The cache:
Celebrate a national symbol of Canada and Flash Yer Beaver! A regular sized geocache with a optional logging requirement inside! Inside the geocache you will find a stuffed beaver and a disposable camera. Feel free to strike a pose with the beaver and take a photo! Please only 1 photo per team.
Why is the beaver important to Canada?
Before the arrival of the Europeans, the beaver was honoured by such communities as the Huron. European settlers learned about the beaver not long after their arrival, with Jacques Cartier trading for furs in 1534. Two years later, Cartier visited Hochelaga (present-day Montréal), an Iroquoian village whose name is either a variation of the word osheaga, which translates as "big rapids," or osekare meaning "beaver path." Because of the beaver's impact on the development and history of Canada, it is rightly one of Canada's official national emblems, is on the coat of arms for the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan and has been immortalized in 1,000 place names across the country.
As an emblem of Canada, the beaver goes back at least as far as the 17th century. The rich-pelted beaver was the staple of the fur trade that prompted Europe's commercial interest in North America. Beaver pelts were considered the most valuable, particularly while felt hats made from under-fur were symbols of prestige in the 17th century. The pursuit of beaver pelts from the Maritimes to the Mackenzie Valley led to the exploration of vast regions of North America. When the fur trade first started, it is estimated that there were six million beavers living in what is now Canada. By the time the fashion had changed in the mid-1800s, the beaver was almost extinct. Today, thanks to many protections thriving populations of beaver occur across Canada once again.
A beaver was depicted on a coat of arms granted in the 1620s to Sir William Alexander (who held Nova Scotia) by Charles I of England. It also appeared on the coat of arms of the newly incorporated city of Montréal in 1832 and on the first Canadian postage stamp in 1851. The G.E. Kruger Gray-designed five-cent coin, on which a beaver sits atop a log, has been in near-constant circulation since 1937.