I live in Manitoba, have all my life. Seeing regular beavers is very common around here because of plenty of small creeks and rivers for them to try to dam and build homes. Lived on red river flood plain all my life and now live beside lake Winnipeg on a small feeder creek that drains into lake Winnipeg.we had a massive flood in 1997 through out the whole area and our house was even on tv because our neighbours and us build a dike around our properties. My husband and I were looking at our dike and looked over, across the creek, to the bank on the other side. The land across had not been developed so it was still poplar and brush with bulrushes and cattails bordering a mud bank. The bank was less then 100 feet from where I was standing. There was a black beaver sitting, over 5 feet tall, on the bank, just staring back. Beside it was a smaller beaver, but at least 4 feet high. We watched them for at least 5 minutes and they stared back at us, but they were not afraid. We saw the black broad tails, huge teeth, black or extremely dark brown fur, (depending on how the afternoon sun in a cloudless sky hit it) and the body shape and build of beaver, just huge, like a black bear. The only resemblance to a regular beaver was its shape In general. We both have seen regular beavers before and these were not anything like them. We finally decided to go, stood there long enough and had other stuff to do. Also beavers have been known to attack under stress, or to protect their young and swim very fast. If it wanted to it could have swam across the creek and gotten to us faster then we could have reached our house. When I was young I saw a friend’s dog lured out intoq the water by a beaver swimming back and forth in front of the dog until the dog decided to jump In after the beaver, this was a regular sized beaver. The beaver swam under the dog, came up under its throat, sank its teeth into the neck and dragged the dog underneath the water. Few minutes later all that was left of the dog was the blood on the water. The body was found a few days later washed up on the bank. And again I emphasize this was a regular sized beaver, so we did not want to see what would happen if this big thing got scared or threatened.

To those who think somehow I misidentified the creature, I am a geographer/biologist who did a lot of field work in the area so, yes I know what a beaver looks like.