Return to Sable Island
RECAP: My first trip to Sable island was 2017. The lead up to the trip was full of yearning and dreaming. I became obsessed with the idea of visiting the island after weekly trips of visiting the Museum of Natural History with my young kids. They liked to play with the sand table in the permanent Sable Island exhibit; I liked to read the information about this mysterious sandy place, just out of reach.
Looking back, I can see now I was in an artist’s block professionally ; In my personal life I was a person who was happily parenting but also someone who was looking for the “me” I used to be. These two tensions in me locked onto Sable Island. I dreamed of an adventure, of going to this island to paint and draw. I read every book and talked to every human I could connect with about the place. After a year, someone gently told me, “just go-What is stopping you?”
Yes, what was stopping me? The first barrier was financial; I wrote several grants and was declined, then I changed course and I saved for a year by selling paper doll kits at my local farmers market. The second barrier was Sable itself-weather and other conditions cancelled and rescheduled the trip many times. After one of the cancellations, I decided to write down my frustrations about not making it to the island. After all, I didn’t NEED to go, it was a want, a desire. It was a privilege to go, and something to be disappointed over, but not something to be devastated over. I write to process things; it gives me a shift in perspective. I wrote a poem about everything I wanted to see there, and this poem became the manuscript for my very first picture book. I did make it to Sable in October 2017.
Sable Island represented a change in my life in many ways. I found the courage to work past the mental blocks holding me back from being a successful artist, in the way that I wanted to. Sable Island gave me inspiration to fulfill a dream of creating picture books-and I still find inspiration thinking about that first trip.
Sable island connected my writing to my art-something that had been running parallel to eachtother for many, many years.
Before I left for the second trip this past fall, I felt like this one also marks a milestone. Now I am a successful artist who works in many genres. I have written 8 ish books since my last trip! Now my children are teenagers, and I am 40. . I am entering a new phase of parent-hood and career. And I wonder what this trip will teach me….
We travelled to Sable by helicopter. The first time it had been by plane and I was full of nerves. The anticipation combined with concern about all the other cancelled attempts built up in me on the plane ride. To calm myself, I drew the other people on the plane.
I did the same thing this trip. I decided this will be my tradition-or my good-luck trick. My guarantee to land. Why mess with it? I drew everyone across from me, Then I drew Sarah’s hiking boots. I did not have the same nervous energy as the first time; I knew where I was going, I knew we would land. It was a remembered, well worn memory I was returning to. I had walked the sable island grooves in my brain ten-thousand times in the past six years. I avoided watching shows or documentaries about Sbale island, so my beautiful memory of my own experience remained pure to me.
I was looking forward to making a new memory to hold on to.
Because I knew almost everyone on the flight by chatting and working together over zoom in preparation for the drawing part of the trip, and I had been to Sable with Geordie my first time, It was a comfortable, fun energy.
A good thing about drawing in the helicopter is my first drawing of the day is always the worst. My fingers aren’t ready, I feel rusty. It’s good to get a practice one in before I want to capture something.
Sable looked the same as I remembered from the sky. “Bright sands against dark blue….A moon eclipsed by ocean…” The lacey waves and that teal-blue sea, a colour I can mix blindfolded now in the studio-a colour burned into my eyelids, a velvety beautiful jewel coloured sea.
When we landed, we all hugged. I could feel the excitement in the drawing participants that I had felt my first trip-that relief of finally making it, the release of anticipation through happiness and laughter.
When we landed we met briefly in the main station for a safety talk. There is a place here to use the restroom and store extra gear. Main station is the group of buildings where people who work on sable island stay.
Main Station
We took off walking immediately; we walked down to north beach. Geordie did some scouting to look for horses; I stayed with the drawing participants on north beach to draw a dune. I wanted them to do a warm up drawing, too, before we saw horses and seals. I went over some of the ideas behind drawing from life that I covered in our individual chats on zoom, and the videos I had created and sent ahead of the trip. I have to admit, I was an anxious host for this first session-should I talk more? say less? we all found our groove this first drawing.
sketching a dune.
Geordie found some horses by a small pond. We walked off the beach and up the dune. We sat across the pond from them, and the horses apparently got the “pose for the humans with he pencils” memo, because they were cooperative and mostly still for half an hour while we sketched. I made a painting with my gouache and watercolour. I love the urgency that happens in paintings like this, the images have an energy I can’t manufacture in the studio.
After that first painting of the horses, my excitement turned into joy. We did it-we all drew the horses, everyone made something- we made one drawing-we have accomplished our task-the rest of the day is a bonus.
Geordie took us to the bigger freshwater pond. We chatted and got to know each other better on the walk…and we found things in the sand-like this seal skull.
When we went up on the dunes again we talked about the plants that were around - the importance of the marram grass & beach pea. We found yarrow, goldenrod, ragweed, juniper, asters, and the pearly everlasting was everywhere - I painted it from memory when I got home ..
photo by Sarah Kikuchi
During my first trip to Sable, I only saw a handful of horses. I was more fascinated and taken with the seals.
On this trip, it was different - it was all about the horses for me. Seeing them in a huge number (50+ ) was thrilling . We could see the different family groups, and saw two starting to fight… The time at the pond was magical, and I made a second painting there.
From the pond we went to the other side of the island went down on the beach to see seals. On the way Geordie showed us a pile of bones, and also the pieces of a shipwreck-a mast with iron parts still on it and a chain.
He also showed us some remains from the people that tried to live here many years ago-broken glass and porcelain. I fell in love with the pattern on this broken piece. It was such a special thing to see it. These fragments, like so much of Sable’s history, appear in the shifting sand dunes. Sand is a real life time machine, pieces of the past covering and uncovering by island.
When I got back to my studio, I made my own version of the porcelain pattern on the broken piece. We could not take home the artifacts, but were allowed to pick them up and try to piece them together. It was not a teacup-but a pitcher, or a gravy boat? I am going to work this into a bigger pattern…
And on the beach, joy turned into other emotions- I was overcome when I saw the seals. I felt like I was walking through my own paintings, my own happy place that I created for myself during the pandemic. During quarantine, I used my memories of my first trip to Sable Island, and combined them with my memories of my favourite place in my childhood, a small island where I lived with my family near Ipswich, Massachusetts, to create a happy island of my own in my imagination. This is a place in my mind where I go to write and make images for my books. The seals from Sable Island were a big part of it. Not only that, but they were the inspirational spark for my second picture book-The “Book of Selkie”. Although my selkie story does not take place on Sable, my inspiration to create it came from that first experience.
We made another drawing here on this beach. Mine did not turn out great, I was too overwhelmed with memories. I did help one of the drawing participants by demonstrating how to draw waves from life, and we enjoyed watching the seals scatter into the sea when we walked too close.
I have talked about the drawing guests, I have told you about Geordie-but there were two other folks on this trip that I haven’t mentioned yet. Natalie Dobbin and Rob Short from CBC came along for our trip. They brought equipment and interviewed nearly everyone, including some of the Parks Canada people that work on the island. They were gathering video, photo, and audio for 6 or more projects. I can’t wait to see (and hear) what they create. Nathalie asked me some questions while we were on the beach…and I have to say I will never forget this moment. We could hear the seals behind us, and I was telling Nathalie stories about my first trip, doing an interview of sorts in the wildly remote place was surreal.
At this point we started to feel a bit tired from the day. I think we all still wanted to draw, but there is also something to be said about just being present when you are on Sable. We also hadn’t eaten much and it was well past 2. We started to make our way on the hike back to main station, and think about packing for the helicopter.
photo by Sarah Kikuchi
Geordie is connected to Sable Island personally, as two family members lived and worked there, and now he does as well. He is very knowledgeable about Sable Island-through his family, his own reading, and his experiences- and so the hike back was filled with stories and highlights about interesting landmarks.
We talked about the water situation-there is only one freshwater pond (that is becoming increasingly salty due to erosion) and he showed us how the folks that work on Sable collect water. They have a system to collect it in a cratery area where rain collects, and they have a system that takes it from just above the water table to avoid the salty water.
We also walked past the former Environment Canada camp which held a time gone by that we could see through the windows-an office no one uses with a Giant Mac computer (one with a giant back behind the screen). It was eerie and out of place, but probably at one time an important spot for research.
photo by Sarah Kikuchi
photo by Sarah Kikuchi
Back at main station, we emptied our shoes of sand, filled our water bottles, ate lunch outside, laughing and talking about the day. We shared a toast to celebrate this beautiful experience together.
