Why ponds are important in Crow Lake by Mary Lawson Crow Lake is the first novel by Canadian author Mary Lawson, narrated by Kate Morrison, the second daughter of the Morrison family . A serious car accident has left seven-year-old Kate, her one-and-a-half-year-old sister Bo, and her two older brothers, Luke and Matt, orphans. Rather than live with relatives separately, they chose to live together and grow up. Luke and Matt have made many sacrifices to support their family and have also received a lot of help from their community. The story is set in Crow Lake, a remote small farming community in northern Ontario. During Kate's childhood, she and Matt often visited the ponds near their home. There are many descriptions of ponds in the novel, which are closely related to the theme of the story. The ponds represent childhood and hometown in Kate's mind, help Kate decide on her career, and are vital links between Kate and Matt. First, the ponds are filled with Kate's memories of childhood and hometown. They are Kate's favorite places before she grew up. In the prologue, Kate stated that “there is no image of my childhood that I carry with me more clearly than this” (Lawson, p.4). Kate remembers her first trip to the backwaters. “I was so small that he had to carry me on his shoulders through the woods with the lush growth of poison ivy, along the tracks, past the dusty boxcars lined up to receive their loads of sugar beets, down the steep sandy path to the ponds themselves” (Lawson, p.4). From riding on Matt's shoulders to following him to the ponds, they spent “hundreds of hours” there (Lawson, p.5). Kate has vivid and sweet memories of her time in the ponds.