Living up to our name in the Swan Valley

A wetland in a valley with a swan swimming by would have looked pretty enticing for a westward settler on the heels of Lewis and Clark, and not just because it was beautiful scene. The habitat's maker could likely be guessed, and at the time, the real value seen in a wetland was in the beaver pelts it could offer, or, once the industrious rodents were removed, in the pasture it could promise. Although wetlands were buggy, fickle, and, well...wet, few homesteaders would have passed up a flat swath of land that beavers and floodwater had cleared. The soil would have looked moist and composted en...

 

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