The Kelso Mountain Beaver Story

Did you know that beavers get headaches?  Here is the beaver chewing on a tree, gets a headache – or toothache - and waddles off into the woods in search of a remedy.  And I’m not making it up either.  Material evidence of such behavior is to be found in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, if you are willing to set the paddle aside for a while and walk.

Nine of us were eager to do just that on a beautiful September Saturday.  We started out in canoes from the Sawbill Outfitters.  A pleasant breeze hardly touched the water surface leaving it smooth.  On both sides, walls of cedar and pine were tinted yellow.  Black ducks flew off in front of us.  We past by starving pitcher plants, but had no sympathy for the bug- and mosquito-eating vegetation.  The northern landscape offered its amazing, more serene then spectacular views, which changed from open water of a relatively broad lake to a winding pass down Kelso River.  A short portage in between was a welcome break from paddling.

After 2 hours and a half, we reached the beginning of the former Kelso Mountain Trail, parked our canoes and took on the hill.  The trail leads through the forest and is partly overgrown.  But we persevered and were rewarded by a seemingly illogical sight.  Right in the middle of the forest, nowhere near the two beaver dams, which we had just crossed, stood a badly damaged tree.  The beaver had chewed his way around it, even so he couldn’t possibly get any piece of it back to the water.  Eight of us were puzzled, but a knowledgeable member of the Kekebabic Trail Club knew how to make sense of it.  The victim tree was an aspen, containing in its inner bark the active ingredient of Aspirin, as well as the chemicals salicin and populin, which exhibit similar pain-relieving and anti-inflammatory properties.  And when the beaver gets a headache, he quits working on his water front mansion and waddles off into the woods in search of an aspen tree. 

Other attractions on the less then 3 miles long hike (round trip) included sights of maples, which were starting to ketch some fire and would be even prettier a week or two later in the year.  Furthermore, deep bear claw scratch marks could be observed on the walls of an old outhouse.  The outhouse, now used mainly by black bears J, is the last remaining structure from the times of the old Kelso Mountain fire tower.

- Louhi

09/24/2001