A beaver tale: An “interview” with one of Canada’s crime masterminds

Damnable beavers have been caught with stolen building materials across the country, and Iron Tooth Bruce has “told” Melissa Hank not to hold her breath waiting for an end to the mayhem.  Photo by Brent Calver/Nature Conservancy of Canada

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I’d heard legends about him. Short, stocky and beady-eyed, he was the head of a beaver crime syndicate that spread mischief across Canada for decades. They say that once he slapped his tail so hard, the soundwaves cracked a turtle’s shell.

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He’d been out of the racket for a couple of years, locked up after an timber-smuggling job went awry. So you can imagine my excitement when the one they call Iron Tooth Bruce agreed to a phone interview. I caught up with him one day after he finished teaching a court-mandated carpentry course.

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He may no longer be the one giving the orders, masterminding stunts that make headlines, but he’s still the best source of intel when it comes to the game. Here’s what he had to say about the beavers behaving badly across Canada.

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Q: The world’s biggest beaver dam is in Wood Buffalo National Park, about 190 kilometres northeast of Fort McMurray, Alta. Is that the headquarters for Canadian beaver mischief?

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A: It used to be. We liked it because it was remote and inaccessible, an 850-metre-long paradise. But then in 2014, a human named Rob Mark went there and blabbed about it to CBC News. He said he saw one beaver, and I quote, “he was slapping his tail on the water and wanted me out of there.” The guy left, but our cover was blown. So now we just use that dam for administrative purposes. The new headquarters is much bigger.

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Q: Still, that’s quite a feat. I don’t know of any other rodent that’s built that big of a compound. Where are the new headquarters?

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A: We consider “rodent” an offensive term. And the colony would rip out my under-fur if I told you where they are. Next question.

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Q: Just this past April, the Calgary Herald reported that RCMP officers from Hanna, Alta., found a beaver trespassing at the Freson Brothers food market. Do you know anything about that?

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A: Oh, that was just Webbed-foot Wendy. My guys told me she was probably trying to get to the firewood in the entrance. She ran in, sniffed around and tried to run back out — but the human door had closed. Poor thing. She hasn’t been the same since she found out Leave It to Beaver isn’t, in fact, about beavers.

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Q: Saskatchewan seems to be the target of a lot of beaver mischief. Why is that?

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A: It’s all in good fun in Saskatchewan. The humans were nice enough to name some places after us — the hamlet of Big Beaver, the Beaver Creek Conservation Area, and the Beaver City gold rush community come to mind.

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In 2021, we got them good, though. Someone left a bunch of wood posts piled on a property near Porcupine Plain, and we took them to build a dam. The RCMP got involved, and CBC News even covered it. I mean, if the posts are that special, put a sign on them that says “Do not steal these posts and use them to build a dam” — am I right?

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Q: Who’s the toughest beaver at large now?

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A: One-whisker Waylon. Biggest incisors I’ve ever seen, aside from mine. Back in 2017, he stopped traffic in Barrie, Ont., by sitting under a truck. Two humans named Matt Jones and Jesse Parente got him out, but Waylon wouldn’t leave the street after that.