What We Gathered
In the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries, North American beavers were hunted intensively for their fur, which was used to produce hats and other luxury goods in European and American markets. This global trade drove widespread trapping across rivers and wetlands, reducing beaver populations to a small fraction of their former numbers. By the early twentieth century, the near disappearance of beavers had reshaped entire landscapes, removing an animal whose activities had long structured river ecosystems.
Beavers are now recognized as keystone species and ecological engineers. By felling trees and constructing dams, they slow water flow, create wetlands, recharge groundwater, and provide habitat for fish, amphibians, birds, and countless other organisms. These dynamic landscapes increase biodiversity and improve water quality, while also buffering against drought and flooding.
This sculpture brings together objects drawn from that history: an open beaver trap, a chewed log modeled from one I found along a local waterway, and fragments of concrete suggesting human-made dams. Together they reflect the tension between extraction and restoration, between the tools that nearly erased a species and the ecological systems that continue to depend on its return.