An Island of Wild Horses – Karen Mulhallen, 2018

One day someone said something about an island of horses, an island of wild horses. I might have been five or six, but after that I waited and I waited, and eventually the name of the island appeared.

I grew up in a country town in rural Ontario and that meant that the connection between town and country was a permeable membrane. Horses came down the street where we lived pulling wagons of milk. In winter their snorts and exhalations were part of the wintry landscape of the street and of my life. Friends of my parents had cutters, lovely horse drawn sleds which they drove around the fair grounds in winter and in summer there were horse races of one sort or another, primarily the trots.

One day someone said something about an island of horses, an island of wild horses. I might have been five or six, but after that I waited and I waited and eventually Diefenbaker was elected Prime Minister of Canada and eventually the name of the island appeared.

And so the dream grew, an island of wild horses, Sable Island. It all began with the milk wagons from Silverwoods Dairy, and with Mrs Effie Nesbitt’s glamorous sleigh drawn by horses around the Woodstock, Ontario, fairgrounds in winter, but it continued, and the mind grew and with it a dream of wild horses, Sable Island.

Somewhere in the long trajectory of time there was a film, A Dream of Wild Horses. And so the imaginings and the dream grow, and they grow in different ways. I began to plan a horse trek through Mongolia and took riding lessons. I went swimming on horseback, bareback in fact, holding onto the reins, in the Caribbean Sea, off the coast of Belize. More and more my life and my writing took to horseback.

Time to go, time to go to Sable Island.

It’s been more than a decade since I finally came to Sable Island. I wrote and published a book, Sea Horses, a book of poetry and prose which was an attempt to engage with the ineffable beauty of this place, its hauntings, its creatures, its raw and unmediated beauty.

I still wake in the night, or in the hours just at dawn, and I remember what it was like, what it was like to sit on a dune and look out over the sea, what it was like to have horses nuzzle me from each side, and from the rear—no escape. What it was like to feel the wind and to follow a horse track somewhere, over there, somewhere where sand and seal and horse and sea and sky meet.

Karen Mulhallen
Prepared for the Sable Island Institute, June 2018

Sandra Barry’s review of “Sea Horses“, Karen Mulhallen’s book of poetry and prose based on her two-week stay on Sable Island in 2005.

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The Beginning of a Memorable Partnership – Bob Dykes, 2017

In 1971, Bob Dykes flew to Sable Island to meet Henry James and his research team conducting behavioural studies of the island’s Harbour Seal population. Bob worked with the crew as they collected data on seals who were crossing the wide and featureless Sandy Plain, and spent lively evenings in the Aframe (a field camp constructed by the James Gang) discussing data and theories of animal navigation.

David Millar, 1967-1969

In May 1967, David Millar, fresh out of training in Toronto and Ottawa, arrived at his first posting, Sable Island. Outside of work at the weather station, David took an interest in the island’s environment and spent a lot of time walking and exploring, and developed two hobbies which he still enjoys – bird watching and photography. During his two summers, David occasionally assisted Dalhousie University’s Ian McLaren and his students in their studies of the Ipswich Sparrow.

Full Circle

In December 1963, Gordon LeBlanc began a one-year posting on Sable Island as a meteorological technician with MSC’s aerology program. The work was largely routine, with twice-daily launches of the upper air balloon and making detailed observations and measurements around the clock. On work days, there was little time to explore the island, so on a day off, station personnel might pack a sandwich and go for a long walk, or in the spring and summer ride their dependable horses, Rawin and Trigger.

Merlin MacAulay 1955-1956

In May 1955, after completing the 16-week course at the Upper Air Training School in Toronto, and then serving a few months in Sept-Îles, Quebec, Merlin MacAulay travelled to Sable Island on the government ship Lady Laurier to work as an upper air technician for the MSC. During Merlin’s stay, Fred Davis and a National Film Board of Canada crew visited to made a short documentary about Sable Island.

Win Trips to Sable Island with Kattuk Expeditions, 2023

A Sable Island Institute fundraising raffle for seats on a helicopter day-trip to Sable Island in early October 2023.

Now, it is about so much more – Lauren Hughes, February 2023

As we walked the network of horse trails… I was captivated by beetles, spiders, and the tiny sweat bee – newly recognizing the critical role that all of these creatures play in the island’s ecosystem.