Picture this: You are up before the rest of the house stirs. You pull on some clothes, grab your journal and noiselessly slip outside. This is what the fresh air that your mother always wanted you to get feels like. Except for the pink-hued sand that squeaks in anticipation as you make your way to North Beach, all is quiet. In 10 minutes, you're settled in your usual “thinking spot,” sneakers off, sand between your toes. You sense you are not alone. You nod your head in acknowledgment toward a handful of Harbour seals about five metres away. Seemingly indifferent, like you, they are soaking up the morning sun. You laugh at a particularly ingenious seal, his usually lumbering body nestled crossways in a sandy groove, the sand displaced by the wide tires of the off-road vehicle the day before, his head resting against the furrow's slope as if it's a pillow.
Harbour seals attract Great Whites and other sharks to the Sable Island waters.— Wendy Kitts for The Globe and Mail
You notice the azure sky. Was that tone of blue hiding behind the pea-soup fog of yesterday as you explored South Beach? You smile as you remember the band of wild horses that bore down upon you, full-gallop, chased by a stallion from another band as you searched for a spot from which you could both watch safely, and unobtrusively. You held your breath as they suddenly came to a stop, convinced you were the cause when unbeknownst to you a second stallion high atop the dune behind you, was challenging them. Breaking from the pack, the band's stallion and a chestnut male, with a splash of white on his otherwise ginger-coloured face, came so close that you felt the chestnut's hot breath on your cheek. While lost in his gentle brown eyes, the rest of the band quietly skulked by, heads down, as if trying to make themselves as invisible as you, and you remembered a line from the Sable Island Visitor's Guide: “Wildlife has the right-of-way.”
But today under a clear sky, you do a salute to the sun. Your daybreak comrades rouse somewhat inquisitively, responding with their own favourite yoga poses – cobra…boat – keeping time with the rhythmic soundtrack of the ever-pounding surf. You write in your journal that you will never forget your time on Sable Island; that moments like these will become touchstones of tranquillity when life on the mainland becomes too overwhelming. But for now, like your blithe companions, there is nowhere you have to be, and you let that realization, deliciously and leisurely, wash over you.
No Day at the Beach
Seeing Sable Island – which the federal government announced this week will become a national park – is no easy feat. Less than 100 people each year are granted permission to visit this fragile, protected ecosystem, 300 kilometres east-southeast of Halifax. Travelling to this breathtaking isle of sand is not recommended to anyone on a tight schedule – or any schedule at all: Set in the wild North Atlantic, travel delays due to weather are the norm. (Sable Island is the foggiest place in the Maritimes, receiving up to 127 days of fog annually.) And because you can only get there by chartering a plane, helicopter or boat, delays can be costly.
In the past 30 years, 10 of the 14 cruise ships that have attempted to visit Sable Island were turned away because of the weather. Air travel is always a risk, as much for the fog, as having a suitable place to land. The 1 ½-by-42 kilometre island lies directly in the pathway of most of the storms that track up the Atlantic coast, and with three opposing currents constantly hammering its shores, Sable's “runway” – basically a firm spot on the beach – can easily wash out.
