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.
I first learned about Sable Island as a 10 year-old city boy from England… watching television alone on a sunny Saturday afternoon… a 1956 CBC documentary about Sable Island.
I had not just left the mainland of Nova Scotia that day, I had left the planet, my earthly tether, my mortal coil. I had finally been to Sable Island, where souls fly free.
Since childhood I have been fascinated by islands. In summer 2018, I had the privilege and honour of visiting an island unlike any other. Sable Island is solitary, sensitive, and sublime in every sense.
Having studied coastal dune geomorphology, how perfect to end up in a place like Sable, an island entirely consisting of dunes, where sand, in wild and weird ways, shapes, and is shaped by, the landscape.
My aunt warned me that if I didn’t behave I’d be shipped off to Sable Island. Years later when I told her I was going to work on the island, she looked at me very seriously and said, “What did you do?”
A winter on Sable Island, working with the Meteorological Service for 3.5 months, from November 2015 to February 2016. The wind seems constant. You wouldn’t think sand moving over sand could be that noisy.
It was too good an opportunity to pass up! One Ocean Tours was advertising an adventure excursion around the Gulf of St Lawrence, but the highlight for us was the opportunity for a trip to Sable Island.
Standing on this island of sand on a cold winter day, experiencing a riot of sensations in a place that stimulates all of one’s senses—sight, sound, touch, smell and taste—all at the same time.
I first visited Sable in 1974 while working for a Calgary based survey-engineering company. One of the company’s clients was Mobil Oil, and I was there to take measurements at Mobil’s West Sable well.
