Beavers in Gettysburg National Military Park

This year’s conference for the Association for the Study of Literature and Environment was held in College Park, MD, and I was lucky to be able to take a drive north after the conference to visit Gettysburg National Military Park. There’s a beaver complex there that’s being managed, and our tour was unforgettable. Led by Salma Monani, Professor of Environmental Studies at Gettysburg College and her student, Leah Nath, an Environmental Studies major, this tour was a spectacular occasion for reflecting on the ways that we understand and experience our nation’s history.

Beaver Pond on Plum Run Photo Credit: Andrea Knutson

Monani’s and Nath’s research looks at the ways that the environmental history of the park, the current presence of beavers in the park, and the narratives that surround the Civil War intersect and generate relevant questions about the goals of storytelling and how stories shape our sense of belonging and identity. In fact, the confluence of these histories deepens our understanding of the historical and ecological landscape of the Civil War. I had never been to the Gettysburg battlefield, and without a doubt my introduction to the park was enhanced by the work the park was doing to coexist with the beavers.

Pond Leveler Photo Credit Andrea Knutson

The beavers have built their complex of dams and lodges along Plum Run in the area of the park called the Valley of Death, which sits in the shadow of the Round Tops and is in the same vicinity as Devil’s Den and Slaughter Pen. It’s considered one of the most important spaces of commemoration because it’s where the Union victory was secured. The site of the beaver activity, therefore, intersects with an event whose sanctity is undeniable.

Beaver Lodge Photo Credit: Andrea Knutson

In my brief visit to Gettysburg, I was moved by the open spaces that mark the battlefield. Indeed, Gettysburg is a place to experience hallowed ground. As we drove past open fields and looked at open fields, and stood in open fields, it was clear that one of the goals of Gettysburg National Military Park is to offer the visitor an opportunity for reflection and to place the visitor literally on the ground where battles were fought, which provokes a kind of imaginative time travel. The emptiness is solemn, but it also makes history come alive.

Because of their research on Gettysburg’s environmental history and ecosystems, Monani’s and Nath’s detailed familiarity with the landscape became a lens through which the War was made more vivid. As we lingered at monuments and were shown the beaver ponds and lodges, a significant fact of the Civil War was pulled into relief: As Ben Goldfarb notes in Eager, “More than timber, cod, or any other natural resource, beavers help explain just about every significant American geopolitical event between European arrival and the Civil War” (41). The story of the fur trade, in fact, is inextricable not only from the history of the Civil War – it’s also inextricable from flashpoints in American history such as the Revolutionary War, the Louisiana Purchase, and, of course, the War of 1812. There is not enough space in this post to detail the fur trade’s influence on the Civil War, but it’s a story that belongs in the park’s narrative – and the beavers can help tell it.

From left to right: Dr. Salma Monani, Tyler Chodera, Jonah Docter-Loeb, Terra Hobler, and Leah Nath Photo credit: Andrea Knutson

Walking around Plum Run, and thinking about environmental history, and learning about the beaver activity is also a reminder that the men who fought in the Civil War were in the landscape. The vast, open fields of grass provoke reverence and guide a visitor towards connecting with the past, but the beaver complex reminds us that Civil War soldiers had to traverse landscapes that were not manicured and that the landscape itself played a role in the war and especially in the Union victory. The beaver complex compliments this fact and reminds us that the soldiers were in a deep relationship with the land as they fought for their ideals.

Leah Nath monitors water levels on Plum Run Photo credit: Andrea Knutson

The process of reflection is inherently dynamic and the work of preservation is complex. We don’t want to forget the story of the Civil War. And we don’t want to forget that the fur trade was one of the most influential economic and cultural facets of the stories we tell about ourselves as Americans. The beavers at Gettysburg carry that history and weave that history into the story of the park in dynamic and exciting ways. Managing their presence, so that a harmony between their ecosystem and the tradition of the park is maintained is a way for us to preserve the story of

the Civil War.

The author stands in front of one of Gettysburg National Military Park’s beaver dams. Photo credit: Jonah Docter-Loeb