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Pond Memories:
More Tales from a Wildlife Rehabilitator
by Lil Anderson
Winnipeg: Turnstone
Press, 2009, ISBN 978-0-88801-346-0, 161 pp., $17.00 paper.
Lil Anderson is an outdoors enthusiast who works for The Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources but also runs a Kenora-area property called Iggy's Wildlife Rehab Centre, where she and her husband, Bruce Ranta, rehabilitate wild creatures. Her previous book, Beavers Eh to Bea, published in 2000 also by Turnstone Press, described Anderson's efforts to raise two beaver kits (which came to be named Eh and Bea), as well as other creatures such as a fawn, a woodchuck and a baby eaglet.Her new book, Pond Memories, describes more of Anderson's experiences trying to rehabilitate animals that have been brought to her. These include a very sick little moose calf, a fox kit, a trio of tiny beavers, a pair of goslings, a porcupette (baby porcupine), and a tiny fawn only about fifteen inches high (38 cm.), and weighing a mere six and half pounds (2.94 kg).
With all the wild creatures she cares for, Anderson's long-range plan is to return them to the wild once they are healed and/or grown to a size where they can care for themselves. With this in mind, she tries not to imprint on them, though sometimes that is virtually impossible. It also means that there are times when she has to allow nature to take its course, even though it may result in the loss of a creature she loves.
Anderson's stories are a mixture of success and failure, or, as the back cover says, "of triumph and tears." The reader will experience these emotional highs and lows along with Anderson. He/she may weep when a fawn, raised from a very small size, is killed and devoured by a pack of wolves as it tries to become part of a herd of wild deer; or when a faithful old dog can no longer withstand the ravages of cancer.
The story of the three tiny beavers is particularly poignant. A trapper had been hired to remove beavers from a pond because of a complaint of water over a road. Too late he realized that a beaver he'd shot was a female, soon to give birth. He immediately performed a crude C-section and removed three kit beavers. After a few days, when he and his family realized that they couldn't care for them properly, he took the tiny creatures, with weights ranging from 300 to 485 grams (from about .6 to one pound), to Anderson. Never having known a mother, they sought comfort even while sleeping by sucking on their siblings' ears, or their own tails.
Besides the highs and lows--including some in Anderson's personal life, such as the loss of two friends over a short period of time--some danger-filled incidents are described. For example, a rogue bear destroys Anderson's chicken house and most of her hens and rabbits. Eventually the bear is captured in a live trap and removed, but soon returns, accompanied by a second bear!
Humorous events add to the story, too. One such incident is when Cameron, the beaver, chews his way out of his pen in the garage and then proceeds to scatter the author's animal food supply of outdated fruits and vegetables all around the garage. Not long afterwards, Cameron's amorous attentions to Anderson's overalls adds to the humour.
The book is complemented by lovely black and white illustrations by Christine Kerrigan and by 24 of the author's photos of various animals and birds she has looked after, as well as the cover photos of Brownie, the baby moose and Persephone, the fawn. The pictures of P'silla, the baby porcupine, are particularly cute. At the same time, Anderson emphasizes that these are not just cute animals to be played with by visitors, because they are being prepared to return to the wild. (Her rehab centre is run through her own volunteer efforts, with some help from donations by local supporters, so nature lovers might consider this as a place worthy of support.)
As an outdoors enthusiast, I really enjoyed this book with all the interesting details and anecdotes. As a writer, I particularly liked the book's title, Pond Memories, and several of the chapter titles: "A Little Bull Goes a Long Way" (referring to the baby moose, Brownie); "Outfoxed"; "A Prickly Situation" (dealing with P'silla); "Fowl Days Ahead" (wild goslings); and "Oh, Deer, What Can I do?"
Those who enjoy this book might well decide, as I have, to read Anderson's previous book, Beavers Eh to Bea.
Donna Gamache is the author of Spruce Woods Adventure (Compascore Manitoba) as well as many short stories for both children and adults.
Buy this book at McNally-Robinson Booksellers.