Here's your correspondent in a capote typical of the fur trade in the days of yore.

I borrowed this woolen garment from a staff member at Grand Portage National Monument in northeastern Minnesota, where I took part in a rendezvous re-enactment in late summer of 2022.

I found I was unsuited to carrying 90-pound packs of beaver pelts but it's fun to pretend.

Eight miles up the Grand Portage trail from here, as it approaches the Canadian border, is a large beaver pond.

An interpretive sign reads,

"As you cross the boardwalk ahead, look for a beaver dam and a conical beaver lodge built of sticks and soil. You may see beaver tracks or fresh cuttings around the pond's edges. The beaver symbol was on the Coat of Arms of the North West Company and was once the national emblem of Canada."