Globe and Mail
shows some love for westcoast writer Frances Backhouse's history of beavers and us,
Once They Were Hats: In Search of the Mighty Beaver.
“A traditional knowledge of the beaver is the birthright of every Canadian.” This observation of Horace T. Martin is the epigraph to Frances Backhouse’s fascinating and smartly written Once They Were Hats: In Search of the Mighty Beaver. Backhouse, an author and journalist whose previous books include the gold-rush story Children of the Klondike, successfully shares that birthright with interested Canadians of every stripe in a thorough account of the tirelessly industrious beaver’s past, present and possible future – from the animal’s prehistoric ancestors to its potential role in mitigating the mounting effects of climate change.
Horace T. Martin turns out to be the author of
Castorologia (1892), a book possibly only Backhouse has read!
