It’s not every day that a beaver halts traffic — or that drivers patiently wait for an animal to cross a major highway.
But both things happened last weekend in Mill Bay.
“It was just so nice. It was like … so Canadian, you know?” said Chris Vogl who was driving along Mill Bay Road on Sunday at about 10:30 a.m. when he spotted more than 20 vehicles at a standstill, with some people out of their vehicles.
Thinking there was an accident, he threw on his hazards to alert drivers behind him.
“And then I can see this big fat beaver walking out,” he said.
Everyone was trying to shoo the large beaver across the road and out of harm’s way, but it scampered onto the Trans-sa国际传媒 Highway.
“He wandered across the road and then he was wandering in the first lane of the highway. So, eventually, everyone stopped. It was just beautiful to see, you know, nobody was trying to like scoot around him or anything.”
A motorcyclist had an idea, and pulled up between the cars.
“Then this one fella on a motorbike… pulled up eight or 10 feet away from it,” said Vogl. “He was revving the engine there I guess, to scare him.”
The driver then got off his bike. With some encouragement, he managed to shoo away the animal.
“Then [the beaver] seemed to be merrily on his way,” says Vogl.
Instead of people getting upset, Vogl says everyone tried to help or was patient.
“Often when you see wildlife on the road around here, people are just jerks … but in this case, everyone was stopped and everyone was patient.”
This was the first time Vogl had seen a beaver in the area and says other people were capturing the moment, too.
“It was a wonderful Canadian moment, it was beautiful,” he says.
