Nova Scotia Loves Gus

Who is Gus, and why does Nova Scotia love him?

Gus is an amazing 100-year-old gopher tortoise who was purchased from a reptile farm in Florida for $5.00 and brought to the Nova Scotia Museum of Natural History in the early 1940’s. Since then, he has been petted, fed, washed, drawn and celebrated by generations of museum-goers.

Children from Halifax especially love to come to the museum to see Gus.

Sometimes they find him wandering the floor between the museum displays.

Other times children watch Gus eating his lunch. There is nothing quite like

watching Gus eat a banana.

The book instructs readers on what comprises the tortoise’s diet, how he is bathed, and how he is taken for semi-annual checkups by a veterinarian. There is also a little lesson about how ideas about animal care have changed in the last decades.

Over the years Gus’s shell has become very shiny from all

the visitors petting him.

Now we enjoy Gus without touching his shell.

Gus is clearly a much-loved feature of a visit to this Halifax institution.

Every August the Museum of Natural history celebrates Gus’s

birthday, or “Hatchday”…

Gus receives a lot of letters from children.

Halifax sports teams have given him jerseys.

Gus is also a media star. He has been on television, on the front of

newspapers and all over social media.

The last page of the book elaborates on the details of how Gus came to be at the museum, his life there, and his importance as an educational exhibit. It also includes a photograph of the real Gus, still going strong, if slowly, at the age of 102.

Groenendyk is a Nova Scotia writer and painter with a number of picture books to her name (Snow for Christmas; Truck! www.cmreviews.ca/node/3358). Her straightforward but playful telling of Gus’s story emphasizes how this one simple acquisition has engaged a whole population over decades. The accompanying illustrations show Gus in all his warty splendor surrounded by the children and adults who have come to see him again and again, along with the staff members who have worked in many capacities to keep him alive and healthy. The human figures are drawn simply, with strong black outlines and bright colours. Use of varying angles of perspective and scenes that feature, varyingly, closeups (Gus hatching from his egg) and long shots (Gus plodding along the museum floor in front of a wall of pictures and realia) make for interest when looking through the book.

This publication is undoubtedly a big seller at the museum gift shop (although there is no indication that it was commissioned for that purpose). However, even children who will never have the opportunity to travel to Halifax to meet the real Gus will enjoy this unusual story.