Surprised by a sound

“Surprise is the greatest gift which life can grant us.” – Boris Pasternak

Nature is full of surprises. Visionary ones. Tactile ones. Auditory ones. Even those that would fall under the category of spiritual ones. In addition, the best part of the surprise is the element of them being unexpected as well as personally impactful.

When my wife and I were kayaking up and down a new stretch of a river in the upper peninsula of Michigan, one of the more prominent elements were the many beaver houses found along the shoreline. The intricate building designs of them and the carefully “paved with branches” runways that led down the river embankments were interesting to observe. You could see the ways that their work was subtly altering the riverway.

However, the most surprising discovery happened as we were floating back down the river after the upstream paddle. When drifting back, the trip becomes much more silent, as paddling is not as necessary to move with the current doing the hard work of moving the kayaks. As I drifted by one of the many beaver houses situated in a bend in the river, I heard a faint squeaking that seemed to be emanating from the shoreline, more specifically, from under the piled branches of the beaver house on my right. Paddling in reverse toward the sound I had passed, I slowly drifted back past the spot and again heard the sound. Emanating from deep beneath the branches, was the sound of beaver kits communicating whatever it is that beaver kits communicate to their parents. Responding to those sounds, were a deep, gruff response from what I assumed must have been one of the adults.

Beaver pencil sketch by Mitch Smith.

I indicated to my wife who was drifting down behind me to come over and take a listen. 

Together, we held our kayaks in the spot alongside the beaver dam and listened to the delightful and surprisingly cute sounds of nature, sounds that my wife and I had never heard before. We were not sure that what we were hearing was actually beavers, but it made sense that it fit the observed reality of what would live in a beaver dam (Note: Google confirmed the sounds as beavers when a nature show was found regarding the life, times and “sounds” that make a beaver a beaver).

This experience became one of the most profound of the trip; a most cherished and remembered memory. My wife and I lingering along the shore, overhearing nature, entranced by a new experience, and surprised by another of nature’s numerous wonders.