Two of Canada’s most prominent symbols—a Mountie and a beaver—went toe-to-toe on a stretch of the Trans Canada Highway last week.
On Friday, a Mountie shut down a lane of the highway in attempt to bring the rodent to safety, but the beaver wasn’t interested in any help.
Members of Greater Victoria’s Integrated Road Safety Unit stumbled upon the bucked-toothed barrier while conducting speed enforcement on a stretch of the highway known as Malahat.
They first spotted a motorcyclist, who was trying to slow traffic not far down the highway. Then they saw something in front of the biker, which they initially thought was a raccoon.
“One of my RCMP colleagues went up to find out what the commotion was, and it was a beaver in the right hand of two lanes,” Constable Andy Dunstan told CTV News.
“We found it quite amusing—it was pretty iconic that there was this RCMP officer trying to get a beaver out of the road,” he said.
Though it likely wasn’t as funny for the officer involved in the incident. Dashcam footage shows him getting out of the car before unsuccessfully attempting to usher the animal off the road.
After a few minutes, he tried another tactic, getting back into his car and slowly driving toward the beaver to scare it off. He tried this multiple times, but as it turns out, the beaver was quite comfortable where it was. In fact, it even hissed at the officer to let him know.
“It wasn’t particularly fazed by anything going on around it, it was quite obstinate and quite happily sat there in the middle of this laneway,” Dustan said.
But eventually, the rodent decided to cooperate. It turned around and waddled back into the brush along the side of the road, allowing officials to reopen the highway.
