Article content continued

This was all very interesting, but it was the final line that caught and held my attention. It stated, seductively, “GRATEFUL YOU DESIGNATE MEMBER OF EMBASSY STAFF AS BEAVER LIAISON OFFICER.” My heart leapt. What an opportunity.

I immediately wrote the ambassador:

Dear Ambassador,

I wish formally to apply for the position of Beaver Liaison Officer for the visit of the Prime Minister of Canada to the People’s Republic of China.

Normally, I do not seek positions, but an opportunity such as this one has never before come within my grasp. To be appointed BLO to the PMO would be an honour yet undreamed of by the Evans family.

In case you have doubts about my qualifications for the position, let me point out that I grew up near a stream inhabited by beaver. As a child, I used to go down to the banks of the stream at night to watch the beaver cut down the remaining trees in the district. I always felt a certain pride in their dams, until the river became too polluted and the beaver were forced to move away.

Sincerely,

P.S. The nickel has always been my favourite coin.

There being no other applicants, I got the job, which, after all, was a cultural matter.

The next evening, I accompanied Maurice Copithorne to the Chinese Foreign Office to give them the wonderful news of the coming of the beaver. The sun was setting, a burnt-orange Frisbee hanging in the grey-black haze of a Beijing autumn sky, when we were shown into a reception room on the wall of which was a huge painting of two panda contentedly eating bamboo shoots. How serendipitous, we thought. Because it was late, a junior Chinese diplomat, who had once travelled to Canada and had eaten in the revolving restaurant atop the Chateau Lacombe in Edmonton, was pressed into service as the interpreter.