Ink & Snow: Castor Canadensis VI

Friday, December 31, 2021

Castor Canadensis VI

Take my money

I really have the absolute best friends - they know me well. Hat-tip/tail-slap to Hanna for flagging what in all likelihood will be the first (modern) video game I will have ever played. This one is called "Timberborn" and just from the amazing artwork alone you folks can guess what's got my pelt all stiff.

"Humans are long gone. Will your society of lumberpunk beavers do any better? Timberborn is a city-building game featuring ingenious animals, vertical architecture, and river control. Contains high amounts of wood."

Dam good world-building... I can't wait

I lived in arcades as a kid, and probably blew a good college tuition in quarters fed to pinball machines. There does come a time in life when you have to choose between investing your time + energy in getting better at gaming or your own work. Call is being a consumer or a creator. You can do both, but there's a finite amount of resources that get taken up with work, school, relationship, reading books, watching movies... the temptation to spend time on more passive entertainment is a siren call. I always find it helpful to have the inner critic ask myself "can I do better?" and/or "is there anything else I could be doing instead of this that will improve my art?" and so on. There's a balance with discipline and the more you learn to decline participation in things like parties the easier it gets making the right choice for your art. And I actually I did obsessively play two other games when they came out: the 1983 Atari Star Wars Cockpit game and also in 1983 The Dragon's Lair (art by Don Bluth).

Anyhoo back to beavers. Here's a post-apocalyptic (from homo sapiens-centric perspective) edit of a Association of National Park Rangers coloring page for any young kits out there bored back at the lodge.

Here is a video from The Dodo about JB the Bad Beaver - it's the most adorable thing on the internet for today. Well, besides this other one from them about a rescue beaver that loves to kayak with its family.

Hat-tip/tail-slap Aunt Linda

Here's a video from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada "This video shows a beaver chewing a tree until it falls over. The tree almost lands on him. After all that hard work, he only chews off a small limb then gets back in the icy river and swims away." Which perfectly sums up many a dam day for me.

Meanwhile back in Saskatchewan, "no beavers taken into custody" after the brazen theft of some wood posts - "Who could really blame these little bucktooth bandits, considering the price of wood these days?" – Candice Lipski @ CBC News

Klamath Tribes in Oregon are working at Bringing beavers back to the beaver state, using the keystone species as a way to restore wetlands: “Tribal governments are already leading by example when it comes to using beavers to heal the land; however there is still a long way to go until the animals are viewed as a necessary species rather than as pests.” - Lucy Sherriff w/Salem Reporter

The Tule River Tribe in the foothills of the Sierra mountains, is also engaged in similar efforts to “ ...improve water quality, reduce flood risk, and create the conditions for complex wetland habitats to form—providing refuge for wildlife and storing carbon in the process.”- Sierra Club

Hat-tip/tail-slap Jen!

Not an implied endorsement - but something tells me that I'll have to check my local watering hole to see if this is available in my neck of the woods - at least I'll be able to sport some of the cool merch. And lastly, a big hat-tip/tail-slap to the folks at Dryden Art for this exercise (and the awesome viral campaign of awareness).