Innholdsfortegnelse for September 2022 i Cobblestone American History and Current Events for Kids and Children

People have worn furs for centuries. The ancient Chinese used furs for personal decoration 3,500 years ago. A thousand years later, Greek kings sent fur-trading expeditions to Asia. And Roman leaders inherited from the Greeks the custom of wearing furs. During the Middle Ages (roughly 500 to 1500 C.E.), luxurious furs were imported to western Europe from Russia and Scandinavia. They were used as symbols of status and social rank. Royal edicts enforced who could wear specific furs. England’s King Edward I, for example, reserved ermine, sable, and marten furs for the noble class. Families of the merchant middle class could wear any other furs that they could afford. The less desirable pelts of sheep and rabbit were left to the lower class of society. European beaver pelts in particular…

Editor’s Note Beavers held an honored position with many Indigenous peoples. Some groups believed beavers had created humans. Other cultures believed dead people came back to life as beavers. The legend of a great beaver named Wishpoosh was told by the people of the mid-Columbia River region of the Pacific Northwest. It had two purposes. It explained a great flood the Indigenous peoples believed had once taken place in the area. It also explained the origins of the tribes in the region. Many of the locations mentioned in the legend can be found on a modern-day map of the Pacific Northwest. Long ago when the world was very young, no people lived on Earth. Only the Watetash—the animal people—roamed the land. One of the Watetash was an enormous king-beaver who…

France initially explored the land that was home to North America’s rich fur-bearing animals. It claimed present-day Canada as New France in 1534 and established its first permanent settlement in 1608. The French fur trade was centered in Montreal, on the St. Lawrence River. From there, French coureurs de bois—independent woodsmen and traders—explored the interior. They traded with the people they met. Coureurs de bois often lived with First Nations groups. They formed bonds of kinship, often marrying First Nations women. But by the early 1660s, the French government wanted the fur trade to run more like an organized business. It issued licenses for fur traders. They traveled through the frontier and arranged for Indigenous hunters to bring their goods to them. French Canadian voyageurs were hired. They did the…

Giant beavers once inhabited North America. They may have reached 7 feet tall and weighed 220 pounds. That’s about the size of a black bear. Those prehistoric creatures probably died out when Earth’s temperature increased. The drier, warmer climate caused the giant beaver’s wetland habitat—and its major source of food—to disappear. People developed some interesting beliefs about the benefits of wearing a beaver hat. They believed it could restore hearing to a hearing-disabled person. They also believed it could make the wearer more intelligent or improve his memory. The saying “mad as a hatter” resulted from the hat-making process. Hat makers applied a solution of mercury nitrate to the beaver fur early in the process. When the fur was steamed (a process that took several hours), hat makers inhaled the…

Dr. Rebekah Levine (ABOVE) is a professor at the University of Montana Western. When she’s not teaching, she lives on Red Rock Lakes National Wildlife Refuge in Montana’s Centennial Valley. She is also the mother of seven-year-old twins. Levine, her biologist husband, and their children enjoy exploring the surrounding waterways and landscapes. What kind of science do you study? I’m a fluvial geomorphologist. I study rivers and how they interact with landscapes. Basically, my big things are soil and water. I’m a mud scientist! I hike into the sagebrush and forests here in Montana and find beaver dams along rivers and streams. I study the ways that the land changes around beaver dams. And I get to see so many cool animals—beavers included! Being a mud scientist sounds like a…

A rodent is any mammal of the order Rodentia. It includes mice, rats, squirrels, and beavers. The word derives from the Latin word rodere, which means “to gnaw.” The beaver is the largest rodent in North America, but the largest rodent living in the world today is South America’s capybara. It is similar in size to a pig and can weigh more than 100 pounds. Capybara is a Portuguese word that is derived from the Tupi words capii, meaning “grass,” and urara, meaning “eater.” The Portuguese claimed parts of South America in the late 1400s and 1500s. They adopted words used by the native Tupi of Brazil. Like the beaver, the capybara is an herbivore, an animal that feeds chiefly on plants. In fact, capybaras eat between 6 and 8…

Beavers choose a river or a stream for their home and set up housekeeping early in the summer. A male and a female beaver make a temporary home of mud and branches at the riverbank. They then begin the process of building a dam to create the pond for their permanent lodge. Working primarily at night, the beavers fell trees by chewing through the trunks. They drag the trees to the water and sink them upright into the mud at the bottom of the river. They place branches, mud, and stones against those supports to form a solid barrier. As the water rises behind the dam and floods the banks, it creates a pond. A beaver pond is more than a watery home for beavers. The overflow onto the surrounding…

The rendezvous was one of the most colorful events of the beaver fur trade era. It was a huge gathering of American mountain men and Indigenous trappers and fur company representatives. They came together to exchange beaver pelts for supplies. Before the first rendezvous was organized, trappers had to bring their pelts to trading posts to exchange them for goods. But St. Louis, Missouri—the fur trading center of the United States—was a long way from the Rocky Mountains where most mountain men trapped. The idea for a “fur fair” began with General William H. Ashley and Major Andrew Henry. The two men had organized a fur trade company in 1822 in St. Louis. They published a notice that they were looking to hire 100 “enterprising young men” to trap beaver…

IN OTHER NEWS Scientists refer to beavers as a keystone species. Keystone species are critical to keep a local ecology thriving. For example, beaver dams create new wetlands and ponds around rivers and streams. Those wetlands and ponds help numerous other creatures survive and reproduce. SHORELINE SAVIORS Along the Gulf Coast, groves of mangrove trees grow on the swampy coastline. They thrust their roots through the salty, shallow water. The roots anchor themselves in the silt below. The trees help keep the coastal water clean and fresh by filtering out pollution and waste. Their root tangles hold tight to the soil on shore and in the water. That helps keep coastlines from eroding with every tide. During hurricanes, large waves break against the trees, which keep the shore protected. Local…

SPOTLIGHT ON... Even though it is 2022, a visit to Grand Portage National Monument will make you feel like you have traveled back in time. Grand Portage is located in Minnesota on the shore of Lake Superior. The site includes a historic reconstructed North West Company depot and a heritage center. Inside the center, short films tell the story of the Ojibwe people and their involvement with the fur trade. On the second weekend in August, the monument hosts an annual Rendezvous Days and Pow Wow. It also offers camping and hiking. Yet even with park rangers and reenactors to help guide a visit, Grand Portage feels remote, similar to how it must have felt to fur trappers and traders several hundred years ago. To learn more, check out the…

Today, it may be difficult to imagine paddling a canoe along a river or across a lake and getting out to carry it and its contents from time to time. But hundreds of years ago, lightweight boats were an easy way to transport people and things. They provided a faster way to move through North America’s wilderness than relying only on rough trails that wound through vast forests. On a map of the early fur trade routes, three “hub” lakes lie in the Canadian Shield. Lake Winnipeg is the central lake. From it, fur traders could go deeper into beaver country by traveling to Lake Athabasca. Or they could travel south toward the Rocky Mountains. They could reach Hudson Bay in the north. They also could get to the Great…

Finding and trapping beaver required a certain kind of man. Someone who saw the potential to make a good living. Someone who liked to live by his own rules. Someone who was eager to see remote parts of the country. Someone who did not fear the unknown. In other words, a mountain man. A mountain man usually lacked a formal education, but he possessed survival and hunting skills. He knew how to find food and shelter in every season. He knew how to make warm, durable clothing from animal skins. He learned how to be an expert trapper: finding a beaver lodge, setting the traps in the cold water, regularly checking the traps, and then killing and skinning the animal for its thick fur coat. He learned how to communicate…

Modern beavers are the largest native rodents in North America. Their average weight is about 60 pounds, and their average length is between 20 and 40 inches, not including the tail. A beaver tail can be up to 12 inches long! The animals can live up to 25 years in the wild. Beavers have a variety of special features. Their thick, brown fur is waterproofed with castoreum, an oil secreted from a gland near the tail. Beavers have a clawed toe on each hind foot. They use the toe to comb the castoreum through their fur. Their thick, flat tail can be used as a rudder underwater. It also is used to slap the water as a warning. Beavers have strong, large teeth in a powerful jaw. Their orange-colored incisors…

President Thomas Jefferson was eager to know what lay west of the Mississippi River. So, he asked captains Meriwether Lewis and William Clark to lead the Corps of Discovery to explore the Louisiana Purchase in 1804. Two years later, the Corps returned. As it approached Missouri, it met adventurous men heading in the opposite direction. The expedition’s reports describing a land that was filled with beavers and other animals had spread. In fact, Corps member John Colter requested an early discharge. He wanted to serve as a guide for two fur trappers heading into the wilderness. Colter ended up exploring and trapping for another four years before returning to civilization. He became one of America’s first mountain men. By 1840, however, the North American beaver had been hunted almost to…

Ducklings Ducklings here following their mom. They like to dress up. Chloe, age 11 Poland On the Frontier The Spanish–American War Ida B. Wells-Barnett Draw a picture or write a poem or a short essay that connects to one of the above COBBLESTONE themes on which we currently are working. All contributions must be your original work. Include a note from a parent or a legal guardian clearly stating: “This is my child’s original work, and COBBLESTONE has permission to publish it with my child’s name, age, and hometown, in print and online.” We will include as many as we can in an upcoming issue. Mail your submission to the address shown here, or email it to cobblestone@cricketmedia.com.…