Beavers as the Bees of New France: The Beaver's 'Allegorical Turn' in Father François Du Creux's Historia Canadensis (original) (raw)

The beaver is among modern Canada's best recognized symbols: alongside its official designation as the country's national animal in 1975, the beaver also currently appears on the Canadian five-cent piece, as well as on the modern Canadian parliament building's Peace Tower in the figure of the 'mother beaver' . This symbolism is nothing new: the animal's significance for the region's economic and social history was similarly referenced in early modern culture, and the beaver was proposed for appearance on both the Hudson's Bay Company's coat of arms and that of Quebec City already in 1678, to take just two well-known examples. This early symbolic interest in the beaver was accompanied by vivid literary attention, where more objective descriptions of the animal's physical features, lifestyle, dams, and lodges-as well as, of course, how best to hunt it-appeared beside more creative treatments of its apparent communal activity. By the end of the eighteenth century, the beaver was regularly raised to the position of an idealized model for human social structure, collective industry, and just behavior in writings about colonial societies all over the American continent. With such a prominent position in both historical and modern Canadian culture, it comes as no surprise to find that the beaver, along with its social, economic, and symbolic functions, has been well studied. For the particular purposes of this chapter, scholars have dedicated a good deal of attention to the popular use of the animal as an allegory and point of comparison for human society in early modern literature. But the inspiration, motivation, and author responsible for this turn from existing literary topoi long associated with the beaver, to the allegorical, anthropomorphic discourses so popular from the mid-seventeenth century are yet to be identified. The present contribution aims to redress and rectify this gap in our understanding.