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Sable Island : The Strange Origins and Curious History of a Dune Adrift in the Atlantic
Sable Island The Strange Origins and Curious History of a Dune Adrift in the Atlantic Author:Marq De Villiers, Sheila Hirtle Gathering both fact and lore about Sable Island, the final fatal port for innumerable ships, the authors integrate the knowledge about this unusual place into an alluring work of descriptive and environmental history. Whoever Sable Island's first visitors were--Norse, Basque, or Portuguese--it was on the map by the 1500s, and, eventually, mo... more »re than 500 ships were wrecked on its shores. Over time, the authors relate, many stories were told about surviving castaways and abandoned animals; horses running freely there today descend from a herd left in the 1700s. Indeed, Sable Island's mere existence off Nova Scotia is somewhat wondrous because it is incessantly being eroded and is, in effect, a miles-long sand dune that is kept in existence by the battle between the Gulf Stream and the Labrador Current. An evocative portrait of Sable's winds, waves, and tragedies.« less