Researchers share lessons on science, friendship on Nova Scotia's wild Sable Island

On Sable Island, a thin crescent-shaped sandbar in the Atlantic Ocean, the shifting landscapes make for dazzling — and jarring — experiences.

The remote island is home to about 450 feral horses, more than 20,000 seals, countless seabirds and, at its peak, roughly 15 humans in the summer.

Being so far out in the ocean — about 290 kilometres southeast of Halifax — Sable Island is hit with wild and rapid weather changes that can leave its researcher inhabitants in a state of shock. Waves crashing into Sable can pick up quickly; scorching hot, clear-sky days can be overtaken rapidly by a thick blanket of fog.

Justine Ammendolia, a Dalhousie University PhD candidate, spent 10 weeks over the past two summers researching microplastics on Sable Island. The remarkable climate and animals of the island led her and two other researchers to write a column for the science journal Nature on what they learned — about the environment and themselves — working in this remote and unpredictable island.

Ammendolia said she was stunned last August when in a matter of hours, relatively calm winds turned into a serious storm, with pounding waves and surf crashing onto the beaches. "There were winds that were hardly noticeable, but then overnight the island just completely transformed. We woke up to water pushing up against the sand dunes and the beaches were under water."

The sandbar island is about 40 kilometres long and one kilometre across its widest point. Ammendolia said seeing the island shrink so substantially overnight was surreal.

She and her new Sable Island friends — University of Saskatchewan researchers Victoria Crozier and Olivia Andres — spent the next day walking the dunes, in awe of the changed landscape and flooded beaches.

"To see how quickly the ocean can move in, to see that you're surrounded, it puts you all in a state of shock. You get to know a place after being there a few weeks, then there's this transformation of the landscape of an already small area that's set out in the middle of the ocean," Ammendolia said.

After the initial flooding, planes couldn't land for several days, and some researchers' work was temporarily halted because they couldn't travel around the waterlogged island. Ammendolia said it took more than a week for the water to retreat enough that the island looked like it did before the storm.

"Sable is one of those places where you feel so vulnerable to nature. If you don't feel insignificant being there, something is not ticking right," she said.

At the mercy of the weather

Crozier, who has spent 10 weeks over two summers on Sable Island researching its feral horse population with Andres, said one of the first things you learn on the sandbar is that you are at the mercy of the ever-changing weather.

"Some days you will hate the winds. Other days you will be so grateful for it because it will be really hot and sunny and there's no shade whatsoever because there are no trees," she said.

A government of Nova Scotia website says that with the exception of one small Scots pine tree that is "surviving" after it was planted near the weather station about 40 years ago, there are no trees on the island.

"And then we get a lot of fog, which makes our jobs a lot harder," Crozier added.

In order to avoid disturbing the horses, researchers such as Crozier and Andres trail the animals from 500 metres to one kilometre away, often spending 16-hour days collecting samples of the herd's feces that they examine for parasites and microbiomes. Extreme wind, heat or poor visibility make some days much harder than others, Crozier said.

"Fieldwork is unpredictable; for reasons from illness to adverse weather conditions, it isn't always possible to do everything you initially planned," the trio say in their Nature article.

The article also outlines how the three researchers bonded and supported each other through stressful moments on the remote island. "We found that our guards were down during this vulnerable stage, and it was easier to form meaningful connections that went beyond superficial acquaintanceships."

Passionate researchers

Andres said the group of passionate researchers on the island had diverse interests and were happy to share knowledge, advice and chat over coffee or a meal. "On the island we worked and lived with people who were all so excited about different parts of that environment and we were often inspired with new ideas and research questions by casual conversations over dinner," she said.

The average of 15 summer inhabitants on Sable Island are a combination of scientists, researchers and federal employees.

"Outside work, we created routines, from drinking our morning coffees at the station's picnic bench [also known as the town square] to watching sunsets on the beach together surrounded by horses and seals. There were so few of us on the island that it felt inevitable we'd become friends," the article says.

The Maritime Museum of the Atlantic says that since 1583, there have been more than 250 recorded shipwrecks on Sable Island. While little remains of the ships, Andres said it was exciting to find old bottles and glassware and crab traps wash up on shore.

"It's such a unique place, unlike anything I have ever seen before. I loved getting to see all the pieces of history washed up on the beaches and explore new areas of the island with our group. Those little adventures made for some of the most special moments," she said.