LIVING OFF THE FAT OF THE LAND
They may not be universally popular in Scotland, but in Alaska fatty beaver blubber is the most prized meat a starving man can find
Guy Grieve finds unexpected sustenance in Alaska
The topic of beavers usually brings a wink and an ill-judged joke in this country, but not in the remote interior of Alaska, where the subject is regarded with deadly seriousness. Beavers were my lifeline when I lived in that region over ten years ago, when I had run desperately short of food, and after many failed attempts managed to get the knack of trapping them. They made a rather grizzly meal, but having run out of all fresh food I was not in a position to be picky.
So I feel I owe something to these animals and read about the controversy surrounding their reintroduction into Scotland with mixed feelings. On one hand, I like the idea of reintroducing a native species, and would love to spot a beaver dam on one of our Scottish rivers. On the other hand, having lived at close proximity to these animals, I can fully believe that they may be having an impact on our countryside which goes beyond expectations.
Not for nothing did someone invent the term ‘beavering away’ – I have never seen such industrious creatures. All summer, while other animals were basking and luxuriating in the sunshine, I watched as my local clan of beavers diligently built their stick pile in the lake near my camp, collecting huge quantities of non-resinous woods such as alder, willow, balsam and birch to sustain them through winter. When ice-up came and the temperatures sank into the -60s, the beavers were well prepared and remained fat and happy all winter.
During the winter months, the beavers lived beneath three feet of ice and kept rigidly to a well-organised triangular underwater routine where, when hungry, an adult beaver would slip out of the entrance to the lodge and swim to the stick pile. After collecting a fresh stick they would swim back to the lodge, where they and their family would gnaw off all the nutritious bark, leaving a bare length of tooth-scribed
wood. They would then take this to what the oldtimers called ‘the bone-yard’, where they left all their used-up sticks, before returning to the stick pile and repeating the cycle.
I watched this routine with admiration. Of all the animals the beavers seemed the best prepared and most well adapted to the extreme harshness of the Alaskan winter, and as the winter went on I also increasingly watched them as prey. Beaver meat is prized by animal and man alike at this time of year as it is good and fatty, and in extreme cold our bodies crave fat for heating.
I was completely out of fresh food and also had the six hungry mouths of my dog team to feed, so a nice fresh beaver would be a real prize. But catching these crafty rodents was no easy matter. In order to trap them beneath the ice, I had to intercept them on their triangular route by cutting a hole through the ice and hanging some tempting fresh sticks, ideally birch, to stop them in their tracks.
By February their stick pile would be quite stale and so the art was to present an irresistible fresh stick to the beaver before he reached his stick pile. Getting the hole in the right place was vital and cutting through three feet of ice was hard work. I would pick my spot and then chip away with a heavy six-foot ice pick, removing layers of clothing as I worked to prevent myself from sweating. Sweating in this extreme cold was dangerous as my clothing would quickly freeze, exposing me to hypothermia.
Once the snares were set, I would return each morning to check for signs that I had outwitted one of these clever rodents, and for many days I returned disappointed. But finally, through trial and error, and to my great excitement and joy, I caught one. From then on I was lucky, and returned to my cabin a number of times with this beautiful and substantial wild meat.
The beaver would be frozen solid by the time I got it back to the cabin, so I would hang it beside my stove where it would slowly thaw, dripping sinisterly. The next day I would gut and skin the animal, hanging the meat for my consumption on my game pole and stowing the pelt beneath my bed. The beaver’s guts and offcuts would be thrown into my ‘dog pot’, a 55-gallon drum-stove where I would cook them up with rice and fish, creating a sustaining fatty stew for my dog team. I saved the pelts to give to local people in exchange for dry stores, and gave the teeth to Athabascan women who used them to make buttons. It was an exercise in ‘from nose to tail’ consumption and not a scrap of those thrifty animals were wasted.
A large area of the territory around me was affected by the beavers, who felled trees and created dams, although in that case they didn’t affect anyone. Alaska is approximately eight times the size of Western Europe, with a population around the size of Edinburgh, and that almost entirely centred on the cities. There are three million lakes of over 20 acres or more, not taking into account the many smaller ones, which Alaskans don’t even bother to count. So in short there is plenty of space for the beavers, and their population is kept under control by natural predators such as bear, wolves and of course man. And as for trees… well there are far too many of them for the beavers ever to have a negative impact.
In Alaska, the beavers add greatly to the bio-dynamism of the region. Scotland is a different matter however. We don’t have thousands of acres of wooded wilderness, or bears and wolves to keep their numbers in check. And I doubt there are many Scottish chefs brave enough to put beaver on their menus. I can vouch for its tastiness, although I was virtually starving at the time, so maybe I’m not the best of judges. If pushed to describe it, I would say it’s like a fatty rabbit with faint notes of tree sap. Coming soon to a restaurant near you?
‘I exchanged the pelts with locals and gave the teeth to Athabascan women, who used them to make buttons’