Every summer, millions of migratory fish make their way through the Cape Cod Canal, chasing their next meal.

In hot pursuit, thousands of fishermen from around the region descend upon the 100-year-old waterway and cast their lines from April to November, when the striped bass run. Anglers may hook anything in the canal, from a bluefish to a tautog, but a striped bass is the big enchilada.

A.J. Coots of Red Top Sporting Goods on Main Street in Buzzards Bay, says he enjoys the abundance of fishing locations along the canal. “It’s all public access,” says Coots. “There’s no real spot that’s better than every other.” As fishermen say: fish have tails. They are always on the move. And with a bike ride along canal paths, so are you.

Today, a century after its construction, millions visit the Cape Cod Canal each year to enjoy recreational opportunities provided by the waterway—from camping to cycling, cruising, dining, and fishing.

If you want to try fishing for the coveted stripers, keep in mind that they are opportunistic predators. To ambush their prey, bass like to hang in slow moving water, behind rocks, structures, or bridge abutments, waiting for baitfish to be swept through, caught in the powerful currents. Fishermen who cast in these areas increase their chances at reeling in a good-size fish. Recreational fishermen may keep up to two stripers per day and the minimum size for a “keeper” is 28 inches. Massachusetts requires that anglers obtain a saltwater permit available at tackle shops and at www.mass.gov/saltwaterpermit. (An alternative site is www.mass.gov/eea/agencies/dfg/dmf/recreational-fishing/recreational-saltwater-permits.htm.)

Another popular, if less visible, kind of fishing along the canal is recreational lobstering. This requires a separate permit, but permit-holders can fish ten recreational traps. Some lobstermen even have custom trailers mounted to their cruiser bikes so they can haul a few traps at a time. They plunk the pots in the water and wait. Bluefish is a popular bait, as are mackerel and pogies. The older and stinkier the bait, the better—lobsters are bottom feeders and not fussy eaters. Coots has eaten lobster pulled from the canal and says, “they’re delicious.”

Another way to enjoy the canal is to take a cruise. Hy-Line cruises has been running iconic harbor tours in Hyannis since the years of JFK’s presidency, and also offers scenic and music trips along the canal today.

The cruises get underway in June and depart from the company’s dock in Onset. Every Friday and Saturday from 8 to 10:30 p.m., guests 21 and over enjoy live music cruises. Jazz trips are held on Sundays, from 1:30 to 4 p.m. Guitarist Dan Lyons of Marstons Mills has performed on the canal cruises since the late 1990s, first with his band, The High Kings, and in recent years, with another Cape band favorite, 57 Heavy. “The atmosphere is great,” Lyons says of the boat shows. “You have the natural beauty of the Cape, the sunset, sailing under the bridges; it’s beautiful.” Lyons is a veteran entertainer who has played in venues from Vermont, to Florida, to California, and has opened for the Jerry Garcia Band and the J. Geils Band along the way. Lyons says the boat crowd is generally less inhibited than those in a typical nightclub scene. “They’re out on a boat,” he says. “The evening feels more like an event—they’re ready to dance! People loosen up quicker.”

Tickets for the music cruises cost $19. For 2014, scheduled acts include blues with the George Gritzbach Band, The Goat Roper Band playing country, and Harry French, a one-man act who blends hits from the ’50s to today. Groovy Afternoon plays dance songs from the ‘60s and ‘70s and Hy-Line has at least one show booked with a DJ who’ll be playing Jimmy Buffett music for the cruise ship’s Parrot Head Night.

Hy-Line’s marketing manager Betsy Rich books the bands for the cruises. “It’s so much fun,” she says. “Everyone makes friends with each other.” Rich says sometimes folks along the canal get in on the act. Walkers and skaters have been seen dancing along to the music as the cruise boat sails past. On one occasion, Rich says a cyclist followed the boat from the path alongside the canal, flashing a light in time to the music. The band followed suit, improvising a “Flashlight Man” song on the spot, with the crowd singing along. “It’s a special occasion,” Lyons says of the festive atmosphere aboard the ship. “People get into it.”

Hy-Lines runs two- and three-hour scenic cruises in the summer, too, with guided commentary on the various historical and scenic sights along the waterway with interesting anecdotes thrown in. Food choices on board include chips and simple snacks, but Rich recommends nearby Onset spots like Marc Anthony’s for pizza, or the Quaohog Republic for pub food and raw bar choices after the trips return to the dock.

For a more traditional restaurant, the Pilot House in Sandwich features live piano music in the lounge Friday and Saturday nights in summer. This is a great spot to savor a view of the canal while fishing boats glide by. On the last Wednesday of each month, the head chef leads a cooking class, guiding students through preparation of an entree and a dessert paired with a drink.

To work off calories either before or after dinner, many walkers, joggers, cyclists, and rollerbalders use the twin trails that flank the canal. Maintained by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the trails, each about seven miles, are smooth, well-graded, and well-lit. Numbered poles along the way help bikers and joggers keep track of their progress, or choose a reasonable turnaround point. Canal Cruisers Bicycles in Buzzards Bay offers bike repair, and bike rentals are available by the hour, or by the day.

“It’s peaceful and well lit,” Harwich’s Talia Arone says of the canal paths—one of her favorite spots to recreate and relax. “I often go at night, after work, for a stress buster. It’s nice seeing the boats coming in.”

Arone has traded in her rollerblades for quads—traditional four-wheeled rollerskates, not inline skates—and in 2013 she co-founded the Cape Cod Roller Derby, based in Dennis. Years of rollerblading helped her build endurance—she was known for long, all-day trips—and now her team competes in flat-track roller derby meets, the latest in a sport that has roots dating back to late 19th-century endurance competitions.

For longer visits to the canal, the Scusset Beach State Reservation offers canal-side parking as well as 98 camping sites for both RVs and tents from April into October. Sandy Scusset Beach is right there and has a trail that links directly to the canal paths.

All the while, the celebrated 100-year-old waterway that flows between the paths is just brimming with sea life. A.J. Coots says he loves to fish on a cool morning, as the mist rises off the water. A favorite activity is tossing a topwater plug—a floating lure that splashes and is designed to create a ruckus that imitates a flailing baitfish—in the early morning stillness. “There’s stripers popping everywhere,” says Coots, “jumping two-and-a-half feet out of the water, exploding at the plugs. If that doesn’t get your adrenaline going, something is wrong with you.”

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To help the newly train-less commuters of Bournedale catch their morning train to Boston, Belmont also set up a passenger ferry, circa 1913, which crossed the canal at a point about one mile west of today’s Sagamore Bridge. Though the ferry, which remained in operation until the public works bridges were completed in 1935, helped travelers get to the new Bournedale station just across the canal, the ride was not for the faint of heart.

According to Bourne Selectman Donald “Jerry” Ellis, as the 20-foot vessel and its small engine puttered across the waterway—then a distance of about 140 feet—it often got caught up in the canal’s swift currents, and was swept off course. The result for passengers on board was an occasional, unexpected trip to Sagamore Village. “The ferry lasted quite a number of years,” Ellis says. “There are lots of funny stories of the ferry floating down the canal, or catching fire. It presented a real problem of getting from one town to another.”

It was solving a problem—a different one—that served as the impetus for the canal’s construction in the first place. Dangerous waterways off the Cape’s eastern coast and through Nantucket Sound had for hundreds of years beached, sunk, and destroyed countless ships at sea, claiming the lives of many aboard. The Pilgrims themselves curtailed dreams of reaching the Hudson River—seeking shelter in Provincetown, then Plymouth—when their Mayflower was tossed and turned in the waters of the Sound. Further, connecting Cape Cod Bay to Buzzards Bay by canal would shorten the shipping distance from one town (Boston) to another (New York City) by 62 nautical miles.

Solving problems. Creating new ones. Providing unforeseen blessings and challenges. Dividing communities and forever transforming the peninsula of Cape Cod into an island, albeit a manmade one. In 2014, residents and community members of Bournedale, Sagamore, and the rest of the Cape—and beyond—celebrate the centennial anniversary of the Cape Cod Canal, the region’s manmade waterway wonder.
“The Cape Cod Canal is such a huge part of a lot of people’s memories of the Cape,” says Sue Wentworth, managing director of the Cape Cod Canal Centennial Committee. “It is a gateway.” Established in 2011 to prepare for the anniversary, the committee has scheduled many events throughout the year to commemorate the occasion. “Everybody is getting involved in it,” Wentworth says. “There’s going to be a great energy, a great spirit in the area. Lots of fun things to do.”

Most of the festivities run from July 25 through August 3, with an official ceremony to be held Tuesday, July 29, from 2 to 4 p.m. at Buzzards Bay Park in Bourne. That day—July 29—will be 100 years to the date when the canal was officially opened for waterway traffic back in 1914. Local politicians, dignitaries, and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers officials will be on hand and the Cape Cod Symphony Youth Orchestra will perform an original piece written for the occasion.

The ceremony will also include the unveiling of a 10-foot bronze statue of a fisherman intended to honor the importance that fishing—in particular striped bass fishing—has had on the Cape Cod community as well as those who have dedicated their lives to the profession.

Following the ceremony, a parade of tugboats will float along the canal from 4 to 6 p.m., before giving way to a Buzzards Bay fireworks display, which starts at 9 p.m. “It’s going to be big,” Wentworth says of the extravaganza, funds for which were donated by local philanthropist David Mugar. “You will be able to see them from far and wide. There will be dogs howling everywhere.”

One of those taking part in the festivities will be Admiral Rick Gurnon, president of Massachusetts Maritime Academy. A resident of Buzzards Bay, Gurnon has worked at the academy for 35 years, he’s a co-chair of the centennial committee, and he loves the canal. “I walk the canal at least twice a day,” Gurnon says. “I have seen Russian submarines going through, Canadian submarines, giant car carriers.” Anything else? “I saw the H.M.S. Bounty go through on its last voyage,” he adds. “I’ve seen the Mayflower 2 coming and going from shipyard. And of course I’ve seen some unbelievably luxurious yachts, down to a kayak.”

In his walks, Gurnon has also spotted seals and porpoises in the canal and foxes and deer along its banks. “Some amazing stripers,” he adds, “get yanked out of that canal.” During one walk with his dog, Merlin, Gurnon took in yet another impressive sight: a finback whale, which he estimated to be 35-40 feet. “I heard,” he says, “the very distinctive sound of a blowhole.”

Gurnon says he views the canal as a success story—and one that has saved companies and by extension consumers, lots of money over the years. “The gasoline you put in your car,” he says, “the home heating oil that heats your home, the shoes that you put on your feet, they all came through the Cape Cod Canal.”

Traveling through the canal, he adds, is also safer for ships than going around it. Years ago, Gurnon says the major issue ships faced in sailing up or down the backside of the Cape, was if a big storm came along, they could literally be blown onto the beach—or destroyed in the process. “You couldn’t escape [the wind],” he says. “You had to get past Provincetown or Chatham.”

“It was dangerous,” he added. “You had to pay the equivalent of $1,000 in today’s money—the toll fee an average-sized vessel was charged to sail through the canal during its first two decades, adjusted for inflation—or risk losing your cargo, and your ship, and your ability to make more money.” With GPS and today’s forecasting capabilities, however, Gurnon says the round-the-Cape journey is no longer as treacherous.

In the first few years following the canal’s completion, Gurnon says the waterway was heavily used, but different problems—one-way traffic, too many turns, three lift bridges that would not always go up!—caused many ships to return to their longer, round-the-Cape route.

Following a German submarine attack on the tugboat Perth Amboy off the coast of Orleans during World War I, the federal government took control of the canal from August Belmont, operating it from 1918 to 1920. In 1928, the government purchased the canal outright, and in the following years invested heavily in a public works project that would deepen, widen, and straighten the canal, and complete the three canal bridges we know and use today.

Gurnon says there were two important decisions made during this expansion that helped the canal to remain viable over the years: the canal was deepened and the shipping toll was removed. “If it hadn’t been dug deeper,” he says, “it would not be commercially viable today.” Gurnon says most ships traveling between Boston and New York today travel through the canal. However, if the ship is sailing from New York to Nova Scotia, it will go around. “You’re already out there,” he says.

Gurnon says one feature of the canal continually amazes him: a pedestrian on shore can talk with a deckhand on a ship passing by, using only a slightly elevated voice. “You are that close to vessels underway,” he says. “Here in Massachusetts, you can literally be having a picnic lunch, and wave and say hello to a tugboat operator.”

Though an ardent canal supporter, Gurnon does count at least one negative side effect. “It artificially strengthens the parochial nature of the villages within the towns by the sheer distances between them,” he says. “Buzzards Bay is physically separated from Gray Gables . . . You can’t get there from here without a 15-minute car ride. You’ve seen the movie, A River Runs Through It? Well, the canal runs through Bourne. If you want to go to town hall, if you want to get your dog license, you’ve got to cross the bridge.”

Other issues? “The bridges,” Gurnon says, “were built in the 1930s, they are steel, and painted, and exposed to lots of tough, Cape Cod weather.” This means regular maintenance is required. The bridges, he added, are also rather narrow. With 10-foot lanes and no room for breakdowns, Gurnon says the spans have witnessed many head-on accidents over the years and would not pass construction codes were they being built today.

John MacPherson, assistant canal manager for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, says an appropriate description for the bridges is “structurally sound, functionally obsolete.” The corps, which owns the canal and bridges, directs all shipping traffic and is responsible for maintenance and renovation work; before embarking on a large-scale effort, though, the corps’ projects must be approved by Congress.

Samantha Gray, a park ranger for the corps, provided the following statistics. Including its breakwaters, the canal is approximately 17 miles long and a total of 13.5 miles of paved surface roads follow the waterway’s smooth curves. Each year, approximately 20,000 ships sail through the canal, while the two bridges handle 35 million annual vehicle trips.

The Cape Cod Canal Railroad Bridge is raised and lowered an average of three to four times each day, totaling about 1,000 annual events. The structure’s span weighs 2,200 tons and when moved up or down is equally balanced by two, 1,100-ton counterweights, one on each side. “It was beautifully engineered,” Gray says of the structure. “It’s not just functional; it’s aesthetically pleasing.”

The distance from the base of the three bridges’ spans to the water below at mean high tide is 135 feet. That means a ship’s ‘air draft’ must measure less than that. When the bridges were built in the 1930s, most commercial vessels could pass under easily but today that’s not always the case. The four-masted Russian barque, Kruzenshtern, for example, has visited Mass Maritime a few times, but with an air draft of 190 feet, it cannot sail under the bridges; it has to go around.

Speaking of ships, on July 26-27, visitors will have the opportunity to tour the tall ship, Charles W. Morgan, which will be docked at the academy. Built in 1841, the 113-foot wooden vessel had a lengthy career in the whaling industry—much of it out of New Bedford—and completed 37 voyages to locations around the globe. “She’s a national historic landmark,” says Dan McFadden of Mystic Seaport’s maritime museum, which owns the vessel.

Those who see the ship this summer, McFadden adds, will view it at its best. “We’re wrapping up a five-year, really extensive renovation,” McFadden says. “She’s basically in as good a condition as when she was launched in 1841. Once she’s rigged and done, she is going to look fantastic.” The Charles W. Morgan’s canal visit is part of a post-renovation journey the museum is calling her “38th Voyage.” The ship departs Mystic Seaport in May, sails to New London, Connecticut for ballasting and depth adjustments, and continues on to stops in Newport, Rhode Island, Boston, and here in Buzzards Bay.

Photo by Robert Manz

Also on July 26-27, Cape Cod Central Railroad will run passenger trains from the Buzzards Bay Depot, over the railroad bridge, and down along the canal to Sandwich—and back. If the 45-minute rail excursions are popular, the railroad may offer them again the following weekend. “I think it’s a cool way to celebrate the weekend,” says Kaylene Jablecki, the railroad’s sales and marketing manager. “Everyone likes that bridge, but you never get to go over it.”

Jablecki says the trains will feature presentations by local historians who will offer stories and information about the canal, the bridges, and more. “We’re excited to help celebrate the canal’s centennial,” Jablecki says, adding that train fares will be offered at a discount—$15 for adults, $10 for children—so more people can participate.

But ahoy! There are more centennial events on the horizon—and more ships! From July 25-28, visitors can also tour Eagle, the U.S. Coast Guard Academy’s 295-foot training ship that was built in Hamburg, Germany in 1936; the ship will be docked at Mass Maritime. From July 28-31, two additional vessels with impressive pedigrees will also be docked in the canal: the Kalmar Nyckel, a replica of a Colonial-era Dutch pinnace, and the Oliver Hazard Perry, a 200-foot tall ship named for a decorated U.S. Navy Captain who served in the War of 1812.

Additional activities slated for Saturday, July 26, make for a dizzying lineup. “It will be a crazy fun day,” Wentworth says. The Briggs-McDermott House in Bourne hosts a festival of music that day featuring tunes from the last 100 years. A few miles east, the Sandwich SeaFest—held this year in conjunction with that town’s 375th anniversary—will include a U.S. Coast Guard demonstration, festival attractions, and more.

Also on July 26, The Kingman Yacht Center in Cataumet hosts a day of events titled “Bass Ackwards,” and activities include a ‘poker race’ for motorboats. In the event, participants are given five locations to visit and at each they will acquire one playing card. At day’s end, the participants gather, show their cards, and see who has the best hand. Later that night, beginning at 9 p.m., a parade of lights will make its way along the canal. Boats alit from bow to stern will embark from Mass Maritime, travel eastward through the canal, before turning around in the bay. This flotilla is open to the public, and interested parties are encouraged to register.

In July and August, Hy-Line Cruises will offer special cruises featuring a narration of the canal’s history. Up above, Pilgrim Aviation is scheduling private aerial tours of the canal and its surroundings. With his love of history and vast civic experience, Bourne Selectman Ellis would be well equipped to lead such tours. “The canal is a genuine asset,” says Ellis, also a member of the town’s historical and preservation societies. “If someone comes to Cape Cod, that’s the first thing they see. It is an inconvenience, sometimes, but most everybody looks at it as a very positive thing. Bourne is actually one of the treasures on the Cape because everybody passes through the town, but doesn’t pay any attention to it. So we’re glad about that; we just have to handle all the traffic for the rest of the Cape.”

Ellis also enjoys the scenery. “You can sit down [on the banks] on any given day,” he says, “and watch ocean liners going through and fishing boats. It’s incredible. I’m looking out my window right now and there’s a tugboat going across.”

Despite these attractions, Ellis says the canal had a major impact on his town and he highlighted one earth-shattering event that set things in motion back in 1911. Late that year, canal workers cut through Willow Dam Road in Sagamore village, which at the time effectively served as both a dyke holding back the Scusset River and marshes, and a connection between the community’s north and south sides. After the cut, the water came, and though temporary and permanent bridges were quickly built, the village itself had been split. “What it did,” Ellis says, “it actually divided the community.”

Drilling and cutting through miles of mud, sand, and massive boulders, the builders of the Cape Cod Canal created advantages for years to come for those in the shipping and fishing industries, not to mention recreational boating, cycling, and rollerblading. At the same time, villages of Bourne and Sandwich were forever divided.

Today, a small nibble of Sandwich still exists on the north side of the canal. The area includes Scusset Beach and a residential neighborhood with wonderful water views. A mutual aid agreement exists between Bourne and Sandwich for police, fire, and EMS coverage for the area, but students in the district must drive or bus it over the Sagamore Bridge to get to Sandwich High. Inconvenient? Sure, but at least they don’t have to take the ferry!

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“I think the common thread is a desire to share good ideas with people,” Hunter says. Since 1995, Hunter, who has summered on the Cape all her life, has published 10 children’s books. For these efforts she has received multiple awards, including the Smithsonian Notable Children’s Book of the Year and the National Council of Teachers of English Award. Her latest book, Every Turtle Counts, is about a 7-year-old girl named Mimi who discovers a stranded Kemp’s ridley turtle on a Cape Cod beach. Of the eight sea turtle species, Kemp’s ridleys are the most endangered, hatching on only one or two beaches in the Gulf of Mexico. Although a colorful cast of adult characters pronounces that the turtle is dead in the story, Mimi refuses to give up hope. Her path intersects with Bob Prescott, director of Mass Audubon’s Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary, and she embarks on a heart-warming mission to save the turtle.

Susan Spellman, a New England artist, drew the book’s illustrations. Although this was the duo’s first collaboration, Hunter says Spellman’s drawings complement her prose perfectly. “She is a frequent visitor to Cape Cod and has a real sensitivity to what the beaches are like during the off-season,” says Hunter, who has a home in Centerville by Craigville Beach. “They have a special air and mood, which I think she did a beautiful job of capturing.”

Hunter says she based Every Turtle Counts on two real-life people. Bob Prescott is the actual director of the Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary and he gave Hunter permission to use his name in the story. “Bob is the person who discovered this whole phenomenon,” says Hunter. She relays in great detail the peculiar migratory pattern of young Kemp’s ridleys as they leave the gulf and swim east, then northeast to the fertile waters of Cape Cod Bay.

“When the water temperature drops, the turtles don’t realize they need to go around Provincetown to migrate,” Hunter says. “They get stuck in the hook of Cape Cod, 200 of them at a time, washing ashore between Thanksgiving and New Year’s.” Hunter credits Prescott’s efforts, which over the past 15 years have grown into a state-wide rescue operation, with saving thousands of turtles.

Hunter says the story’s protagonist, Mimi, is also rooted in reality. The character is named after Hunter’s 23-year-old niece, who loves animals and the Cape. And just like the real Mimi—the daughter of Hunter’s younger sister—the fictional one is autistic. “In 1980, one in 10,000 kids were on the autism spectrum,” Hunter says. “Today, the number is one in 88.” Given this prevalence, Hunter believes that teachers and students are well acquainted with kids like Mimi. “It’s okay to do a book where the heroine happens to be on the spectrum,” she says.

A recent review by Kirkus Reviews described Hunter’s portrayal of Mimi’s special needs as “child-friendly and honest,” precisely what the author hoped to achieve. She depicts different aspects of Mimi’s behavior, like her habit of repeating phrases she overhears, without dwelling on her condition. That’s because Every Turtle Counts is first and foremost a rescue-adventure tale about overcoming insurmountable odds. “[Autistic children] have dreams and things they love,” Hunter says. “They can also be the heroes of a story that other kids can love, rather than just being in a story about autism.”

Through promoting Every Turtle Counts, Hunter also hopes to raise awareness for a pressing issue facing autistic individuals and their families. Local governments do an excellent job of funding educational programs for these individuals through age 21, Hunter says. But once they turn 22, the funding stops and families are at a loss for how to help loved ones lead independent and fulfilling lives, while also receiving needed supervision.

To illustrate her point, Hunter describes her niece’s experience. Mimi spent three years at the Riverview School in Sandwich, an international day and boarding school that Hunter praises as a pioneer in the field of special education. After completing her senior year of high school at Riverview, Mimi began the school’s innovative three-year vocational training program. She turned 22 after her first year in the program and, unfortunately, had to withdraw because funding for her education stopped.

Mimi has since moved back home and participates in a state-run day program. “She gets picked up in the van every morning,” Hunter says, “and different corporations in the state will farm out jobs that let
developmentally-challenged adults do mostly manual projects.” On one hand, Hunter says the program is edifying for Mimi because she earns a paycheck and has made friends, but it also leaves a lot to be desired. “It just tugs at your heartstrings that a child who loves doing projects and working with little kids is on an assembly line,” Hunter says. “But the answers are few right now.”

Since her book’s publication, Hunter says one gratifying moment came when Temple Grandin, an animal behavior doctor who is autistic, endorsed the book. In her review, Grandin—a professor of animal science at Colorado State University—did not focus her critique on autism. “She talked about how it’s a great book for kids who will discover the wonders of nature,” Hunter says. “And I thought, ‘bingo!’, that’s what this is all about. Temple and Mimi are about more than their autism.”

Hunter, who splits her time between Centerville and Boston, has a writer’s pedigree; her maternal grandfather, Harold H. Blanchard, was an English professor at Tufts University, while her father’s father, John Hoagland, was the business manager for the entire Christian Science Publishing Society. When Hunter was in the second grade, her grandmother Roberta Blanchard—an artist and writer of craft books—took her to visit writer Louisa May Alcott’s home in Concord. “I saw [Alcott’s] desk by the window and thought, ‘it would be really cool to write children’s books when I grow up’,” she recalls. Hunter says this experience, coupled with inspiration she received reading books by favorite childhood authors like E.B. White and Ruth Sawyer, fueled her desire to become a writer.

Why children’s books? “The purest, simplest childhood truth is what is the most penetrating for all of us,” Hunter says. For the author, Charlotte’s Web was one of her favorite books; she still keeps a copy of the children’s classic, first published in 1952, in her study. “The way E.B. White handles mortality, and goodbyes, and friendship is so pure,” Hunter says. “I aspire to do that in my books.”

Hunter says another influence on her writing came from a correspondence she had with Theodor Seuss Geisel—a.k.a. Dr. Seuss—when she was in middle school. “I sent him an epic nonsense poem called The Zork Saga and he wrote how much he enjoyed it and encouraged me to keep writing.” When Hunter was accepted to Dartmouth College’s first co-educational class back in 1972, she wrote Seuss—a Dartmouth alumnus—and he responded with a letter of congratulations.

Hunter also garners inspiration from her natural surroundings. Growing up in Dover, Massachusetts, the writer-to-be spent every summer on the Cape with her parents and three younger siblings. “Summers on Cape Cod were magical and open-ended,” she says. “There was an element of independence you didn’t have in structured suburbia. You just hopped on your bike and the day was yours.”

Today, Hunter maintains that the region serves as the perfect home for her profession. “There’s something about Cape Cod that is a literary landscape,” she says. “It just makes your heart sing.”

Including Every Turtle Counts, Hunter has written a total of 10 children’s books as well as articles for publications including Harvard Magazine, The Boston Globe, and Cape Cod LIFE. Early in her career, she took on assignments for major studios including Warner Brothers and Jim Henson. She published books like Beauty and the Feast and Miss Piggy’s Night Out, which she describes both as “a lot of fun,” yet limiting in terms of the creative control she was allowed on the projects.

Although friends urged her not to risk the guaranteed income these jobs provided, Hunter decided to pursue stories that had weighed on her mind for a long time. In 1996, she published The Unbreakable Code for Cooper Square Publishing. The story is about the Navajo soldiers from the southwestern United States, whose code helped save the lives of thousands of American soldiers during World War II. Her next book was The Lighthouse Santa, which was published in 2011. The story tells the tale of Edward Rowe Snow (1902-1982), a well-known American author and historian, who famously delivered individually-wrapped presents to children living in 300 lighthouses across New England by dropping the gifts from his twin-engine plane.

“I like to do books about unsung heroes,” Hunter says. For these two books, Hunter committed herself to extensive research, interviewing fascinating figures including Navajo veterans who invented the unbreakable code and women in their 80s who had lived in the lighthouses—and received ‘The Lighthouse Santa’s’ gifts from above. Hunter says she finds the research for these stories both enjoyable and enlightening. The writing, though, is a different story. “It nearly kills me,” Hunter says. “It never gets easier [because] you’re trying to be so trustworthy of the material.”

Despite the challenges inherent in her chosen profession, Hunter says she does not regret her decision to focus on stories that are more personally meaningful to her. “It’s not a risk to go with something that feels right in your gut if it’s a story that keeps nudging you,” she says. “It will come back tenfold. I mean, the Warner Brothers books are out of print and The Unbreakable Code is still going.”

When asked which of her books is her favorite, Hunter does not hesitate, listing her three classic picture books—with a slight edge to Every Turtle Counts. “I care a lot about the fact that the main character is inspired by my niece,” she says, “and it’s set on Cape Cod.”

Eliott Grover, a frequent freelance writer and contributing editor for Cape Cod LIFE Publications, began at the company as an editorial intern in the summer of 2009.

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