Animal Planet

Our helicopter from Halifax Airport had been in the air for more than an hour, sandwiched between nothing but brilliant blue sky and the choppy waves of the North Atlantic, when — just like that — a grassy sliver of an island appeared like a nautical mirage. Sable Island is a mere smudge on a map, less than a mile wide and perched on the edge of the continental shelf, about 170 miles from the Nova Scotia coast. It seemed inconceivable it should exist, let alone support life. Yet there it was, in the shape of a crescent, smiling up at us like a welcoming host.

Two wild chestnut-colored horses munched on beach grass and barely clocked our arrival as the rotor blades slowed. Such is this utopia, free of predators and abundant with wildlife. Anywhere from 300 to 500 wild horses call Sable, a Canadian national park reserve, home. Yet few people get to see them — only about 300 a year, one for every horse — owing to the cost and difficulty of getting here by helicopter, small plane, or the occasional expedition ship. (My arrival was arranged through Muir, a luxury hotel on the waterfront in Halifax, and tour company Kattuk Expeditions.)

To many Canadians, Sable is an almost mythical place, where domestic animals were abandoned (see sidebar) by English colonists hundreds of years ago and forced to survive. The island’s other claim to fame is as “the Graveyard of the Atlantic” for the hundreds of old steamers and tall schooners sunk by its fog and shifting sands — a place learned about in school, but not on anyone’s radar to visit. Indeed, the most common question I fielded about the trip was, “You can actually go there?”

Also: “What’s out there?” What I witnessed in July 2024 was miles and miles of fiercely protected beauty: long, white stretches of sand rising into grass-covered dunes, dotted with wild pink roses and junipers. Freshwater ponds serve as the resident water supply. Sable’s wildlife ebbs and flows: In the winter months, it houses the world’s largest breeding colony of gray seals, estimated at more than 300,000 (the population of a midsize city!). Each patch of sand around the island is covered with lunging and posturing charcoal-colored bulls, moaning and hissing for female attention. In the summer, the black and gray throngs spread out; every 10 feet, a seal mom nurses a fluffy white pup, snarling and hissing to keep the bulls away.

Likewise, Sable’s bird population changes with the seasons, as more than 350 species of migratory birds move through each year — Arctic terns, plovers, and the Ipswich sparrow, weighing in at half an ounce, an at-risk species that breeds only on this island.

Unlike other island wildlife sanctuaries, Sable isn’t managed by man. Only one naturalist stays for half the year, and a handful of researchers and park rangers rotate in and out to monitor — but never live — at “the Station.” With no hotels, campsites, or private residences, no daily tours or interference, it’s the ideal place to study the natural environment.

“It’s the way the world is supposed to be in a sense,” says Fred Stillman, owner of Kattuk Expeditions, “untouched, with no cell service, no sounds other than your own, and probably the longest stretch of beach on the eastern side of the country.”

After we touched down, we hopped in a Polaris Ranger cruising across the sand until we were close to the Station. (The usual landing spot had been taken over by some nesting birds.) Then we set off on foot. Trekking through seagrass flattened by horses, our guide Garry Donaldson, a Canadian Wildlife Service biologist and ornithologist, led us to several freshwater ponds, where more than two dozen horses congregated, a few still holding on to what remained of their shaggy, caramel-colored winter coats. They gathered in family bands, with a dominant stallion surrounded by his mares and the occasional foal teetering around on spindly legs. Unbothered by our presence, they grazed on beach grass and kelp, and played in the water as our group of eight chatted quietly and watched.

We made our way down to the beach, catching sight of nesting sparrows, and passing an old wooden lighthouse before crossing in a gap between the high dunes to a wide swath of beach. Looking out across the cerulean waters of the Atlantic, it struck me that there was nothing more than waves between the tiny shifting sandbar I was standing on and the coast of Portugal. Sable’s clear blue waters were inviting, particularly on this warm day, but it’s not a place to swim, with rip currents and sharks feeding offshore. Leave that to the hordes of white spotted seals fanning out down the beach, sunning themselves with their pups, or frolicking in the waves close to shore, eyeing you from the water like the Selkies of legend.

After stopping back at the main Station house for a chat and picnic lunch with Zoe Lucas, the naturalist allowed to stay on the island for seven-month stretches, we learned more about Sable’s history starting with the early wireless operators who lived here and fielded ships’ distress signals. Then, as the use of radar reduced the threat of wrecking, Sable was inhabited by a small meteorological team collecting weather and climate data until 2019. Today, the primary research revolves around Sable’s unique flora and fauna, and how this remote oasis is being affected by the throwaway lifestyle of modern man, even populations continents away.

The Origin of Sable’s Iconic Horses
Sable’s horses are transplants, believed to have been brought here in 1737 by Andrew LeMercier, a Boston minister who asserted that a settlement on the island would benefit the survivors of barques and schooners that regularly wrecked on Sable’s sandbars.

Almost two decades later during the French and Indian War, Boston merchant Thomas Hancock — uncle to founding father John Hancock — rounded up the horses of Nova Scotia’s Acadian residents and dropped them on the island after the Acadians were deported to the colonies, according to Parks Canada.

Sheep, pigs, goats, and cows were also brought to the island by Hancock. However, only the horses survived, with their woolly winter coats protecting them during the harsh cold months. Over the years there were many attempts to crossbreed them before the practice was outlawed in 1961, leading to today’s hands-off approach.

Still, owing to this diversity, the population of Sable Island’s wild horses is now genetically distinct from other horse breeds and adapted to life on the island, though probably closest in type to Icelandic horses.

Sadly, even here in the remote North Atlantic, the detritus of the planet isn’t avoidable. On the beach we saw glass bottles washing ashore, the occasional detergent or soda bottle buried in the sand, and other refuse that had arrived on the waves from as far away as Egypt or China.

Lucas, the subject of the 2022 Sable Island documentary Geographies of Solitude, has lived and worked on the island for more than 40 years, studying its wildlife and weather and more recently, the load of microplastics washing up on its shore. Lucas tracks not only the volume of chip bags and plastic water bottles arriving here, but the brands and where these pieces of garbage hail from, in the hope that this research will aid in developing regulation that protects Sable and the Maritime Provinces. 

The walrus tusks displayed at the Station — from before they were hunted to extinction here in the 18th century — were a reminder of how quickly Sable’s wildlife could all go away if left unprotected. That’s why Lucas still encourages people to see Sable if they can.

“The more people who can connect with nature, the better,” she says. “They will go home and talk about Sable and care more about what’s happening here. Visitors can be advocates.”

The Muir hotel recently partnered with Kattuk to offer a full-day tour of the island, with a round-trip helicopter ride, a boxed picnic lunch, and a talk with naturalist Zoe Lucas of the Sable Island Institute. The cost is $3,550 on top of the hotel stay, with a small portion of that going to the Institute for conservation efforts.

Planning your trip to Sable well ahead of time is vital, with many of Kattuk’s slots booked up in January. Peak time to visit is August through early October, when the weather is warmer and the fog isn’t too thick. While winters here get cold, Sable’s temperature is warmer than the mainland’s, due to the water surrounding it.

Important to note: Stillman recommends reserving at least three nights at your Halifax hotel, as sometimes a flight might be delayed by fog or wind, as it was in our case.

Melinda Fulmer is a lifestyle writer and editor with travel, food, health, and wellness bylines in the Wall Street Journal, the L.A. Times, the Washington Post, Afar, Time, AAA, Robb Report, BBC, and other major media channels. Follow her adventures on Instagram @melindafulmer.