The couple behind Ottawa’s iconic tail-shaped pastry stood up to a senator’s recent disparaging of the beaver by erecting a monument to the diligent rodent outside of their store in Ottawa’s Byward Market Tuesday.
Senator Nicole Eaton called the beaver a “19th century has-been,” a “dentally defective rat” and a “toothy tyrant,” among other things, as she argued in October that the polar bear should replace the beaver as Canada’s national emblem.
BeaverTails co-founders Grant and Pam Hooker are now biting back.
“Dentally challenged? We’d like to challenge Senator Eaton to do something like this to a tree,” said Grant Hooker as he unveiled a gnawed-off stump.
Then a Canadian flag hanging behind him was raised to reveal the real monument to the beaver — a billboard with a beaver on it and the word “Canada” in lights — as Hooker continued his ode to the national emblem.
“Hardworking, ever-vigilant, monogamous in its relationship with its spouse, fiercely protective of its children and family life, at home in mother nature and appreciative of mother nature, and always building and creating, the beaver and the Canadian people have a lot in common,” he said.
He also took issue with the Eaton’s complaint about beavers eating the dock at her cottage.
“Anyone in their right mind could probably guess that if Senator Eaton were sunbathing on her dock in the Muskokas, and spotted an animal coming towards her in the water, she would prefer that animal to be a beaver to a polar bear.”
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