Perhaps the two most accomplished engineering species on the planet – humans and beavers – recently teamed up just outside Bragg Creek, where their success story is clearly expressed in the product of their labours.

Construction engineer Pierre Bolduc tried, unsuccessfully, to build a dam on his property a few years ago when his sons were in their prime hockey-playing years. He thought the resulting pond could be easily cleared of snow to form a natural skating rink.

With the boys’ help – and a 23-horsepower Kubota tractor-backhoe – he set to work building a dam.

But the weather threw a wrench in his plans as rain flushed away all the hard work he and his sons had finished.

He decided to stop fighting Mother Nature and enlist the help of her industrious construction engineers – and Canada’s national animal.

“It turns out we were the wrong kind of engineers to tackle this,” Bolduc said.

Cue the ‘beavers to the rescue’ music.

As a teenager in rural Quebec, Bolduc learned about beaver trapping from his father, and knew his flat-tailed counterparts were pretty good engineers when it comes to building dams.

But how would he get them where he wanted them, and do what he wanted them to do?

Recalling the skill sets passed onto him by his dad, Bolduc built a trap with parts from his garage (including a spring from an old garage door opener) and set it up on a nearby farmer’s land outside of Bragg Creek.

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