GREY OWL

Forest and Bird, Issue 42, 1 November 1936, Page 7

GREY OWL

THE FRIEND OF WILD CREATURES.

O ne of the first acts denoting the arousing of a desire to sympathise with wild creatures, is to cage birds or animals. That is the main idea which occurs to the novice bird-lover. This person therefore captures or buys a wild creature, and perhaps without realizing the cruelty of his act, condemns it to life imprisonment, denying it all of those joys which make a wild creature’s life worth living.

The novice has still to learn that there is no need to use cages, but that with the aid of that indescribable sympathy and understanding possessed by some nature lovers, so-called wild creatures can be tamed without robbing them of their freedom for one moment.

The following Canadian story by W. J. Banks, culled from “United Empire,” the Journal of the Royal Empire Society, tells how a half-breed Indian, “Grey Owl,” tamed wild beavers, some of the most timid yet intelligent of wild creatures.

NEARLY a half century ago Grey Owl was born on the western plains. His mother was a full-blooded Apache; his father, Scots frontiersman who, tired of the constant Indian wars that had engaged him as a Government scout, had left that calling to join the famous Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show.

So the blood of two proud and fighting peoples flows in the veins of the man who is to-day one of the most outstanding wild game conservationists. Grey Owl has travelled a varied and a romantic road since he left the tepees of the warlike Apaches, still far from reconciled to the loss of their last hunting grounds. It has brought him, at last, to contentment in a log cabin in Northern Saskatchewan, where he lives in closest communion with his little brothers of the stream and woodland.

Following his father’s death, Grey Owl, as a youth, joined the Wild West show and accompanied it to Europe. But the lad’s imagination had always been stirred by tales of his father’s early days in Northern Canada, and it was the Cobalt silver rush of 1905 that served as the immediate cause of his crossing the sea again. As guide, hunter and trapper, he spent eight years as an adopted member of the Ojibway tribe of Northern Ontario. Serving as a sniper with the Canadian forces in France, he was twice wounded, and subsequently returned to the trap lines.

For some years there had been close restriction on the taking of beaver pelts, and those

busy builders of the northern streams had been making a come-back throughout a large area. But the lifting of the long “closed season” resulted in shameful slaughter. Greed for easy money brought a horde of trappers, with dynamite and poisoned bait, to threaten Canada’s national animal with extinction and decimate the numbers of other woodland dwellers.

As Grey Owl wandered farther and farther afield in search of unspoiled hunting grounds, the gravity of the situation began to dawn upon him. It did not take him long to decide to forsake the ranks of the destroyers and start a one-man movement of conservation. What had started out as a hunting journey ended in a search for a small colony of beavers which he could protect, allow to multiply and study in their daily life so that data might be gathered to help in the fight which he saw must be waged at once to save the beaver people from total extinction.

By the side of a small stream in northern Quebec, Grey Owl built a little cabin near the water’s edge, where two small beaver families were living. How he managed to gain the confidence of the shy web-footed creatures, enabling closer observation of their habits than any other man we know about has ever achieved, is a story in itself. A mother beaver had been trapped, leaving behind a helpless brood which must surely have perished if left alone. Grey Owl adopted the kittens, fed and tended them with the utmost care. So tame did they become

that they would take food from his hand, hasten to him when called, and follow him about like domestic pets. Of the several young beavers tamed, one in particular was so fond of Grey Owl that he was not at all anxious to inhabit the nearby beaver house. Each day he would come to his master’s door, ask to be picked up and stroked, then fall asleep with a contented sigh. When winter came, Grey Owl built for this trusting little chap an imitation beaver house right inside the cabin, with a tin tank for a swimming pool. Another beaver, a female, found wounded and half-drowned, was nursed back to health and joined the household. But it was no part of Grey Owl’s scheme to raise beavers in unnatural surroundings, and

with the coming of spring the pair took up normal beaver house - keeping outdoors, repairing an old dam, felling trees and building a cosy lodge. But they were just as friendly as ever with Grey Owl, and would come to him when he called half-mile away. On his return from a trip “out” for supplies they would spy him from afar, rush to him and eagerly tug at his pack in the hope of finding some delicacy brought home as a special treat for them.

The Dominion Government soon became interested in Grey Owl’s work, and he is now employed by the Department of the Interior. No longer does he have to worry about a bare table because of his determination to take no pelts. With his now famous pair, “Rawhide” and “Jellyroll,” he has moved to Prince Albert National Park, Saskatchewan, in the heart of ideal beaver country. This was once the hunting grounds of the Crees, a fairyland of little lakes and rivers bordered by forests of white birch, spruce and jackpine. Here his charges

enjoy absolute protection, for there is no hunting in the national parks. In the rear of Grey Owl’s cabin at the water’s edge, his beavers have built a most unusual lodge. It is half inside and half outside the cabin, a plunge hole connecting the interior with the lake outside and providing a hidden entrance to the habitation. This unique lodge, built entirely by the beavers themselves, affords Grey Owl an opportunity of studying a beaver home and observing the day-to-day life of its inhabitants, such as has never before been equalled. . Grey Owl tells of amusing experiences with his little friends. Soon after their arrival at their new home it became evident that Jellyroll, the busy female, had strong objections to

the existence of a crack under the door of the cabin. She promptly disappeared into the plunge hole and returned with a load of dripping mud hugged against her breast. With this she began the task of plastering up the offending crack. It meant nothing to her, of course, that this effectually sealed up the door. The removal of the debris with a shovel in the morning brought screeches of protest from Jelly roll, who spent the rest of the day in again making the door as air-tight as she thought it should be. After a few repetitions of this daily routine it became evident that a stalemate has been reached, and compromise was indicated. Grey Owl sawed the door in two laterally, so that it was possible to step over the sealed lower half. Later, Rawhide came to the rescue by removing the offending material for use in some new construction scheme he had undertaken in the vicinity of the plunge-hole.

Grey Owl declares that at least one, sometimes two years, are necessary to bring a beaver to that state of friendliness in which he can trust it to remain with him of its own free will. He refuses to cage or pen any living beast, and his charges have had full liberty. In winning their complete confidence it has been his lot to turn night into day, for in the hours of darkness the beaver carries on his activities.

But for their friend Grey Owl the beavers of his colony will come out and work for hours in the daylight just as if the sun had set. Thus

it has been possible to obtain excellent moving and still pictures of beavers at work in full daylight, in absolutely natural surroundings and from closer range than could otherwise be possible. Many visitors, too, come from near and far to visit Grey Owl’s cabin, and the beaver people obligingly perform for them, even begging for dainties from the strangers whom, if big brother Grey Owl greets them as friends, they see no reason to fear or distrust. Self-educated, Grey Owl has developed a pleasing style of writing and has helped to create public interest in the cause for which he is working by means of frequent contributions from his own pen to various publications. The moving picture reels of his amphibian friends are reported to be in keen demand as educational features throughout Canada and elsewhere. All in all, Grey Owl is meeting with unprecedented success in his campaign to win support and interest for the cause of the beaver people. - Though the beavers are his special charges, Grey Owl regards all the furred and feathered folk of the wilderness as his friends and brothers. The moose, the deer, the smaller animals and birds, all' seem to recognise in him a kindred spirit. The Indian sees no essential difference between himself and the animal people; to him they are just a different kind of folk. In this respect Grey Owl is pure Indian, and perhaps it is because his spirit goes out to them as friends and equals that the wild things trust and love him so.