Sable Island
Tales of Tragedy and Survival from the Graveyard of the Atlantic
AUTHOR: Johanna Bertin
FORMAT: 5.5 x 8.5 pb / 144 pages
ISBN-10: 1-55439-010-9
ISBN-13: 978-155439-010-6
Sable Island has indelibly marked all who have come into contact with it by accident or by choice. Since 1583, 350 ships have wrecked against its shape-shifting shores as if lured into a trap by a whispering siren wind. This exciting collection casts explorers, castaways, pirates, settlers, and the quintessential symbols of survival the Sable Island horses in tales of death, destruction, and endurance. Set on the isolated island of fog-shrouded sand dunes, these true accounts are tragic and inspiring.
Prologue
In 1845, the American ship Eagle struck the south shore of Sable Island, Nova Scotia, with such force that her hull drove deep into the sand, her mast broke, and her deckhouse shattered. She listed to port, beached like a whale at the waterline.
The Eagle carried 100 tons of bar copper from the Newfoundland mines at Twillingate. The weight of the cargo held the ship stationary, and over the next four years she mired deeper into the sand until only her timberheads were visible at low tide on a calm day. Then one winter, she disappeared entirely, entombed beneath the sand.
In March 1860, the Eagle appeared again. Thirteen-year-old James Farquahar, son of the keeper of the East End Station, had risen early, eager to see what the waves had driven onto the beach during the southeast gale of the evening before. James had lived on Sable Island for 11 years, and had heard the tales of ships that had gone down in the storms, of ships that had been driven up on the beach. But here was a ship resurfaced.
Not only was the Eagle visible, but the current and the waves had changed the sand bed and undermined the wreck, so that she had righted and then tipped onto her starboard side. The paint on her port side was fresh and did not look as if it had been submerged under sand and saltwater for 15 years. James peered into the shipıs hold. The copper was still there, oxidized a dull green.
With the next storm, the Eagle disappeared beneath the sand and water once again.
About the Author
Johanna Bertin lives in Smithfield, New Brunswick. She has been entranced with Sable Island since she was a young girl, and researching this book was a labour of love that served only to increase her fascination with the island, and the people and horses that call it home. She is the author of two other books: Strange Events: Incredible Canadian Monsters, Curses, Ghosts and Other Tales, and Strange Events and More: Canadian Giants, Witches, Wizards, and Other Tales, both through Altitude Publishing. She is presently researching her fourth book Strange Events of the East Coast.
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