A sandy beach is a place where people love to visit, click pictures and spend quality time. Think you are being sent to a sandy land, covered by ocean giving you a vacation vibe. But unlike beaches, this land has no connection with any mainland, has no vegetation or the people, in fact, the land has a lot of history which still is a mystery. An Island named Sable Island is what we were talking about. Let's find out the real mystery regarding this Island.
Sable Island is a little sandy land amidst the sea that is being kissed by sea waves and has no connection with humans. To some people, it may sound paradise but for some, it is no less of a haunted place. The segmented traces of land in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean has a great story to tell.
The Island evokes a sense of curiosity in sailors as it is not very fond of sailors. The island tends to keep its secrets intact within itself by restricting any alien invasion which makes this island a mysterious place.
The Sable Island is a splinter of sand stretched out nearly 110 miles off Nova Scotia’s coastline in the Atlantic Ocean. It is 28 miles long that is half-moon shaped. Though the appearance looks tempting, the location of this island has a peculiar history that is very disturbing and would leave the readers in awe.
This landmass tends to change its shape, therefore, it takes a long time to take on the task of mapping Sable Island. This fact was recorded in 2014 when the CBC report noted that sand had started disappearing from the island’s west end and accumulating instead at its eastern side.
The reason why this shapeshifting occurs is because of the ocean that can easily erode and move dunes, so the landmass’ topography never remains consistent. Sable Island hence is known to be "shape-shifter" and its center moves across the Atlantic and this nature turned out to be deadly for many ships and the sailors.
Not every ship that sails to this island has to face such atrocities. Some lucky ones successfully traversed the seas and docked at Sable Island without incident. Although there is nothing to explore as such, seafarers find this place to be a jackpot as they get to see a landmass in the middle of an ocean.
Around the year 1520, a Portuguese explorer named João Álvares Fagundes is believed to have made landfall in the Sable Island. After his North American exploration, some Portuguese maps commissioned to identify an island off of Nova Scotia as Fagunda, which is the former name of Sable Island.
This land has a sinful history as well that involves historical figures. In 1578, Marquis de la Roche became Governor of New France and his territory stretched from Newfoundland to the Hudson Bay and the Gulf of Mexico. This politician decided to use Sable Island for certain unpleasant purposes.
Marquis de la Roche brought convicts along with him to settle in New France but they refused to settle there and the group revolted against their leaders. Marquis then devised a plan according to which, he sent convicts to the barren Sable Island with no trees. The convicts did not get back from there instead started using mud and shipwrecked timber to build dwellings and managed to live there.
Even after convicts’ island tenancy, Sable brought another facet. Many other sailors suffered a lot while reaching the location. A total of 350 ships are believed to have sunk in the silence of the ocean that surrounds the Sable Island.
The geography of Sable Island makes such lethal incidents more likely to happen. The shape-shifting island has a plethora of sand surrounding it that creates an offshore bar or sandbar. The waves play a major role in it as the waves move back and forth from the coastline carrying sand along with them.
The sandbars result in being devastating to ships as they usually hide beneath the surface of waves and sailors mistake it for the water. The ship wouldn’t necessarily slow down or steer clear of an ensconced sandbar which turns out to be deadly for the sailors sailing the ship.
Sable Island is in the middle of two different flows of water which makes the condition even making conditions traitorous for the sailors. While the Labrador Current escorts chilly water into the area, the Gulf Stream wraps a warm stream toward the island. Due to this reason, fog can quickly appear in the area.
The ships leading towards Sable Island have to conquer with its surrounding gyres to reach the destination. These dangerous currents create a vortex that can pull ships toward the landmass which is a more dangerous territory than the air current itself.
In 2015, during an interview with BBC, Jonathan Sheppard who is the park manager of Sable Island stated that “I’ve read old sailors’ chronicles about being sucked into the island. That’s not so far from the truth.”
Sable Island’s surrounding waters are supposedly choked with around 350 shipwrecks. In 1583, an English ship named "Delight" experienced the first shipwreck and it sank to a depth of 10 meters taking along 85 men. Only 17 men were rescued since they got on the lifeboat at the right time.
After 200 years later after the first shipwreck, a ship traveling to Prince Edward Island crashed into the Sable Island. The fortunate crew members who managed to survive marooned the Island in the freezing winter season.
Sable Island, after two major shipwrecks, outfitted with a pair of lighthouses that have helped to ease down the number of shipwrecks due to air current and hidden sandbars. The placement of the lighthouse boasted the confidence of sailors and this encouraged them to sail to this uneasy land.
Even after the presence of the lighthouse, a major shipwreck again happened. The Manhasset was the last major vessel wrecked on Sable Island. The incident took place in 1947 and 12 of the crew members somehow landed in a ship's lifeboat, out of which only 9 strived to survive.
The landscape of Sable is as merciless as the water surrounding it. No variety of trees can naturally grow on this sandy mass of land. An effort made by the Canadian government in 1901 turned out to be futile as well.
In 1901, the Canadian government came up with an idea that includes artificial plantation. The government started a massive tree-planting effort, every single one of the 80,000 saplings failed which made the environmentalist a bit anxious regarding the future of the inhabitants of Sable Island.
The single Scots pine planted in the 1960s survives today. It has a few feet height with root and is the sole stunted specimen found in this sandy land. Along with that, the land is blanketed with Marram grass which appears only after dunes strived to survive there.
After many shipwrecks, shape-shifting, and failed vegetation the proximity of sustaining life there is zero. But, somehow, there is a presence of wildlife cherishing there without any human invasion. Only a few animals could adapt to the scorching conditions of this island hence succeded in the attempt of surviving.
Wildlife has managed to survive on and around Sable Island’s shores that are constantly shifting. Initially, 18 species of shark used to swim in the water surrounding the outcrop. This outcrop serves as a habitat for two different varieties of seals namely harbor seal and grey seal. It is often regarded as the "breeding ground" for most of the species surrounding the Island.
According to an estimation done between 2003 and 2004, about 50,000 seal pups were born on the island during the breeding season. This indicates that the seals have had much more luck on Sable Island than the walruses that used to live there.
An intervention could either elevate a condition or make it more dilapidated. The second option turned out to be true in the case of a sable island. The number of mammals experienced a demise when they were exposed to human intervention. The hunters knocked many walrus down which caused the area’s walrus population to go extinct.
Wild Horse is the only species that most successfully managed to survive on the shape-shifting land. These equine creatures are the representative of life on the Island as they are relatively high in number. The horses are the symbol of freedom and the Island itself adhere to the properties of being free.
A sheer drop in numbers of the horse species could be seen. According to a 2016 report, for instance, it was estimated that more than 550 horses roamed the island. Yet this number has since dropped to 500 – at least according to a study that started in 2017 and concluded in 2018.
The wild horses initially were brought to this sandy land in the 19th century. To be precise, wild horses were first left behind by the descended from French colonists, the Acadian people. The people living there were forced to leave the Island due to the British Forces and many natives fled without their animals.
Thomas Hancock who's the uncle of one of the authors of the U.S. Constitution, John Hancock, gathered the horses together and transferred them to Sable Island. His basic idea was to keep his animals alive until he could sell them, but, before his selling process, the animals could not hold much and were dead as the conditions did not suit most of the creatures.
In the 1800s, the men who stationed on the island used the animals to patrol the area or to pull lifeboats. This happened nearly for a century after which these equines were taken away and sold for use in Canadian coal mines. Luckily, in 1960, the government took the matter in their hands preventing the further removal of the horses.
Though the government tried to prevent the number of horses from dropping down, experts noticed a strange dip in the population of these wild horses. And after further investigation, it transpired that the horses had started disappearing for a multitude of unpalatable reasons.
The scientists managed to collect data on their dwindling numbers. The last time that veterinary experts had observed the animals was supposedly in the 1970s which acted as a foundation for further research work. Shuffling the old records and research papers, new reasons were given regarding the decreasing number of wildlife.
Based on the previous research, Emily Jenkins who is a veterinarian and parasitologist on the latest research team said that this lack of knowledge left her and the others with only a meager foundation to base their research work upon.
Jenkins, in an interview, told CBC back in March 2019, “There was very, very little that we knew about why horses would die on the island.” She emphasized on the governmental "red tape" program, protecting the animals as it was difficult for Jenkins and the other researchers to gather samples from them for analysis.
The research team comprised of experts from the University of Saskatchewan and Parks Canada. The team came up with a solution according to which they braved the dangerous trip to Sable Island and searched for deceased horses instead. The group returned to the mainland to perform necropsies on a horse and examined the animals’ bones and organs.
In 2017, Jenkins reached Sable Island and hoped she’d find at least a few horse carcasses. As per their expectations, the research team had plenty of samples to collect. Jenkins told The StarPhoenix that they found 30 viable sets of remains and left behind further 20 as they could not use or safely access them.
The team found that around 50 carcasses showed Sable Island’s horse population was under significant pressure. In that regard, Jenkins told CBC, "the year following their initial visit, they had only found five equine carcasses on the island. The 50 dead horses spotted in 2017 represented 10 percent of the island’s entire population of the feral animals."
After analyzing the 30 sets of remains, Jenkins and the rest of the research team drew a handful of conclusions about why so many Sable Island horses had died. Jenkins, in an interview with The StarPhoenix, revealed, “The main finding was emaciation or starvation and hypothermia – especially for the young horses.”
Jenkins added, “All of the young horses we looked at were basically out of reserves. They had nothing left; they were emaciated.” This meant yearlings were not able to put on enough body fat to make it through the winter which ultimately led them to taste death. Under her observation, foals were being nursed so that they could have a better chance of survival, as they were receiving crucial extra nutrition.
Jenkins also explained that adult horses were more important in the species’ social hierarchy. If a fully grown horse had passed away, then, it would typically appear to be in better shape than the younger animals that had also deceased. Therefore starvation wasn’t typically the only cause of death for the mature horses.
Sable Island tends to be covered with verdant green during summers and remains typically free of vegetation during winters. Upon seeing images of lush grasses covering the area in July and August, Jenkins was perplexed. She later recalled, “I’m like, ‘Did you guys Photoshop this?’ Because it’s green, totally green. And when I go out, it is brown. There is not a scrap of vegetation.”
In 2017, the researchers realized that malnutrition was not only the sole reason for the death. The beachy surrounding was equally responsible to a great extent for the damage caused on creatures’ bodies. Tiny grains of sand constantly wore down the animals’ teeth, for instance, as they ingested these along with the island’s grasses.
With the absence of strong teeth, Sable Island’s horses couldn’t chew their food, which is grass, properly. This ultimately prevented them from getting enough nutrients from the vegetation that they grazed upon and eating sand proved a menace to the horses’ health in another way and can cause blockages in the animals’ intestines.
Jenkins in The StarPhoenix, described the damaged organs in more detail. She said, “In several horses that we looked at, there was quite a lot of sand. We were picking up the intestines and the stomach and saying, ‘These weigh a ton,’ because there was, in many cases, more sand than plant content.”
The small Sable Island horses tended to have extremely high amounts of parasitic worms. There were apparently about 1,500 eggs contained in just a gram of their fecal matter. Jenkins said, “I just about fell over because we call a high fecal egg count in a domestic horse 500 eggs per gram.”
Jenkins told CBC that a normal equine creature probably could not survive with so many parasites and added, “I think if our domestic horses had fecal egg counts as high as the Sable horses, they would just drop dead,” As a result, the Sable Island horses could potentially help veterinarians who are continuing to fight domestic horses’ resistance to anti-parasite medications.
The researchers couldn’t establish the sole reason for the fatalities of the 50 Sable Island horses found in 2017. Indeed, it appeared that most had suffered from more than one fatal hardship. But by 2018, the death rate had dropped from 10 percent of the population back to 1 percent.
Jenkins told the CBC, “I just couldn’t get over the fact that they were eking out this existence on a sandbar in the middle of the Atlantic. I’ve just total respect for how tough they are.” She feels pity for the resilient creatures that she had studied on Sable Island and designate the Island as an unwelcoming and unforgiving land.