The War Against The Beavers

"This is a fascinating story about the difference between the destructive forces of nature and the destructive forces of humans. It begins with a charming naivete and ends with a clear-eyed wisdom." -Bill McKibben, author of The End of Nature

"[Verena Conley's] Minnesota Walden is resplendent but also beset by natural and man-made plagues that continually threaten her serenity. The book's wisdom is that it reveals how she finally triumphs over her complex environment by recognizing that for the most part she doesn't have to."-Ross McElwee, director of Sherman's March and Bright Leaves

"A great book to read aloud - especially in a car escaping a city." -David Black, award-winning screenwriter, journalist, novelist, and producer

A lifelong city dweller, Verena Andermatt Conley had long harbored romantic ideals about the natural world and dreamed of a wilderness retreat for herself and her husband, Tom. When a sizable tract of land along the Vermillion River on the edge of Minnesota's Boundary Waters - complete with two primitive log cabins - became available, they jumped at the chance to own a piece of paradise.The War against the Beavers is a wry and funny account of two people's ten-year apprenticeship in backwoods living, from their arrival as literal babes in the woods to their education in the ways of nature as they face plagues of insects, fungus, storms, and droughts, and embark on a lengthy campaign to eradicate a colony of beavers that threatens the peace and beauty of their forest refuge. It is only the coming of a mechanized and much more menacing threat - bulldozers and other heavy machinery clear-cutting the woods - that restores perspective to the obsessed cabin dwellers.

Verena Andermatt Conley was born and raised in Switzerland, where she grew up reading picturesque and adventurous portrayals of the great American wilderness. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Contents AcknowledgementsPrologue: A Cabin in the WildernessPart I. Babes in the Woods Heading for the Wilderness Home Alone at the Cabin Summer Pleasures Forest Paths The Art of Ricing Winter Pleasures Of Mice and Men Round-robin with the Weasels Icy Roads Cabin Opener Tree-Planting Ceremony Bruno the Bear Blueberry Hill Raspberry Picking Devastation Part II. The War Against the BeaversThe War Begins Jim Rondeau Strange Bedfellows Tree Nailing Nature Attacks The First Trapper A New Beaver Dam The Logging Letter A Tour with the "Forest Coordinator"Amos, the Eco-Trapper Edna, the Woodswoman More Beaver Stories The First Victim A Silent Spring A New Plague Urbanization The Beavers Return Joe Ahearn Big Timber Wolves More Chaos "Nature's Ways" Back to Blueberry Hill Epilogue