Beaver War

'That Should Be a Word That Any Canadian Can Use'

Inside the great Canadian doughnut war

By Michael Harthorne,  Newser Staff

Popular doughnut muse in its natural habitat.   (Getty Images/zmeel)

(NEWSER) – And now for a very Canadian story about doughnuts, rodents, and an apology. BeaverTails has been selling oval-shaped doughnuts in eastern Canada for nearly 40 years. So when food blogger Julie Van Rosendaal posted a recipe for "Homemade Beaver Tails" last year, she made sure to give credit to BeaverTails and include a link to its website. But that wasn't good enough, CBC reports. Lawyers for BeaverTails contacted Van Rosendaal and asked her to change the name of her recipe to avoid violating its trademark. She changed it to "Beaver Doughnuts" and thought that would be the end of it. It wasn't. This week, lawyers for BeaverTails asked Van Rosendaal to remove any mention of beavers from her recipe.

"I can see that they have, obviously, a trademark on BeaverTails, but the word beaver?" Van Rosendaal tells the Calgary Herald. "That should be a word that any Canadian can use," she adds to CBC. Regardless, she rebranded her recipe "Canadian Semiaquatic Rodent Posterior Doughnut." While it "doesn't roll off the tongue quite as easily," Van Rosendaal admits the name is growing on her. Not all of her fans on social media felt the same way, and BeaverTails issued what it calls "a big Canadian sorry" to Van Rosendaal. "If we have ever gone too far during our endeavor to preserve the brand name, we sincerely apologize for this lapse of judgement," the company tweeted Thursday. It also used the opportunity to raise $3,000 for the Calgary Food Bank. It did not, however, give Van Rosendaal the right to use word "beaver." Long live the Canadian Semiaquatic Rodent Posterior Doughnut.