Mt Holly Fest, hikes for tots and much more to do

Autumn on Main 2011 – The event has been renamed the Mount Holly Art and Music Festival 

September is a great time to be outdoors in the Catawba River District. The weather is cooling down and the activities available at local parks and towns are heating up.

Want to learn about mushrooms while you hike or dance to live music while you browse arts and crafts? Stay on top of these local activities and much more by checking out our calendar at catawbariverdistrict.org/news/calendar.html

Meanwhile, here are links to some upcoming events. Have fun, and maybe I'll see you there!
– Rich Haag

Great upcoming activities in and near the River District

• Mushroom Meander Hike – 2-3 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 8, at McDowell Nature Center: Celebrate National Mushroom Month with this ranger-guided search for fungi and knowledge about their importance in our ecosystem. Free. Call the Nature Center for details at 704-583-1284.
• Catawba River Women's Group Evening Social – 5:30-7 p.m. Sept. 19 at A Mighty Fortress Lutheran Church in Coulwood: You're invited to join other women interested in the Catawba River for an evening of fun and education. Guest speaker Rusty Rozzelle is an expert on both Catawba River water quality and history (ever heard of Rozzelle's Ferry Road?). Learn more by calling Barbara Lawrence at 704-605-2461. Or reserve your spot by Sept. 15 by sending an email to catawbariverwomen@gmail.com.
• Mount Holly Art and Music Festival – 11 a.m.-10 p.m. Sept. 28 on Main Street Mount Holly: Live music on two stages, art displays, crafts and plenty of good food late into the evening. The festival's headliner band, Acoustic Syndicate, will perform beginning at 8 on the main stage. Learn more at mounthollyartsfestival.com 

Send us calendar submissions, too

Does your group have an event of interest to people who live or come to play in the River District? Send us details. We may add it to the calendar. Here are guidelines:

• Appropriate items include special events in the River District and programs in or near the River District that are focused on environmental preservation, outdoor activities and community fun. Events must be open to the general public.
• The calendar does not list regular meetings except by a handful of important watchdog groups, such as the Lake Wylie and Mountain Island Lake Marine Commissions.
• Please be aware that we cannot list everything and reserve the right to accept or reject a calendar item at our discretion.
• Send your items: EMAIL your items to Rich Haag and include River District Calendar in the message line.

New voices for the Catawba River District

June 21, 2013 – Greetings! I'm Rich Haag, head of communications for the River District. Our group and its many partners are working to create a regional model for healthy, enduring communities.
This new blog, River District Voices, will keep you informed on several of the River District's programs. Our writers are experts in their respective fields who also love our natural world and want this region to remain healthy for our descendants.
For instance, while I have spent the last 40 years in journalism, I'm also a strong advocate for the environment who loves riding bicycles (here at the Virginia Creeper Trail in southwest Virginia), hiking and camping with my family.
Like most endeavors, we can't do it alone.
We look forward to engaging you in our work as well. Feel free to comment often. Sign up for the email alerts for our latest posts. And share this blog and our other sites and newsletters with your friends.
We can only succeed if many people join us. I hope you will be one of them.
Rich Haag
Communications Director
The Catawba River District

NC Lake Management Society to meet

River District News & Updates, by Rich Haag – Aug. 22, 2012

The NC Lake Management Society invites the public to take part in its annual meeting and fall workshop on Oct. 4 at the U.S. National Whitewater Center.

"Get the Dish on Fish," the day's theme, will look at state advisories regarding fish caught in NC waters that may contain high levels of harmful chemicals and metals.

You will be able to get details and register on line beginning in early September at the group's website,  NCLakeManagement.org. You also can learn more and register by contacting Barbara Wiggins: EMAIL or 828-254-5644.

Get flyer and register now 

You can get the information now and even register by mail. Just click on the link below to view, download and print the flyer and form.

• DOWNLOAD the NC Lake Management Society meeting and workshop flyer.

About Rich Haag -  The communications director for the Catawba River District, Rich gained his love for the outdoors while roaming the woods and river gorge near his upstate NY home. He has spent many vacations – one lasting eight weeks -  camping with his wife, Karen, and their sons. Rich still roams the woods nearly every day, either walking with Karen at Reedy Creek Nature Preserve or cycling on the Mallard Creek Greenway.

Science and Math Will Star at STEM Learning Fair

Catawba River District Updates, by Rich Haag – Aug. 14, 2012

More than 500 fifth graders from five River District schools will get their hands and minds around STEM concepts on Sept. 28 at the 2nd Annual STEM Outdoor Learning Fair.

The event, presented by the Catawba River District in partnership with UNC Charlotte’s STEM Education Center, will take place 9:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m. at Duke Energy’s Energy Explorium on Lake Norman. Local experts will lead interactive lessons on alternative energy, recycling, groundwater protection and other science- and math-based topics.

STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering and Math. Business leaders say our students must have a strong STEM foundation to ensure that America’s future workforce can compete in the global economy.

Charlotte Mayor Anthony Foxx and Mount Holly Mayor Brian Hough will greet the students at 10 a.m. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools Supt. Heath Morrison and board Chair Erica Ellis-Stewart will join Gaston Schools Deputy Supt. Lory Morrow and board Chair William Marcus Upchurch, Sr. to speak at students at the event wrap-up.

Learning Fair students will come from Catawba Heights and Ida Rankin Elementary Schools in Gaston County and Mountain Island Elementary, River Oaks Academy and Whitewater Academy in Mecklenburg County.

Outdoor Learning Fair Sponsors and Hosts

Businesses, colleges and individuals are helping bring about the STEM Fair. Major sponsors include: Presbyterian Healthcare – Huntersville; Huber Technology; and Piedmont Natural Gas. Center topics and hosts include:

• Alternative Energy – Duke Energy
• Forestry – NC Cooperative Extension and NC State Educational Forest
• Forest Functions – Naturalist Craig Wyant
• Grease Free – Charlotte-Meck Utilities
• Groundwater – Mecklenburg LUESA
• Non-Point Pollution – UNC Charlotte
• Recycling – UNC Charlotte
• Water Cycle – Belmont Abbey College
• Water Systems – Huber Technology
• Wellness – Presbyterian Healthcare
• Wetlands – Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools STEM Department
• Wildlife – Horizons Unlimited (2 stations)

Help sponsor the STEM Outdoor Learning Fair

The River District welcomes additional Learning Fair sponsors. Your donation of $250 or more will help spur interest in science, technology, engineering and math at the most critical time in a young student’s education. Two-thirds of our students come from economically disadvantaged families. Your sponsorship can help them see STEM-based careers as a reachable possibility.

Sponsors also gain recognition through name and/or logo placement on websites, releases, T-shirts etc.

• Learn more: Send an email to Edna Chirico or call her at 704-562-8847.
• Download sponsorship materials: Visit CatawbaRiverDistrict.org/stemfair2012
• View 2011 Learning Fair video: Visit YouTube.com/user/CatawbaRiverDistrict

River District Leaders Honored as CMS STEM All-Stars

Students learn about the power of filtration at Outdoor Learning Fair. Photo by Rich Haag

Dr. Cindy Moss, Alisa Wickliff and Edna Chirico recognized for K-20 STEM Outdoor Learning Fair

Edna Chirico, our executive director, and two of our K-20 Learning World Team, Alisa Wickliff and Dr. Cindy Moss, have received Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools STEM (Science Technology Engineering & Math) All-Star Awards for their work with students in the Catawba River District.

The awards, presented June 7 at Discovery Place, recognize teachers, administrators, staff and community partners who have made significant contributions to help students grow and learn by participating in science, math, engineering and technology programs and activities.

Chirico, Moss and Wickliff were instrumental in creating the inaugural K-20 STEM Outdoor Learning Fair last fall at the U.S. National Whitewater Center for more than 300 elementary-school students.

Wickliff is assistant director of the UNC Charlotte STEM Center. Moss recently retired from her position as Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools STEM director to join Discovery Education. She now is director of global STEM initiatives, responsible for designing, developing and implementing comprehensive STEM initiatives worldwide. At the June 7 event, Moss also received the 2012 Michael C. Jackson Distinguished Service Award, given by the NC Science Leadership Association in recognition of her great service to science education.

STEM education includes programs focused on building science, technology, engineering, and math knowledge and skills. STEM is important because many employers worldwide seek workers with knowledge in these subjects, and this trend is expected to continue.

Chirico and Wickliff will be leading the Catawba River District’s second K-20 STEM Outdoor Learning Fair on Sept. 28 at the Duke Energy Explorium. The K-20 STEM Outdoor Learning Fair serves 5th graders from the River District’s participating schools including Gaston County’s Catawba Heights Elementary and Ira Rankin Elementary and CMS schools Mountain Island Elementary, River Oaks Academy and Whitewater Academy.

About The Catawba River District

The River District is a regional organization committed to sustainable community and economic development for a 16,000-acre area including portions of Mount Holly, Belmont and northwest Charlotte and Mecklenburg County. Since the River District’s founding in 2008, numerous community and education partners have responded to district’s vision and the opportunity to transform this area into a model for “green” community and economic development, education and regional cooperation.   

The River District is a vital part of the Charlotte region’s watershed and includes the US National Whitewater Center, the North Carolina Educational Forest, and parts of the Carolina Thread Trail.  

About Rich Haag –  Rich gained his love for the outdoors while roaming the woods and river gorge near his upstate NY home. He has spent many vacations – one lasting eight weeks -  camping with his wife, Karen, and their sons. Rich still roams the woods nearly every day, either walking with Karen at Reedy Creek Nature Preserve or cycling on the Mallard Creek Greenway.

Essential STEM Skills

River District News and Updates – June 5, 2012

In this photo students observe STEM lab chicks. The chicks came from Rivendell Farms and were incubated and hatched at River Oaks Academy. They will be returned to Rivendell Farms to mature and become producing chickens.

The Catawba River District has formed a collaboration of educators in a team we call the K-20 Learning World. The goal is to ensure that all 3,367 students at our 7 elementary schools master their science, math, technology, engineering and math (STEM) skills. K-20 means pre-kindergarten through PhD research – a continuum of learning.

We know that to be career ready in our global economy, STEM skills are essential. Our team approach has many components, including enhancing hands-on learning at a series of learning laboratories, like this one at River Oaks Academy.

There is a multitude of research dating back several decades confirming hands-on learning is more effective than traditional classroom learning, especially among the economically disadvantaged. Technology continues to advance at an exponential pace; we all have to take part in reversing these trends. We can accomplish this through hands-on learning in our schools and through our learning laboratories.

To learn more about STEM and the K-20 Learning World visit us online: http://www.catawbariverdistrict.org/k20.html

Schoolyard Gardens Need Your Help This Summer

Whitewater Middle students plant seedlings in their garden.

River District News and Updates, by Rich Haag – May 29, 2012

School ends in a few weeks. If you know any teachers, you know that they crawl to the finish line with end-of-year tests and programs, final report cards and, often, a day or two accounting for and packing away mountains of books and learning materials.

So my figurative hat is off to 19 teachers at Whitewater Middle School and Whitewater Academy. They have volunteered to come back to school throughout the summer so that a new learning project is ready for their students come August.

That learning project, begun this spring, is several raised-bed vegetable gardens beside each school. Several teachers worked with the River District to plan the schoolyard gardens. The teachers and students planted them with the help of the Catawba River District and the guidance of Jeffie and Chris Hardin of Rivendell Farms.

The gardens are helping kids get hands-on lessons in math, science and good nutrition while they learn how to garden. Tomatoes, green and jalapeño peppers, squash and other summer vegetables are taking shape on previously barren schoolyards under the daily care of students, teachers and River District volunteers.

Several students have told me they are excited about coming back in August to pick vegetables and actually taste them.

The teachers who have volunteered to help tend the gardens throughout the heat of the summer know how important that experience could be. Their students already have gotten hands-on math and science lessons as they learned about gardens, laid out their plots and watched the small plants begin to mature under their care. In August they could get a great lesson in the benefits of eating fresh vegetables.

Of course that lesson will require that they have vegetables to pick. And THAT will depend on having many people willing to nurture the gardens this summer. Can you lend a hand?

We need more volunteer gardeners

Volunteer to tend the schoolyard gardens this summer. We can work around your own hectic schedule and plans for summer trips. And you will be able to share in the excitement next August when our students return to see their gardens, now brimming with fresh vegetables.

To learn more about volunteering, EMAIL Edna Chirico or call her at 704-562-8847.

To learn more about the River District’s Schoolyard Garden program, CLICK here.

About Rich Haag –  Rich gained his love for the outdoors while roaming the woods and river gorge near his upstate NY home. He has spent many vacations – one lasting eight weeks – camping with his wife, Karen, and their sons. Rich still roams the woods nearly every day, either walking with Karen at Reedy Creek Nature Preserve or cycling on the Mallard Creek Greenway.

Come tonight and help make school-garden magic!

Whitewater Middle School students work in their garden

River District News And Updates, by Rich Haag – May 22, 2012

There’s something magical about gardens and farms. I vividly remember my first school field trip in 1955 when we traveled to a dairy farm in upstate New York. I can see the long row of stalls filled with cows and smell the sweet fermenting hay and manure.

I have visited many farms since but still enjoyed walking through the well-used pasture of Rivendell Farms two weeks ago with members of the Catawba River District Executive Board and Advisory Board. We had come to hear from owners Jeffie and Chris Hardin about their 8-acre farm and their work on our behalf with students at schools in the River District.

The Hardins and several River District volunteers have installed vegetable gardens at Whitewater Middle School and Whitewater Academy. The group is supporting similar gardens at four other schools in the district. Our goal is to help students develop a love science, technology, engineering and math while also developing a taste for greens, peppers and tomatoes.

Research and experience at other schools across the nation say that when kids grow stuff, they learn stuff. There is something special about watching life emerge with your help, like squash vines and tomato bushes.

Back at Rivendell Farms, we adults laughed as the petlike goats crowded to the fence at our approach, hoping we would scratch their heads and maybe give them a treat.

I saw similar enthusiasm the previous week while helping Edna Chirico, the River District executive director, lead about 50 seventh- and eighth-graders in planting and watering their new raised-bed gardens at Whitewater Middle School. The kids played and teased each other (“He squirted me first!” a girl told teacher Renee Rohn while the male target of her wet affection feigned innocence). But they also took their gardening seriously. They carefully measured distances between seedlings, mounded the soil to hold in water and gently sprayed their young plants with the garden hose.

One group told me they were growing a Pasta Garden, because everything could go into spaghetti sauce.

A boy who helps with the flower garden at home said he couldn’t wait to taste his own vegetables and to see if he can grow them at home, as well.

This was a blistering hot, dry and windy day. The kids, Edna and Renee took turns spraying down the young vegetable plants. Will these plants survive and bear at least some fruit (or peppers) next fall?

Anyone who has experienced the magic of gardens also has experienced the frustration of weeds, bugs and drought. These gardens soon will face a big challenge. When school ends for the summer, who will make sure that the crops get the care they need?

Hmmm. Interested in making magic?

Come to School Gardens meeting this evening

You’re invited to attend an information meeting on school and community gardens tonight (May 22) at Whitewater Middle School, 1520 Belmeade Drive near the U.S. National Whitewater Center. The program starts at 6:30 p.m. You can see the new gardens, hear about how they help our kids learn and find out how you can help these gardens thrive throughout the long summer. The program will also cover efforts to encourage community-supported agriculture in our area.

• CLICK to learn more about school gardens.
• GET DIRECTIONS to Whitewater Middle School.
• EMAIL Edna Chirico to discuss volunteering.
• READ THAT'S FARMING, Jeffie Hardin's blog about Rivendell Farms

A New Theme Begins For Rich's Blogs

River District News And Updates, by Rich Haag – May 8

Today’s blog is a transition. I am passing my current theme – about the natural wonders of the River District – on to fellow-blogger Alice Battle. Her blog, Clean and Clear Catawba, focuses on the river itself, but over our first three months of blogging we found that our interests and topics often overlap. So beginning this week. Alice will cover both our great river and our varied wildlife and wilderness.

My new topic: River District News And Updates

I am shifting my focus to an area that, surprisingly, we left out when we launched the blogs: the River District organization itself. That changes today with my new blog, titled River District Updates. Each week I will write about the people, programs and challenges facing our emerging nonprofit environmental group. I especially want to share ways that you can join us in this important effort to protect our river, our wildlife and the communities nearby.

Whitewater Middle School students prepare soil for their raised-bed garden boxes

Come May 22 and help launch Whitewater Farms

So, here’s my very first blog invitation: The Catawba River District invites you to Whitewater Middle School from 6:30 to 8 p.m. May 22 to see some of our new learning gardens for students and to explain our plans for a community gardening program called Whitewater Farms. We also seek volunteers to help us with the gardens, particularly this summer after school ends.

Some background

River District volunteers and Jeffie and Chris Hardin of Rivendell Farms are working with teachers and students at Whitewater Middle and Whitewater Academy to create and plant raised gardens. Similar projects are under way at Mountain Island Elementary, River Oaks Academy,  Ida Rankin Elementary and Catawba Heights Elementary.

These gardens are part of an ambitious River District effort to boost our students’ learning and interest in science, technology, engineering and math – often called STEM. Educators nationwide find that school gardens help kids learn by doing and, as an important side benefit, introduce them to healthy foods.

We all benefit from locally grown fruits and vegetables, so the River District and its partners, including ReVenture Park, are working to greatly increase our access to fresh produce. Whitewater Farms will play a big role in that effort. You can learn much more at the meeting on May 22 and by visiting catawbariverdistrict.org.

MAY 22 SPECIFICS:  The Farm to School meeting will take place 6:30-8 p.m. Tuesday, May 22, at Whitewater Middle School, 1520 Belmeade Drive in Mecklenburg County (CLICK for directions). Everyone is welcome, regardless of whether you have children in the school.

VOLUNTEERS NEEDED! We are looking for adults interested in helping develop Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) at Whitewater Farms. We also need volunteers to nurture the schoolyard gardens this summer while school is out of session. To learn more, come to the May 22 event or contact Edna Chirico, executive director of the Catawba River District, at echirico@catawbariverdistrict.org or 704-562-8847.

About Rich Haag – Rich gained his love for the outdoors while roaming the woods and river gorge near his upstate NY home. He has spent many vacations – one lasting eight weeks -  camping with his wife, Karen, and their sons. Rich still roams the woods nearly every day, either walking with Karen at Reedy Creek Nature Preserve or cycling on the Mallard Creek Greenway.

Our 3-Month Birthday: Time To Celebrate And Reflect

Naturally Wonderful, by Rich Haag – May 1, 2012

Today marks a milestone for Catawba River District Blogs. We are officially three months old!

That may not seem special to you, but for the seven contributors to this daily look at living well in the Catawba River District, the last three months have been quite a journey.

For starters, we collectively have:

• Published 93 posts (about 36,000 words).
• Written on topics ranging from the transforming power of the Catawba to fun places for dogs and people to walk with nature.
• Attracted more than 3,000 views by people across America and across the globe!
• Rediscovered our love for sharing ideas that we care deeply about.
• Learned that writing weekly truly becomes a labor of love.
• Learned from each other’s posts. For instance, Barbara Lawrence’s weekly blogs on shopping local have helped me discover several great shops and restaurants in our old and new village centers.
• Learned from our own weekly blogs. I never knew what a Halberdleaf yellow violet was before, but thanks to a recent blog on wildflowers I have spotted my first one just 2 miles from home!

Birthdays – even 3-month birthdays – give us a chance to celebrate and reflect. That’s what our group will do this afternoon, when we gather at one of Mount Holly’s unique businesses - the Cream and Beans coffee shop at 108 S. Main Street. We’ll toast our success with some coffee or latte, maybe indulge in some locally made Tony’s ice cream, and then talk about where we might want to go over the next three months of writing.

Do you have any ideas for us?

Shoot me an email at rhaag@catawbariverdistrict.org, and I will share your comments with the group. Or drop by our table and say hi. We’ll be there from 2 to about 3. I’m sure you’ll recognize us. We’ll be the ones with laptops and note pads. You never know when you get a good idea you want to jot down!

About Rich Haag – Rich gained his love for the outdoors while roaming the woods and river gorge near his upstate NY home. He has spent many vacations – one lasting eight weeks -  camping with his wife, Karen, and their sons. Rich still roams the woods nearly every day, either walking with Karen at Reedy Creek Nature Preserve or cycling on the Mallard Creek Greenway.

Enjoy free nature programs (and a $1 hayride!)

Canoe for free on May 1. Photo from Latta Plantation Nature Preserve Facebook page

Naturally Wonderful, by Rich Haag – April 24, 2012

We have great lakefront nature preserves nearby that offer us many fun and educational programs. This is a great time to visit, before the heat of the summer. Even better, in the next couple of weeks, both parks have several free programs and one nearly free program for all ages. Canoe, play, explore and sit around a campfire for no cost at all. Or take a nighttime hayride and learn about wildlife for just $1 per person!

Here are the details. Programs take place at the park nature centers unless noted otherwise.

  Note about registration – Call the appropriate park office for details on any program you wish to attend. Many free programs require no advance registration. You can pre-register for the hayride to assure that your family has seats or come early and take your luck getting a still available seat.

PROGRAMS AT LATTA PLANTATION NATURE PRESERVE

Latta Plantation Nature Preserve is at 6211 Sample Road on Mountain Island Lake. 704-875-1391. CLICK for a map.

Family canoeing – 5:30-7:30 p.m. Tuesday, May 1, at Latta Plantation Park – Bring your family out to the nature preserve for free canoeing! Canoes are available on a first come-first served basis and can be checked out for 30 minutes at a time. Canoes hold up to four people, with at least one adult per canoe required. Meet at the waterfront area.

Family Nature Explorer Club: Get to know a tree – 3-4:30 p.m. Thursday, May 10 – Bring the family out and explore nature. Trees are important to us all. Come explore the world of trees with park staff during a walk through the woods.

Get Outdoors! Play Festival – 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturday, May 12  – Nature makes the best playground! After all, where else can you catch a fish, bake a mud pie, and build an awesome stick fort? Families and kids of all ages will have a blast at this festival that’s all about getting outside, being active, and having fun in nature. Activities will include canoeing, hunting for bugs, building sand castles, making mud art, and much more messy fun. The only limit is your imagination! So, dress for mess and join park staff as they get outdoors and play at Latta!

PROGRAMS AT MCDOWELL NATURE PRESERVE

McDowell Nature Preserve is at 15222 York Road on Lake Wylie. 704-588-5224. CLICK for a map.

Digital photo scavenger hunt – 1-4 p.m. Sunday, April 29 – Stop by the nature center for a scavenger-hunt list filled with fun and adventure for your family. Bring your digital camera, or use a FREE loaner camera, and develop a sense of exploration.

Reptile feeding – 11 a.m.-noon Saturday, April 28 ­– Come to the nature center as park staff talk about the special adaptations that allow our local snakes, turtles and lizards to be such efficient hunters. Staff will feed the box turtle and yellow-bellied slider along with a fence lizard and one of the snakes in the nature center exhibit hall.

Playing with fire / family campfire / nature-at-night hayride – every Friday evening – These two free programs take place every Friday evening from May through September followed by a nighttime hayride for just $1 per person. Come to the McDowell Campground. No registration is required for the free events. You can pre-register for the hayride or come early to the campfire to take advantage of first-come-first-served hayride seating.

• Playing with fire – 6:30-7 p.m. – The ability to create fire has been called one of humanities greatest accomplishments and one that might save your life! Get hands on and discover a variety of ways to start a “matchless” fire and help kick off our family campfire program. 6:30-7 p.m.
• Family campfire – 7-8 p.m. – Enjoy Stories, eat s’mores, and sing songs around a campfire with family and friends. Groups are welcome to attend, come early to get tickets to the Nature at Night Hayride immediately following the Campfire.
• Nature-at-night hayride – $1 per person. 8:15-9:45 p.m. – Bring your family and experience McDowell Nature Preserve at night. Weather permitting we will venture into our Prairie in search of coyote, bobcat, deer, and owls while taking in the sights and sounds of the night. Limited seating available, pre-register (15 spots) or come to the Family Campfire early to take advantage of first-come first-serve seating (min. 10 spots); contact McDowell Nature Center at 704-588- 5224 for more information. 

About Rich Haag -  Rich gained his love for the outdoors while roaming the woods and river gorge near his upstate NY home. He has spent many vacations – one lasting eight weeks -  camping with his wife, Karen, and their sons. Rich still roams the woods nearly every day, either walking with Karen at Reedy Creek Nature Preserve or cycling on the Mallard Creek Greenway.

An International Celebration Of Our Beaver!

Naturally Wonderful, by Rich Haag – April 3, 2012

I have just learned that Saturday, April 7, is International Beaver Day. The news arrived with Wildlife Wire, my monthly e-newsletter from the N.C. Wildlife Federation. This is important news for the Catawba River District, where beaver made their bold return just 20 years ago after a 200-year absence.

I had no idea that beavers are so popular that they rate their own day around the world, although I have liked them since I was a kid. I loved that they could build a dam across a stream and hold their breath for 15 minutes. I saw my first live beaver when my own sons were 9 and 11. We took an eight-week camping trip from Charlotte to the Pacific Northwest and back, including several days in Yellowstone National Park.

One morning we hiked an hour into the back country to a lake where, the trail guide promised, we might see beaver! The trail guide did NOT tell us that beaver come out mostly at night. Luckily, the beavers in this lake did not know that, either, because they soon appeared. We delighted in watching the dark-brown humps glide slowly across the small lake.

Beaver dam near Brevard in Pisgah Forest

Beaver quietly return to the Catawba

Little did we know, but about the same time we were watching the beavers out west, their cousins were setting up their first lodges in two centuries along the Catawba River.

Beaver once were plentiful here and across North America. Beaverdam Creek empties into Lake Wylie at Browns Cove, across the Catawba from Belmont. Beaver Dam plantation once stood in northern Mecklenburg County just east of Davidson.

Like North Carolina’s native wood bison, elk and passenger pigeons, beaver were eradicated across much of America by hunting (mostly for beaver pelts) and the destruction of their habitat for farming.

Unlike those other creatures, however, once man stopped trying to kill them off, the beaver came back in a big way. Perhaps 12 million beaver now live in places as diverse as the upper Davidson River in Pisgah National Forest (where I photographed their work last summer), Park Road Park in central Charlotte, downtown Chicago and the riverbanks of New York City!

Beaver trivia

In honor of International Beaver Day I have done some research on the world’s second-largest rodent. I am even more impressed with these fellows now than when I was a kid (and they were beaver kits).

Tree felled by beaver in Reedy Creek Park

• Beavers range across all of the U.S. and Canada and even into parts of Mexico.
• Beavers mate for life, grow to 60 pounds or more and live 20-plus years in the wild.
• Beavers really do live on the trees they chop down along with other stuff. One beaver can take down up to 200 trees a year.
• The expression “Busy as a beaver” really fits. These animals will “work” about 12 hours a day - no, make that night.
• Beavers really do love to build dams. A satellite discovered the world’s biggest beaver dam about 5 years ago in Alberta, Canada. At 2,800 feet, this wooden and mud structure is twice as long as Hoover Dam! 
• Beavers are a big part of American and Canadian lore. Canada's Parliament building in Ottawa has a big stone beaver over the entrance. The New York City seal includes a beaver! Oregon State University's teams are the Beavers. (Not sure what their team cry is. Maybe "Gnaw! Gnaw! Gnaw our way to victory!")
• Beavers are great for birds and fish! While beaver dams can make a mess of farm fields and beaver teeth can girdle and kill trees with great proficiency, researchers now understand that many other kinds of wildlife prosper where beaver are plentiful. Two professors at Appalachian State University have found a distinct jump in the populations of migratory waterfowl in the southern Appalachian mountains where beaver have built dams. Other research has shown that birds as diverse as woodpeckers and great blue heron thrive in the wetlands and grassy stream banks created by beaver activity.
• Similar research in the Pacific Northwest has shown dramatically higher levels of salmon and trout in streams with beavers living nearby.
• The mostly good news for us is that beavers once again thrive along the Catawba River basin. The main negative is that hungry beavers have made a mess of Mecklenburg's Park Road Park and the Colonel Francis Beatty Park. Park staff are working this spring to either control the beaver damage or remove the beavers altogether.

My second beaver sighting - 2 miles from home!

I see visual reminders nearly every day of beaver activity well within the Charlotte city limits – including dozens of gnawed trees at Reedy Creek Nature Preserve and the muddy footprints of busy beavers that live beside the Mallard Creek Greenway near UNC Charlotte.

I even had my second beaver sighting two summers ago just 2 miles from my house. My older son and I were walking a boardwalk near Mallard Creek after a summer deluge and what should we see gliding through the brown floodwaters but two furry humps. Beavers!

This Saturday, on International Beaver Day, I’ll officially celebrate this wonderful revival of a great fellow creature in our midst. Won't you join me?

About Rich Haag -  Rich gained his love for the outdoors while roaming the woods and climbing river gorge near his upstate NY home. He has spent many vacations – one lasting eight weeks -  camping with his wife, Karen, and their sons. Rich still visits the woods nearly every day, either walking with Karen at Reedy Creek Nature Preserve or cycling on the Mallard Creek Greenway.