Things that are visible from space include The Great Pyramids of Giza, The Great Barrier Reef of Australia and … the great beaver dam of Canada.
In northern Alberta’s, Wood Buffalo National Park, the big-toothed, paddle-tailed creatures have constructed a dam that is as long as the Burj Khalifa (the world’s highest skyscraper) is tall. From end-to-end, the structure spans 800 metres, which, for extra reference, is equivalent to eight football fields, 160 giraffes or 533 Ariana Grandes.
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Despites its size, however, the enormous structure is actually very hard to see. Wood Buffalo National Park is Canada’s largest national park. It has an area of 45,000 km2, which is roughly the same size one Estonia, 18 Luxembourgs or 36 million Olympic-sized swimming pools.
The dam is in the middle of the park, far from any road or trail, and is surrounded by wetlands, bogs and thick boreal forest. It’s little surprise then, that the structure was discovered, not by people, but by a passing satellite which spotted it in 2007. Subsequent satellite images provided by NASA were able to confirm that it did not exist before 1980, which means the dam could be up to 45 years old.
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Beavers are ecosystem engineers. Their activities sculpt entire environments, creating opportunities for other species to thrive. In this case, multiple generations of beavers worked together to build the great dam, from felled wood, mud, stones and vegetation.
Today, it holds back run-off water from the Birch Mountains, and the pond that has formed upstream is estimated to contain around 70,000 cubic metres of water (around 120 million pints of beer, lemonade or milk). The entire perimeter of the dam area is about 2,000 metres and its surface area is around 70,000 square metres (you get the picture, it’s big).
Images provided by Google Earth show that the dam is a combination of two original dams and contains two lodges that are separated by around 300 metres. Noone knows how many beavers live there, but Google Earth images also show that new dams are being built.
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Ultimately these could join up with the ‘monster dam’ and increase its length by 50 to 100 metres over the next decade. So, the world’s biggest beaver dam just keeps getting bigger. Busy beavers don’t get much busier than this!
