BEHOLD THE TURTLE – Mcgrath Pond – Salmon Lake Assocation

BEHOLD THE TURTLE,

The Creation of Camp Tracy

by Barbara Jolovitz and Kenneth Walsh

Illustrated by Michael Boardman

If you enjoy summers on McGrath Pond or Salmon Lake, you’ve probably seen and heard waterfront activities at Camp Tracy. However, you may not know how this children’s camp on the west side of McGrath Pond came to be. Behold the Turtle is a tribute to the founders who dreamed Camp Tracy just over 50 years ago. The book also acknowledges the generous supporters who fulfilled that dream and ensure its future. Authors Jolovitz and Walsh tell the story of the creation of Camp Tracy in the voice of a snapping turtle who has shared her habitat with the thriving camp since 1968.

“On the next moonlit starry night, I will put leg after leg into the slots where the campers put their feet and then push with their legs to straighten up and get their hands into the next set of slots. I will do the same and get to the top of the Climbing Wall. And from the top, I will look out at my entire lake bathed in moonlight, twinkling stars and silhouettes of Maine’s stately pine trees.”

The book’s title comes from a quote by James Bryant Conant, former Harvard University president: “Behold the turtle. He makes progress only when he sticks his neck out.” Indeed, Camp Tracy has progressed from a day camp offering basic swimming, arts and crafts and nature education because people who dared to dream stuck their necks out. The Waterville Area YMCA and the Boys and Girls Clubs stuck their necks out and merged. The New Balance Foundation stuck its neck out and issued challenges. People who care about our youth continue to stick their necks out. The results are tennis, archery and karate instruction, a ropes course, canoeing, and an outdoor theater. In addition to Maine’s Fenway with the Green Monster Wall, there are football, soccer and baseball fields.

Michael Boardman’s line drawings and scenic color illustrations are sprinkled throughout the book. They ground the story on a Maine lake and add a sense of place. Despite the turtle narrator, Behold the Turtle is not so much a story that will hold the interest of the picture book crowd as it is an engaging history of Camp Tracy’s evolution. It gave me new appreciation for the camp that shares our watershed and for the snapping turtle who shares her habitat with all of us.

Published in 2014 by North Country Press, Unity Maine

Reviewer Joyce Ray, is a children’s author who spends summers on McGrath Pond. Her Young Adult historical novel, Feathers & Trumpets, A Story of Hildegard of Bingen, won two awards. She co-authored Women of the Pine Tree State: 25 Maine Women You Should Know. Pre-published works include an historical Middle Grade novel and several picture books.

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