Three Beavers

While poking about the Alaska and Polar Regions Collections & Archive at the Rasmussen Library I found this interesting bookplate: it depicts the Raven/Deisheetan (Beaver) clan of the Kootznoowoo Tribe of the Tlingit people. Looking up the artist I discovered more work from a printmaker Catherine Kernan, who may or may not be the original artist, but still it goes to show the relative superiority of searching through the stacks of a library - in conjunction with the internet - as you never know what will lie right next to what you're looking for, and what path you'll eventually wind up exploring. Surfing in meatspace... otherwise known as "browsing."

And here is a postmodern rendering of a beaver by Michael Nakoneczny with bonus annotations from the artist.

And I was inundated with links from friends about this fatal beaver attack - which the above clip is not of the incident in question, just from the same area in Belarius (must be something in the water around that neck of the woods):

The 60-year-old man in Belarus was with friends on a recent fishing trip when he tried to approach the beaver to be photographed with it, according to the Daily Telegraph. The beaver attacked, biting him twice and severing an artery. The friends of the unidentified man "tried to bandage him and find a doctor in a nearby village," a local wildlife official told the Telegraph. But the man died from blood loss before help could arrive.

Dam!