(A Fictionalized Pandemic Tale) Beaver on Bloor: When an Entire City Mistook a Squirrel for a National Icon
The story you’re about to read is a fictionalized account based on real conversations, real Toronto energy, and one very real squirrel. The events are reimagined for humour, art, and the joy of urban folklore.
During the long, drifting days of the pandemic — when time had the texture of cold oatmeal and the city seemed held together by takeout containers and Wi-Fi — Toronto developed a strangely wholesome urban legend.
People kept seeing a beaver on Bloor Street.
Or at least, they thought they did.
It became one of those small, delightful distractions that cities cling to during collective stress: mysterious footprints, a blurry photo, hushed “I swear I just saw it” conversations. For over a year, reports trickled in. I joined the chase myself, wandering the stretch of Bloor with a camera, trying to catch a glimpse of this shaggy folk hero holding court between storefronts and bike lanes.
But here’s the twist:
There was no beaver.
Toronto — a city where half the population can tell you the difference between 47 microbreweries but not the difference between local wildlife — had collectively misidentified its own national animal.
The “beaver” was a squirrel.
A very ordinary squirrel.
A very Toronto squirrel, meaning slightly chaotic, deeply confident, and willing to declare eminent domain over a retail district.
And unlike the imaginary beaver, this squirrel was documented. Trapped inside a store on Bloor. Filmed. Photographed. Real. Small. Furious. Not carrying lumber. Not filing taxes. Not posing for the Canadian flag.
Just a squirrel doing squirrel things while the rest of us projected myth onto its shadow.
Turning Misidentification Into Art
That moment — the mix of boredom, hopefulness, misinformation, and accidental folklore — stuck with me. So I turned it into an artwork, the piece you’ve probably seen circulating:
“Beaver on Bloor (April COVID 461d.)”
It’s part satire, part diary entry, part urban anthropology. Not a beaver, not a squirrel, but the emotional memory of a city trying to find meaning in a quiet, uncertain year.
The hashtags on X say it all:
#artoftheday #artofthepossible #crapart #emergingart #MOMA #metmuseum #beaver #Torontomayor what are you going to do
Tongue firmly in cheek.
Toronto energy in its purest form.
Why the Story Still Matters
Looking back, the Beaver That Wasn’t became a perfect symbol of the pandemic psyche:
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We wanted to believe in small wonders.
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We wanted the city to feel alive again.
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And sometimes, in the fog of collective stress, we see what we need to see.
A beaver would’ve been a miracle.
A squirrel was the truth.
But the art lives somewhere in between: in the space where misunderstanding becomes story, and story becomes culture.
So, What Are You Going To Do?
You can follow the piece, share the myth, or just smile at the memory of Toronto confusing its wildlife. Either way, the “Beaver on Bloor” will probably outlive both animals.
Because sometimes what matters most is not what was real, but what we believed long enough to paint.
https://photography647.blogspot.com/2025/11/a-fictionalized-pandemic-tale-beaver-on.html
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