Beaver Moon

Frost Moon · Mist Moon

November is the month when the beaver finishes its lodge and its stores of tender wood, before ice seizes the ponds. The trappers wanted its winter fur, the thickest, and set their traps under this moon. The name tells both: the animal preparing, and the man lying in wait.

It was said that the beaver is the only animal, along with us, that redraws the landscape to its own use. Its dams make wetlands where birds, fish and frogs come back. The old folk saw a tireless builder. Ecologists today see an ally.

Under the ice, the beaver does not sleep. All winter it draws on its store of branches, in the dark of the frozen pond.