First Wild Beaver
This morning I hiked the trail from East Cranberry Lake to West Beach in Deception Pass State Park. It is a nice, easy, mostly level hike and a good way to spend a couple of hours in the middle of winter. Despite the lakeside location, your feet will stay dry, which is always a must in my opinion. Shortly after setting off, this marker indicated I was entering Beaver country. The Beaver is North America's largest rodent, and the second-largest in the world after the Capybara. I had never seen a beaver in the wild, unless you count the time when I was about eleven years old. He was posing for pictures right in the middle of the bridge at Chief Joseph Dam in eastern Washington. I am not kidding. He mugged and posed and seemed to enjoy entertaining the tourists while they took his picture. He would sit up on his hind legs and turn his profile to the cameras, first left, then right. He was a big guy, more than two feet tall when he...