sukwallel

[Mike Cleven]

Linda Fink wrote:
>
> And here I thought everyone knew about mountain beavers. I'll bet every
> forester and logger in the Pacific Northwest knows about them. Every time we
> hike in the hills around here (Grand Ronde), Johnny (my husband -- and an
> ex-forester) points out the boomer holes. But then, I walked down the aisle
> of a grocery store the other day and was astounded by the things they sell
> -- frozen waffles! dumplings! I can't imagine anyone not making their own.
> Even today, we live in different cultures, sometimes side by side.
>
> huloima tillikum, huloima tumtum
> (different people, different viewpoints)

You mean you don't have frozen perogies down there?  What a loss to
American civilization.....

As for the boomer, it's not too surprising that Canucks haven't heard of
them since the area they inhabit on our side of the border is some of
the nastiest terrain in the province, and while rife with hiking trails
and campgrounds - and clearcuts - I don't think it's an area where
people would pay a great deal of attention to a secretive creature as
the mountain beaver appears to be; and of course it's not present
outside the Abby-Merritt-Hedley triangle described by Terry, so
pan-provincial awareness of this beastie just hasn't developed - whilst
the giant salamander and kermode bear (spirit bear) and other rareties
certainly have.  It's interesting that most of BC's rare fauna are
insular - Vancouver Island or up the archipelagos along the coast; the
mountain beaver "spills over" from Washington's Cascades only into a bit
of BC.

MC