Once They Were Hats: In Search of the Mighty Beaver [Paperback]

Finalist for the 2015 Lane Anderson Award and the 2016 Butler Book Prize

Beavers, those icons of industriousness, have been gnawing down trees, building dams, shaping the land, and creating critical habitat in North America for at least a million years. Once one of the continent’s most ubiquitous mammals, they ranged from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and from the Rio Grande to the edge of the northern tundra. Wherever there was wood and water, there were beavers — 60 million (or more) — and wherever there were beavers, there were intricate natural communities that depended on their activities. Then the European fur traders arrived.

In Once They Were Hats, Frances Backhouse examines humanity’s 15,000-year relationship with Castor canadensis, and the beaver’s even older relationship with North American landscapes and ecosystems. From the waterlogged environs of the Beaver Capital of Canada to the wilderness cabin that controversial conservationist Grey Owl shared with pet beavers, Backhouse goes on a journey of discovery to find out what happened after we nearly wiped this essential animal off the map, and how we can learn to live with beavers now that they’re returning.

Frances Backhouseis the author of five books, includingChildren of the Klondike, winner of the 2010 City of Victoria Butler Book Prize. She is also a veteran freelance magazine writer and teaches creative nonfiction at the University of Victoria. She lives in Victoria, B.C.

“Fascinating and smartly written.” —Globe and Mail

“Backhouse’s history of the web-footed mammals that have a historic tie to Canadian identity makes for unexpectedly delightful reading — there is much to learn from the buck-toothed rodents of yore.” —National Post

“Frances Backhouse is a writer in her prime, able to parse complex bits of data for the reader while ló´