Once They Were Hats: In Search of the Mighty Beaver

(Paperback, No Edition)

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Description

Beavers, those icons of industriousness, have been gnawing down trees, building dams, shaping the land and creating critical habitat in North America for at least a million years. They were once one of the continent's most ubiquitous mammals. Then the European fur traders arrived. In Once They Were Hats, Frances Backhouse examines humanity's 15,000-year relationship with Castor canadensis, and the beaver's even older relationship with North American landscapes and ecosystems. Along the way she discovers how we can learn to live with beavers as they return.

Reviews

Cod, salt, whales, and water have all inspired terrific exploration narratives. Now the humble, much-maligned beaver stakes a claim to equal accomplishment. Author Frances Backhouse ranges through history, rambles the contemporary backwoods, and brings us all face to face with wait for it the Mighty Beaver! Ken McGoogan, author of Fatal Passage, Lady Franklins Revenge, and Celtic Lightning
With diligence and brio worthy of its subject, Backhouse restores the beaver to its iconic status as natures bucktoothed workaholic. Melissa Milgrom, author of Still Life: Adventures in Taxidermy
Frances Backhouse has written a wise and wily book, effortlessly blending history, natural history, science and sense, she tells us much that we didnt know about our national totem, and about the persistence of nature caught in the spotlight of civilization. Wayne Grady, author of The Natural History of the Great Lakes
Fascinating and smartly written. Globe and Mail
Backhouses history of the web-footed mammals that have a historic tie to Canadian identity mazkes for unexpectedly delightful reading there is much to learn from the buck-toothed rodents of yore. National Post
Backhouse is a skilled and personable narrator who guides us on a tour of the long, fond and sometimes lethal relationship we have entertained with this pudgy little rodent. Literary Review of Canada
Every true-blue cottager should study, if not memorize, Backhouses writings. Ottawa Magazine
Frances Backhouse is a writer in her prime, able to parse complex bits of data for the reader while also telling a good story Once They Were Hats works as a cultural history of the beaver. It could almost be used as a master class on how to write long-form creative nonfiction. Times Colonist
Backhouse avoids moral judgments; what she does offer is a wide assortment of reasons to value the beavers utterly unique lifestyle, while helping us understand how it has shaped and still shapes our own. High Country News
A welcome addition to the ranks of accessible histories She expertly guides us through woods, ponds, auction halls, and laboratories as she tracks the Mighty Beaver. BC Studies

Author Bio

Frances Backhouse is the author of five books, including Children of the Klondike, winner of the 2010 City of Victoria Butler Book Prize. She is also a veteran freelance magazine writer and teaches creative nonfiction at the University of Victoria. She lives in Victoria, B.C.