I tend to get a late start when I head out into the woods and so I’m usually setting up camp well after dark and don’t really get to see my surroundings until the next morning. One morning I woke up before dawn to the sound of something large and heavy being dragged past my tent.

I remember laying there in horror, telling myself “Ok, it’s going to be fine, you’re going to go back to sleep and when it’s light out you’re going to laugh at this because OH MY GOD ITS DEFINITELY A BODY THERES A MURDERER DRAGGING A BODY AND IM NEXT.” Eventually I managed to exhaust myself out of sheer terror and fell back asleep.

Woke up in the daylight, relieved to be alive, looked out and discovered I’d set up my tent on a small overlook directly below a beaver dam. I was right beside their log chute.