Paddy: The Classic Story of a Baby Beaver and the Naturalist Who Adopted Him

Patrick Colgan is the former executive director of the Canadian Museum
of Nature.

Paddy is a reissue of R.D. Lawrence’s account of raising an orphaned
beaver kit during a summer of solitary camping in Northern Ontario. The
book combines natural history (we learn about the social and
constructive behavior of beavers, and about other species such as
wolves) with accounts of the author’s earlier life in the bush and
trapping tales both old and recent. The immediate story ends happily,
with the reappearance of Paddy next spring. Although appropriately wary
of folklore regarding beavers, Lawrence makes some questionable
speculations about such phenomena as scent mounds and tail slaps.
Illustrations and references to further reading would have been welcome.
Recommended.