Beavered-Up
An homage to my dad and his spirit animal, the beaver.
Story by Michelle McDaniel
Every now and then, there comes a time in a person’s life when an epic moment defines them. For my dad this moment was when he became “the beaver.”
It’s a story spoken with exuberance each time it’s told by my husband, Jack McDaniel, and his Navy friends who were there to bear witness that day. A story that has left a long-lasting impression on my dad and anyone that knows or cares for him.
My dad’s defining moment takes place about five or six years ago, high up in the North Cascade Mountains off an old logging road near the town of Concrete, Washington. Jack invited him to go winter camping to a place they call Bear Camp.
Jack and his friends made a lean-to out of sticks and a tarp, sheltering them from the heavy, wet snow.
As the evening progressed and the contours of the mountains became indistinguishable due to whiteout conditions, my dad became more “beavered-up” from drinking Peppermint Schnapps mixed with a Starbucks Frappuccino and smoking out of a deer antler pipe that he bought back in 1978.
Exhilarated by the thrill of being in the wild and warm from the Peppermint Schnapps, my dad opted not to huddle under the tarp with the other men. He stood around the campfire instead, decked out in his water repellent buffalo-leather chaps and beaver-felt hat with a symbol of a beaver on the inside.
My dad leaned back, tilted his head upward, stretched his arms out toward the heavens, and shouted, “I feel like a beaver!”
“Look at me! The water is shedding off of me!” my dad exclaimed as the water beaded off his chaps and hat, just as it would a beaver’s waterproof fur coat.
Jack and his friends watched in amusement, laughing and relishing with my dad in his moment of glory. From here on out, he was known as “the beaver” to all our friends and family.
The beaver became him, especially after he decorated a mud flap he calls his “beaver tail” with big silver buttons and leather tassels that he fastened onto the back of his Harley-Davidson motorcycle.
My dad realized how spiritually connected he had been with beavers his whole life. He was able to see many beaver qualities in himself, like his affinity toward living near water and his passion for architecture and construction.
Although my dad is not Native American, he identifies with the beaver as his spirit animal, a term “used among different cultures to describe spirits of benevolent nature, usually helping someone during a hard time,” said Tristan Picotte in A Native View On Spirit Animals And Animal Medicine.
Not all tribes believe in spirit animals, but for those that do, “These spirits can bring strength, insight and even a sense or feeling to someone who needs it,” according to Picotte.
This past Christmas, Jack gifted my dad Ben Goldfarb’s book “Eager: The Surprising, Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter.” I wanted to read the book to my dad in hopes that we could become subject-matter experts on beavers together, but in the process we learned a little bit more about ourselves, too.
My dad’s first encounter with his spirit animal occurred in a time of need. I knew that it happened when my dad was in despair, but it wasn’t until after we read the book together that I found out what really happened when I was 3 years old and went missing.
My parents called the fire department to help search for me.
Troubled, my dad looked for me down by the river behind our house. He stood silently on the banks of the river in deep thought, hoping and praying that he’d find me, when he saw a beaver meandering toward him, swimming upstream.
The beaver waddled up to my dad where he stood like a statue, sniffed his boots and turned away. Feeling the need to communicate with the creature, my dad said to the beaver in a brusque voice, “Hey.”
The beaver turned to stare at him for a moment, displaying its long orange incisors and then waddled away, sliding back into the river. The beaver was likely not threatened by my dad, because it didn’t slap its tail in defense.
My dad was left with a feeling that the beaver was sending him a message of hope that I would soon be found.
I was — inside the oil shed on the side of our house, laughing.