron,” I remind him. Aaron grins.

  “Challenge accepted.” Jack sets down his rod. “Farthest loogie gets to drive the boat back.”

  The boat has drifted farther into the channel, and the beaver lodge that started it all comes into view.

  “Aim toward the lodge,” Jack says, over the sound of Aaron already making expert horking noises, bringing up something big.

  We all face the water, Jack looking serious. Aaron holds his nasty prize on his tongue. A slapping tail draws my attention to three torpedo-shaped bodies on the surface cruising by.

  “Look!” I say, contest forgotten. “Someone’s taken advantage of an empty house and moved in.”

  At the sound of my voice, one of the beavers veers off and approaches. The larger beaver tries to put itself between us, but the small one keeps coming.

  I hold my breath.

  Aaron makes a swallowing motion.

  The three of us watch as the beaver swims right up to our boat. Even Lid sits up to study the little brown fuzz ball, his expressive eyebrows raised high.

  The kit floats on the surface and peers at me. My heart leaps.

  “Xena,” I whisper. “Is that you?”

  She hums. I recognize her now from the look on her face. In her way, she’s saying hello and wants me to stop worrying about her. All this time, I thought these wild beavers had killed her. But it seems Xena got very lucky. They’d adopted her instead.

  “Is this your new family? Thank you for telling me you’re okay.”

  Xena turns and joins the other two beavers waiting for her. I watch them go until they dive near the lodge. I know what they’re doing underwater. I know exactly what it feels like to swim up that tunnel into the dark little room. Xena is safe at home with her new family.

  Jack, Aaron, and I give each other air high-fives.

  Lid briefly thumps his tail on the bottom of the boat before he resumes his panting.

  Author’s Note

  This story was inspired by a number of different sources.

  I was intrigued after watching an episode of David Suzuki’s The Nature of Things. It was about a real-life beaver whisperer who helped a town move from being in a war with beavers to living with them in harmony.

  In 2001 while I was working as a conservation officer in Kenora, Ontario, Canada, I met a real-life animal rehabilitator named Lil Anderson who wrote about her experiences with beaver kits. Her stories have stayed with me for years.

  I appreciate Lil’s time answering my questions while I researched and prepared to write this book. Parts of it were inspired from Lil’s experiences, such as the bathtub scene, with a beaver plugging the drain with another beaver. Lil allowed me to borrow a phrase she coined in her first book: “uppy uppy arms.” For further reading, I’d suggest both of her books, Beavers Eh to Bea and Pond Memories.

  Thanks to the staff at the Science North Center in Sudbury, Ontario, for introducing me to their beavers and showing me their routine with the animal ambassadors in their care.

  I’m also thankful for the time and assistance from Michele Grant, another animal rehabilitator with experience caring for a beaver kit named Timber. I especially want to mention that the scene with Cooler helping Madison over the fence was directly inspired by Michele’s true experience with Timber. I felt it important to show the astounding intelligence of these remarkable animals.

  My family lived on a lake where I grew up, slightly feral. I’d spend hours outside observing animals such as beavers. That is ultimately where Madi’s story was born. The beavers on my lake were typically busy making dams across the channel into the next lake. This annoyed my dad to no end since he wanted to navigate through the channel. Forty years later, I’m still arguing with him about how cool beavers are.

  The Dos of Wildlife

  DO make sure the baby is truly in need of rescuing. Animals like d
eer fawns and rabbits are most likely waiting for their mother to return. Animals like squirrels might just need to be reunited if they’ve fallen out of a nest. Keep pets away from the area and watch for up to twenty-four hours to see if a mom returns.

  DO have an animal carrier or box ready before you attempt to help the baby. Have a towel on hand if you need to scoop them up. Wear gloves—safety first!

  DO no harm. Avoid feeding or giving fluids. Things like cow’s milk can cause diarrhea and further dehydrate the baby.

  DO keep the carrier or box in a warm, quiet place. Wildlife are stressed around people and pets because they are seen as predators.

  DO call a wildlife rehabilitator in your area. They have the expertise to help. If you can’t contact a rehabber, find a wildlife center online and see if they have further instructions on the species you have found.

  DO remember that many animals seem cute and cuddly, but they need to remain wild.

  Reprinted with permission from the Wild for Life Rehabilitation Center, Rosseau, Ontario, Canada.

  Another good source of information is the Michigan Department of Natural Resources (MI DNR) Keep Wildlife Wild program.

  Chapter 1

  Whoever’s behind me is coming fast.

  I peek over my shoulder and see a blurry line of shapes bearing down. Mustard glances back too, then faces forward and digs in. He’s so cocky. He hates getting passed.

  An unspoken message travels through the whole team and they surge forward together. I love how the speed comes up through my feet. Cold air darts through cracks in my neck warmer. I squint into the wind.

  “Gee over, Mustard. Don’t be rude. Attagirl, Twix.”

  I have an eight-dog team, so my front-runners are at the edge of my visual range. All I can see of my leaders are furry shapes. It’s as though my sunglasses are coated in Vaseline. The bright sun compounds the issue. When it reflects off the snow, it hurts my eyes, even with my dark shades.

  The sound of synchronized panting grows louder behind me.

  “Trail!” a boy’s voice calls.

  I have just enough time to angle my sled to the right before his dogs come loping up beside me. They move along my sled, then shoulder past it to my dogs.

  Saga and Haze both stick their faces directly in the way, stretching their necks for a good sniff. I cringe. Sixteen dogs running this close beside one another at ten miles an hour can make a nice tangled ball in a blink.

  “Ahead!” I call, trying to keep the embarrassment out of my voice. Why can’t my dogs behave like everyone else’s when we’re out in public? I’m driving savages. I watch the other team. Focused ahead, no nonsense, passing like pros.

  I stare at the musher as he glides by. He’s near my age, or maybe a little older. And he’s wearing some kind of war uniform that looks like it came out of his great-grandfather’s closet.

  “Ma’am,” he says. He doesn’t even watch his dogs to make sure they’re going straight, just turns backwards on the runners and bows at me. Bows.

  “Hey, Retro,” I call. “Why bother? Now I’m going to have to pass you!”

  He laughs and then he’s out of my range, leaving me with the sounds of the trail—the shush of the runners gliding over sun-softened snow, then the clacking noise they make on the harder, shaded sections of trail. The necklines tinkle, and the wind whistles. I could never run this fast on my own. Never feel the clean bite of air filling up my nostrils. Filling me up.

  I’m never as free as I am out here behind this team.

  My gaze roves up and down my dogs. Sumo’s dipping snow already but keeping pace. The fluorescent strips I’ve stitched along the backs of the dog harnesses make them stand out, especially on white dogs like Damage and Haze. Without the strips I can hardly tell them from a snowbank. But the real trouble will start at dusk, when everything turns into black blobs, fluorescent strips or not.

  A wide-open expanse appears. My team goes down the bank and then moves onto the frozen lake. There’s a commotion ahead; I hear it before I see it. Two mushers, yelling.

  “Grab your leaders!”

  “Sorry! I’m sorry!”

  Dogs barking.

  Their teams flounder in the snow. I arrive just as the dogfight breaks out. I throw down my snow hook, wondering what to do next. Should I go help? No, I’ll surely give myself away, stumbling over dogs.

  My team shrieks and lunges to get closer to the action. I’m hesitant to leave the sled in case Sumo pops the hook and we have three teams tangled. But I can’t tell what’s going on from back here. I creep closer, moving up beside my leaders. The mushers are grabbing armfuls of dogs and tugs.

  “They wouldn’t listen!” A girl wearing yellow wind pants struggles with a dog as if she’s never untangled a dog team before.

  “What are you doing?” It’s the retro boy who passed me. “Unclip the tug or my dog will get pinched!”

  “This one?”

  “No, your point dog! Hurry! Yoda, enough!”

  His wheel dog, not even in the tangle, is screaming so loud now, it’s hard for me to think. Which is why I dive into the fray.

  I reach for the girl’s leggy point dog, flicking off my mitts as I do so my bare fingers are ready. Once I’ve grabbed the dog, I go by instinct. Unclip the tug, flip the line under, then reclip her dog. It’s all automatic and takes about two seconds.

  The line is still tangled.

  I walk backwards a few steps with the tugs, straightening the leaders, and squint at the gangline. There. A neckline needs to be unclipped. Once I’ve got the leaders untangled, I have to hold the leggy dog’s collar to prevent him from turning around. It’s satisfying to know that my dogs aren’t the worst brats ever.

  I peer at my team but can see only a line of crazed, hopping mongrels. I’m too far away to tell if the snow hook is coming loose. Please don’t come loose.

  My feet sink through the crust of snow and I slop around in slush. “You want to get them going,” I tell the girl. “I’ll hold them out.”

  She seems to suddenly come out of her fog and leaps onto her sled.

  “Hike up!” she yells, and the dogs pitch forward, picking up speed. Her sled zips past me, throwing up a rooster tail of slush.

  “Thanks,” the boy says. “I think she’s new.”

  I feel a nose shoving at my butt. I turn and recognize the black and silver markings of the boy’s lead dog. But then I do a double take and peer closer. Her eyes! “What’s wrong with your dog?”

  “What?” The boy looks up, then relaxes. “Oh, you mean Zesty. Yeah, she’s blind as a bat. Anyway, thanks for your help.”

  “You . . . your lead dog . . . you have a blind lead dog?”

  “She’s the best. Hey, love to chat, but should we get going? You know. Race.”

  I peer intently into Zesty’s face. She’s focused on the departing team, ears erect, body tightly coiled. She appears to be watching, but her eyes are fully clouded over. She swivels her face toward me as if sensing I’m staring.

  “Your team!”

  I jerk my gaze up. The boy lunges for my sled as it shoots past him. His feet get bogged down in the slush. He misses.

  I have one chance. I try to line myself in the right place but it’s going to be tight. I can’t see the sled clearly, and my depth perception is off. How close is it? Where is that handlebar? My dogs rush past me as I lean over, desperate, reaching . . . reaching.

  Bam!

  My bent arm hooks the handlebar. I swing up onto the runners. Step on the brake. Lean down to where the snow hook should be. There it is. Snag it up. Set it in its cradle. Straighten, focus ahead. Adrenaline still pumping.

  I can feel my dogs smiling from here.

  I told him I’d pass him.

  December 7, 1896

  Dear Margaret,

  I leave the port of Killarney on the morrow with the mail courier Raymond Miron and his team of dogs. There is wild beauty here with windswept pines and stark white cliffs, but also loneliness. I
miss home terribly. Alas, the Hudson’s Bay Company requires me at White River upon the most haste, and I shall endeavor to comply . . .

  Love to little Anna. She will be grown enough to beat me in a horserace when I return.

  Your loving brother, William

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  About the Author

  Photo courtesy of the author

  TERRY LYNN JOHNSON writes about the wild with the wisdom and passion of someone who has spent her life working to preserve and protect it—both as a backcountry canoe ranger in Quetico Provincial Park and in her current job as a conservation officer with the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry. She lives at the edge of a lake in northern Ontario, Canada, where she loves watching all wildlife, including beavers.

  Visit her online at terrylynnjohnson.com

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