tsa'

In spring and winter, sometimes I'll see tsa' (beaver) teeth marks on trees. The tsa' makes good use of the snow while it lasts, hauling logs and branches that would be impossible to move over bare ground. T'aghes (balsam poplar or cottonwood) is a favorite target in the Copper River valley. The wide, pale scars of their chiseled incisor marks on trunks are easy to spot in spring, some stumps whittled to a neat point, others simply stripped of bark at browsing height, a record of industrious work that continued all through the cold months.

 

In Ahtna:

tsa', pronounced chaw, beaver, Castor canadensis

t'aghes, pronounced taw-wess, Balsam poplar, Populus balsamifera