How beavers are teaching indigenous communities about ecological balance and reciprocity

For as long as he can remember, Alvin First Ryder says there have been frequent droughts in the Blackfoot region of Alberta, making water a precious resource.

“Our tributaries do not receive the water they historically should have,” said First Rider, an environmental scientist and environmental manager for Blood Tribe Land Management. Tributaries are smaller rivers or streams that flow into larger water bodies.

First Rider is looking for beavers to help retain water on land by building beaver dam analogs – a man-made dam built using natural materials like soil, stones and willow branches – to better manage the community’s water supply, especially when facing periods of drought.

“It’s basically to mimic what a beaver would do,” he explained. candid Host Rosanna Deerchild.

The structures slow down water, helping to restore natural ecosystems and reducing the risk of environmental problems such as floods or wildfires.

Beavers are found throughout North America and are spiritually important to many indigenous cultures. They are tenacious builders, an important native species to the environment, and teach reciprocity and family bonding.

First River says Indigenous land management techniques bring together Indigenous knowledge with modern science to help solve issues facing the environment.

“We try to think from a holistic perspective and how we treat the landscape and interact with it,” he said.

Over the past two years, First Rider has helped build four beaver dam analogs on the Blood Reserve, which he says have already seen a positive impact from their presence. This year, an area that was previously completely dry had standing water for a few months. Water is important for livestock and farming.

“It also enhances our traditional plants like willow and sweet grass,” First Rider said. “And we’re able to see the kinds of direct impacts that help our Blackfoot way of life.”

Beaver’s relation to wild rice

Beavers also play an important role in Anishinaabe culture as they are related to manoomin, the Anishinaabemowin name for wild rice.

Mickey Garrity is studying that relationship for her PhD in the Fairfax Beaver Lab at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis.

“The prevailing belief is that otters alter the water level in wild rice beds and this can be detrimental to the rice,” he said. His research is trying to determine whether otters are damaging wild rice habitats or whether they can help create the right habitat.

She says that even though relationships between Anishinaabe and Manumin have changed since colonization, it is still essential to their understanding of themselves and their relationship with the homeland.

“It makes sense that our ancestors clearly understood some of the functions that beavers were performing, and had seen beavers create wetlands where manaumin then grew,” Garrity said.

Displacement and relocation from colonization as well as major changes to the natural landscape from development have affected the harvesting of manomin.

Garrity sees pre-colonial relations as reciprocal relations.

“Beavers, rice and people existed here for a very long time in these changing, dynamic ecological and cultural systems and relationships.”

Restoring Beaver Relationships

Brianne Lavallee-Heckert says it is important to remember those parts of history where the relationship with beavers has not always been one of reciprocity.

Lavallee-Heckert is a member of the Manitoba Métis Federation and the executive director of the Festival du Voyageur, the largest francophone winter festival in Western Canada, which celebrates Francophone and Indigenous history in Manitoba.

From the 1600s to the 1800s, thousands of otters were trapped for their skins, leading to the fur trade. This is also the time when the Métis nation was born.

“There was a demand to create those materials without regard for the lives of the beavers,” Lavallee-Heckert said.

She says her goal is to educate people about the fur trade, to acknowledge that many beavers were killed during the emergence of the Métis Nation and that their relationship with the beaver evolved from one relative to an object to be respected.

“We have to be truthful about how we have treated animals in our areas,” he said. “Whether you’re First Nations, Metis, a settler, I think most of us depend on animals in some way every day.”

Lavallée-Heckert admits she would not have received Métis nationality if it were not for the beaver and fur trade, but she says a relationship rooted in reciprocity is important for both sides to move forward.

“We need to make sure we’re doing what we can to ensure their survival because otters have an important role to play,” he said.

This story is part of Unreserved’s series called Sacred Seven. The series explores seven sacred teachings and introduces us to Indigenous elders, knowledge keepers, and community members who are putting those teachings into action.