Reflections on Hog Island Audubon Camp: Celebrating 90 Years of Nature Teaching

The first building that campers encounter is the Queen Mary, which has a collection of bird skins, field guides, and a dormitory. All photographs by the author.

In 1936 the National Association of Audubon Societies began an experiment. On an island of mature spruce forest in Maine’s Muscongus Bay, some sixty miles north of Portland, the first Audubon Camp for Adult Leaders was opened—for teachers, counselors, scout leaders, for anyone with an interest in the out-of-doors. From the very beginning it was an experiment touched with great success.

Elizabeth N. Layne
Audubon, January 1973

My high school graduation day was June 17, 1962. For me, high school days were much affected by my ceaseless passion for birds and birding. I was a geek, hardly involved in events that engaged normal students. I was always out seeking birds. That helps explain why on my graduation day from Abington Senior High School, my Aunt Ethel walked across the stage and accepted my diploma in my absence. My parents were driving me to Bremen, Maine, along with my younger cousin Bruce Carrick, whom I had turned into a fanatical birder. We each had been awarded a Florence C. Griscom Scholarship from the Wyncote Bird Club, of which we were among the youngest members. That honor made it possible for us to attend a two-week session at the Hog Island Audubon Camp. Those two weeks at Audubon Camp take me back 64 years but few memories remain more vivid. My life changed because of Hog Island. I found my calling as a teacher, an ecologist, and an ornithologist. I am guessing that I am not the only graduate of Audubon Camp to have experienced such an epiphany. Today many bird clubs continue to award student scholarships to attend Hog Island Camp, including the Brookline Bird Club (Bill Drummond Young Birder Scholarship), the Cape Cod Bird Club, and yes, the Wyncote Audubon Society (now Liberty Bird Alliance), my alma mater.