What the Buck family loves more than anything is getting out in nature. Exploring and taking in the wild beauty of Vancouver Island, but what happened on their Thanksgiving weekend camping trip was the wildest adventure yet.
“Is everybody cool that Dad saved the beaver,” Dustin Buck asked his kids aged 5 and 9.
“Yes,” answered Kayleb and Brookelyn Buck.
They were walking along the Nanaimo River Sunday, looking for a spot to fish near their campground when they saw people putting sticks into a hole on this rocky outcropping.
When they got closer they saw a fuzzy little creature that was in a bad way, way down there. A small beaver had fallen into the deep hole in the river rock, that passersby were offering sticks to, to help him climb out.
But Dustin Buck could see that little beaver was too far gone and decided to go down there and get him.
“Normally I wouldn’t stick my hand down a hole near a beaver,” said Dustin Buck.
“But he definitely wasn’t going to be fighting,” he said.
“So I reached down, kind of just grabbed the back of his neck just to see what would happen and he didn’t move. He was just happy to be,” said Buck.
“Yeah I think he was just happy to come out of there,” said Dustin’s wife Jennifer Buck.
Jennifer Buck had her camera rolling as her husband climbed out of the 10 foot hole, beaver in hand.
“Very Canadian,” she’s heard on video.
“He was disoriented,” said Dustin Buck.
“It seemed like he was definitely fatigued from being in the hole for God knows how long right. And as soon as he got to some foliage aloft he river bank he just started eating whatever he could find,” he said.
Giving Buck’s 5 and 9 year old children a Canadian camping picture like few others and even a chance to pet a real beaver.
“I petted it,” said 5-year-old Kayleb Buck. “Like a puffball of yarn,” said Dustin Buck’s son.
“Yeah they’re calling me a Canadian hero,” Dustin Buck said laughing.
The last the beaver was seen, he was swimming off down the river wild and free. Thanks to an Island family who was in just the right place to help.
Skye Ryan
