Sable Island is terra incognita for most Canadians. Recently it was designated a National Park Reserve

All day Roberto Dutesco had been photographing wild horses. Now dusk, it was time to return to camp. Reluctantly, he packed his cameras and set out across the endless dunes.

The renowned New York photographer has worked with supermodels, but this time his subjects were the beautiful wild creatures living on Sable Island, a narrow stretch of sand in the Atlantic Ocean 300 kilometres southeast of Halifax. “I felt like I was the last being in the world,” says Dutesco. “I felt profound humility and fortune to witness all this beauty.”

Sable Island is remote. For centuries settlers tried to tame the island, only to be defeated by its harsh climate and isolation. This part of the North Atlantic endures intense fogs and storms. In wild weather the island’s dimensions (44 kilometres by one kilometre) transform. Dunes drift, reaching 30 metres in places and disappearing in others. Sable is named for the French word for sand. The area has been the site of hundreds of shipwrecks; occasionally one is revealed and submerged again. 

This past decade has seen the growth of scientific research and the nearby development of the largest construction venture ever undertaken in Nova Scotia: the Sable Offshore Energy Project, which extracts natural gas from 5,000 metres below the ocean floor. The natural gas platforms are visible from the island. Run by five partners, the project produces 400 to 500 million cubic feet of natural gas and 20,000 barrels of natural gas liquids a day. 

Scientists working in the area explore subjects as diverse as seismic monitoring, marine litter, dune dynamics, terrain management, and many fields of biological and marine research. The atmosphere is studied for substances, including greenhouse gases, ozone, and fog toxicity. 

Still, Sable is known primarily for wildlife. Surviving here is not easy, but many species of birds and animals do. Most famous are the several hundred wild horses that roam the dunes in family bands. There are also seals and birds, including the rare roseate tern and Ipswich sparrow.

To protect the island, the Canadian government recently designated Sable as a National Park Reserve. It also restricts access to the island through an approval process for scientists, researchers, and artists. Fewer than 250 people a year get to visit, and Dutesco is one of the few permitted to return. He has been back several times since 1994 and is supported in his work by long-term island residents, superintendent Gerry Forbes, and naturalist Zoe Lucas.

Head on head
Dutesco is fascinated by the island’s fragile beauty. “I thought, perhaps if I’m lucky enough, naïve enough, and aware enough, I might be there to capture what is, without any words,” he says in an interview from New York.

When photographing, Dutesco prefers to work alone. Visitors to Sable are not supposed to touch the horses, so he communicates with them by crouching, talking, and gesturing. The horses respond, returning his respectful curiosity. Often they come close. On the last day of his 2007 visit Dutesco, absorbed in his work, stayed out late. Walking back to camp, he wondered whether the animals—thought to be descended from horses imported sometime after 1738—would continue to thrive in such a harsh environment. His path took him over a dry lake. In the darkness, he stepped off the trail and was surprised to find himself in quicksand. 

“It gave me an idea of what the island may have been to the people who perished in storms,” says Dutesco. “Finally I got out, and walking back to camp I was enclosed by a band of horses. I could only see their shadows, not their eyes. There was just a bit of luminosity from the sky. One came close and I could feel the mist from his breath. He put his head on my head and stayed there while the others stood around. I felt as if they were telling me that they would be all right.”

The horses continue to inspire Dutesco and others. He and his work have been the subject of a documentary produced by Halifax-based Arcadia Entertainment called Chasing Wild Horses. His exhibition “The Wild Horses of Sable Island” is so popular it has been showing at the New York gallery he operates with art dealer Peter Tunney for three years. The gallery is at street level and the rough manes, powerful bodies, and soulful eyes of the horses draw people in. “Many are mesmerized, silent,” says Dutesco. “Most people will never see Sable Island, but for now it exists in a gallery off Crosby Street—a place that is the opposite of Sable Island.” 

The face of the intruder
While Dutesco finds beauty in Sable’s horses, researcher Kat Dillon finds magic in the island’s birds—specifically the terns that nest on the sand by the thousands. Dillon studies three species of tern: common, Arctic, and roseate. Roseates are endangered, and researchers were recently delighted to discover five nesting roseate pairs. Last year, only two pairs were found.

Dillon enjoys her work, even though the birds fiercely object to being studied. “Terns are fabulously obnoxious seabirds. They’re fearless when it comes to defending their colony and will eagerly attack if intruders come too close. Along with the daring strike of a pointy beak, terns will purposely and quite successfully defecate at will. What seems to be the target of choice is the head and, if lucky, the face of the intruder. It’s marvelous, grossly and ridiculously marvelous.”

Dillon has been doing work on Sable for over 10 years. She arrives at the end of May, as nesting begins. The terns call Sable home two to three months of the year while they breed.  She focuses on the roseates and attempts to discover why they choose Sable and how they relate to the larger colony. When the terns start hatching, her observations will include parenting behaviour, what the chicks eat, what’s preying on them (probably seagulls), and what is stressing them or not.

Dillon, who is completing her master’s degree at Saint Mary’s University in Halifax, says her research may lead to helping terns elsewhere too. “Sable has one of the largest communal breeding colonies of terns in the Maritimes. Determining the health of these colonies is important to sustaining and possibly restoring the population of roseate terns around the world.” 

Dillon is the right woman for the job, and not just because she doesn’t mind being covered with guano, says Rick Welsford, the executive director of the Sable Island Preservation Trust, the non-profit society that helps preserve and protect the island and its ecosystem. “Kat has got that eye—she can pick out the varying colours on the terns’ beaks,” he says. “She can hear the difference in their calling; most people can’t.” 

Welsford, who joined the Trust four years ago after a career in lighthouse preservation, has visited Sable twice in as many years. His first voyage was aboard a schooner that sailed from the historic seafaring town of Lunenburg on Nova Scotia’s South Shore. “We arrived at 2 a.m.,” he says. “There was a full moon and a clear sky. I could see the two remaining lighthouses and the flames coming out of the tops of the two nearby natural gas platforms. I was awestruck.” 

Both the Sable Offshore Energy Project and the Sable Trust have been operating for 12 years. Welsford says the energy industry is an enthusiastic supporter of the Trust’s conservation work. All agree that Sable is important to Nova Scotians, and there is huge interest in the island even though so few people are allowed to visit. Live video feed via satellite has been proposed as a way of furthering research and allowing public involvement. “It would enable researchers to monitor activity on the island without high overheads or regularly impacting wildlife,” says Welsford. “We’d be able to bring Sable to people without taking them there.”

Superintendent Forbes agrees that it’s important to support the work undertaken on Sable while reducing the human footprint as much as possible. Once or twice a year, the Coast Guard delivers heavy or bulky supplies to the government station. Regular supplies are delivered by aircraft; more than 80 aircraft land annually. The island’s three dozen buildings include staff residences, visitors’ quarters, vehicle-maintenance garages, power generation buildings, workshops, laboratories, a grocery store, and a water-treatment station. 

There has been a small human presence on Sable since 1801 when the colonial government, appalled by the loss of life in numerous shipwrecks, founded a lifesaving station. Recently the Trust republished Sable Island Journals, by James R. Morris, the island’s first superintendent; Morris lived on the island from 1801 to 1804. The book gives a clear picture of Morris’ struggle to survive on Sable. Welsford plans to donate a copy to every school, library, and research centre in the province. The trust also recently sponsored musician Scott MacMillan to compose a classical music suite called “The Currents of Sable Island.”

Sable’s remote splendour speaks to many. Dutesco thinks it’s because beauty triggers emotions. “When we’re surrounded by beauty, our deeper feelings come to the surface,” he says. “With that, perhaps a better world will come about.” 

Dutesco has taken his exhibit on the road, with shows in both New York City and Washington. He would especially like it to get to Nova Scotia. “I’d love the pictures to be on the streets of Halifax, not necessarily in a gallery or a museum,” he says. “People deserve to look toward the horizon and know that Sable Island is just a short flight away—yet unreachable, untouchable, and unhindered by human hands.”