November's Moon names highlight the activities of animals preparing for winter and the arrival of colder weather.
Animals start preparing their dens for the harsh and deep freeze of winter as the chilly air of the late fog descends.
The Full Moon in November is said to be named after beavers since this is the time of year when they become especially active in building their winter dams in preparation for the cold season.
The beavers are mainly nocturnal and spend most of their time at night, so they keep working under the light of the Full Moon.
Beavers use wood and mud to build dams.
In the middle, they build dome-shaped homes called lodges with submerged entrances.
This is the time of year when beavers start to take shelter in their lodges, after stockpiling enough food for the long winter ahead.
Along the banks of rivers and streams, beavers can be seen collecting wood to build their lodges and dams before the ice sets in.
Thus, in honor of these hardworking semi-aquatic rodents, November's full moon is most commonly called the Beaver Moon.
November is also the month when bitter hard frost’s become more frequent. Depending on the winter solstice, it is sometimes called Frost Moon and Mourning Moon also.
In 2022, November’s full "Beaver Blood Moon" will occur on November 8, and will be accompanied by a Total Lunar Eclipse!
In the morning hours of Tuesday, November 8, at 6:02 A.M. EST, the Beaver Moon is at its brightest and reaches peak illumination.
Of course, it will be very close to full the night before, so start keeping an eye out on Monday, November 7, just after sunset.
This was also the time when Native American tribes and later European settlers placed beaver traps in order to assure a supply of warm furs for the winter.
It was also the season for trapping beavers for their thick, winter-ready pelts, during the time of the fur trade in North America. People have hunted beavers for fur and their glands for medicine.
In the past time, there used to be more than 60 million beavers in North America. However, because people have hunted them too much, among other reasons, the number of beavers has declined to about 12 million.
It was common in ancient times to track the changing seasons by following the lunar month instead of using the solar year, which our current calendar's 12 months are based on.
For millennia, Native American tribes as well as people from all over Europe named the months after features they related to the Northern Hemisphere seasons; many of these names are very similar to or the same.
Many of these ancient month names are still used today as Full Moon names. One common reason is that Colonial Americans adopted many of the Native American names and incorporated them into the modern calendar.