Beavers Don’t Just Build Dams, They Build Nations

Beyond the imposing stockade of white spruce and balsam, North America’s most expansive protected wilderness zone is filled with dense peat bogs called muskeg—a seemingly endless quilt of stagnant pools, waterlogged vegetation, and organic material in various states of decomposition. This malleable landscape, created through the retreat of melting glaciers, is virtually impassable by humans, but provides ideal conditions for other species to build on. A visiting Frommer’s writer once remarked, “Most of the animals here could easily live their entire lives without knowing humanity exists.”