Swimming With a Beaver | Brandy Ellen Writes

The kids and I have a favorite swimming spot. It’s a small lake, but is referred to as a “pond”. It’s a location that rarely has too many people there, unlike the local beach.

Since we don’t much like being at crowded beaches we were happy to find this delightful spot many years ago. This place has a boat landing and sometimes people are fishing or kayaking there.

We?

We go there to swim.

The kids love lake swimming.

This is one of the few activities my Trio can enjoy together without a fight.

The one key to ensuring that everyone enjoys swimming is to bring along their swimming goggles.

Once we arrive, they’re gone! Fast into the water and swimming for as long as I let them.

This is a story about one unique day when I looked over to see that my kids were …

swimming with a beaver!

Yup, you read that right!

All of a sudden there was this beaver just swimming around the kids.

It swam right up to them and got within reaching distance at one point.

Being that we’re country folk, we know to leave wildlife alone.

But what do you do when wildlife appraoches you while laking swimming?

You can’t run, you’re out in deep water.

Or, as seen in the image below, the beaver is in your way to get to the shore.

You can’t do much other than stay still and hope that the beaver passes on by.

Eventually, the beaver went on its merry way, but what a fun memory they’ll forever have.

The really weird thing about this story is that there aren’t any beaver dams where we go lake swimming. I’ve never seen one there to this day, so I’m not quite sure why this beaver was swimming around them.

After the experience of lake swimming with a beaver, we had some discussions about beavers. After all, we are a homeschooling family you know!

Here are some of the things I already knew and shared with the kids, but also new information we learned to share with you, too!

Why do beavers slap their tails on the water?

Beavers slap their tales on water to warn other beavers that danger is around. This loud slap on the water creates a loud noise that ensures the beaver’s family will know danger is around and they can get to safety.

What time of day are beavers most active?

Beavers are typically active at night, which is why I found it rather odd that this big beaver was swimming around in daylight. I don’t recall the time of day, but perhaps it was nearing evening?

Maybe the kids were lake swimming close to the “active time” for this particular beaver.

Will a beaver attack you?

This is the weird part, I thought that beavers could very well attack humans. I had heard that they can be really aggressive to humans, but it seems that they are only aggressive to humans when protecting their territory.

As I said earlier, there weren’t any beaver dams nearby and so this beaver didn’t seem to bother my kids. However, beavers can be extremely aggressive if you’re near their “home” or if they have rabies. This is why, I told the kids to stay still and eventually the beaver went along lake swimming away from the kids.