My journey to Sable Island was, from its inception, much more than a photography trip.  It was, in a sense, a pilgrimage to see horses in their wild and natural state.  To observe horses behave in a way that was completely unspoiled by human interference.

My 30 year career as a horse trainer had taken me to a dozen countries worldwide in search of top sport horse prospects.  Years of studying equine pedigrees, conformation and athletic performance had earned me a reputation for finding that diamond in the rough. Even more important was a less tangible but more significant ability to read horse's personalities and match them with their potential owners.  This would be my legacy -  but after 3 decades of training horses and coaching riders I now felt driven to discover the realm of my beloved equine at its most basic perhaps primal level.  Somewhere in the years of working with domestic horses as a business I had lost touch with what had originally attracted me to them.  I was hoping that Sable Island would provide an opportunity for me to reconnect with the spiritual nature of these dynamic creatures.

How fitting that this scenario would lead me not on a global hunt to exotic lands, but within my own country to a small crescent shaped island 160 kilometers off the coast of Nova Scotia:  Sable Island.  While there were many choices of wild horse herds to photograph, some very close to my home in the Alberta foothills, I knew that most groups of horses had been subjected to frequent human interference.  Annual round-ups and 'herd management' had created wild horses with a fear of people.  The brutal shootings of large numbers of wild horses in several provinces including Alberta, Saskatchewan and Newfoundland only further increased their level of fear associated with humans, driving these horses further and further out of reach.  It seems a sad comment on humanity that the noble horse, who has served mankind tirelessly for centuries are now viewed by some as nothing more than mere pests to exterminated.

The wild horses of Sable Island are the ancestors of horses that were part of a Humane Establishment, a small settlement of personnel that was initiated in 1801 to rescue shipwrecked sailors and their cargo. Subsequently the island was farmed and for a time livestock was abundant.  As many as 50 people lived and worked there. Over the years the establishment became obsolete, but the horses remained behind.

After reading as much as possible about Sable Island I was prepared to see these animals in the rough condition so typical of horses in the wild.  On Sable there were no trees for shelter and the wind constantly punished the barren landscape.  There was no one there to provide food when it was scarce, to euthanize a sick or injured animal.  I would have to put aside my past condition of of seeing 'blue blooded' sport horses and accept the beauty of the rugged stock that would be determined by nature's evolutionary law - survival of the fittest.

Getting to Sable Island was fraught with logistical difficulties both bureaucratic and climatic.  Receiving permission from Environment Canada to visit the island and stay at the coast guard station proved to be quite simple - a brief email about one year in advance of the proposed trip was quickly answered and approved.   Only 10 persons are permitted on the island at any given time.  Permission came quickly, actually getting to the island was much more difficult.  The government had recently issued an order to Sable Island personnel that no overtime hours could be worked, so that meant no activity outside of 8am - 4pm Monday to Friday.  This would greatly restrict the possible landing time for the charter flight.  By the time the landing beach was checked for safety by the coast guard manager, and the weather was okayed, the earliest green light for us to leave Halifax Airport would be 9:30am, arriving on Sable by 11am at the earliest, 3pm at the latest.  Maritime Air Charter pilot Deb Harrison also required 1000 foot ceiling to make a visual landing.  With only a 4 hour landing window and trying to fit a flight between fog banks and imminent hurricanes it seemed a daunting task.

For six days in a row my flight was canceled because of fog or low cloud.  On day four, were were loaded and taxiing down the runway when we had to abort due to incoming fog.  In the end, manager Gerry Forbes convinced his superiors to allow an unscheduled Saturday flight to 'bring supplies'.   I had all but given up hope, but finally a brief break in the weather and my chance had come. There were 3-4 days left in my permitted time on the island and I would have to make every minute count. On our flight approach, we circled the island in a clockwise direction, giving us an opportunity to view the distribution of horses and seals throughout the sand dunes and beaches.  Finally, on August 9th we landed on the south beach of Sable Island, and hit the ground running!

Once on the island you are very much on your own - there are no guides.  A few rules are reviewed and immediately I set out to explore.  What I discovered were small family groups of 5-10 horses with a dominant stallion as band leader roaming the island, grazing in small meadows between the dunes and the ocean.  Fresh water ponds originating from a lenticular-shaped fresh water aquifer dotted the landscape, providing the horses with ample choices of watering holes.  Horses stood with grass up to there bellies, young spring foals ran and bucked in the afternoon sun, in what looked very much like wild horse paradise.  They shared the island with 200,000 grey and harbour seals along with several varieties of gulls and terns.  The only real enemy these horses had was the unpredictable and sometimes violent weather systems inherent to their Atlantic location.  Fogbound 125 days of the year and situated at the convergence of the Gulfstream and Labrador currents, Sable Island was a devil's brew of storms and shallow shoals.

While I had read a great deal about the heritage of these horses, their genetic origins and surmised pedigrees, I was in no way prepared for the obvious refinement that had been maintained throughout the generations.  A wide range of types existed here, some with the dished faces common in Arabian breeding, others with regal 'roman' or convex profiles suggestive of old European bloodstock, and still others with the bone and fine build associated with the North American thoroughbreds.  On average their sizes ranged from 13.2 hands high (137cm) to 15.2 hands high (157cm) and ranged in colour from light chestnut with flaxen mane and tail to bays, browns and blacks.  No greys or pintos were here, as they were at one time considered 'inferior' and culled out long ago by the settlers.

In my four days on Sable, the island served up a variety of weather. Two rare sunny days were followed by fog, rain and of course the constant wind. Blowing sand and salt-saturated fog made for many extra hours each night to clean camera gear. No motorized vehicles were available to aid in viewing the island, so long days were spent hiking in deep sand following wild horses up and down beaches, and around sand dunes. I quickly tuned into the routines and travel patterns of some of the small horse herds and followed them from dawn to dark. What an amazing treat for me to observe their herd dynamics, body language and natural behaviour. Life on Sable is for the most part mundane, so visitors are sometimes greeted by the horses with great curiosity. A few young 'bachelors' who had been kicked out of their family groups were particularly curious. It seemed they had nothing more important to do than snoop through my gear and beg for attention. I was completely at ease with their closeness but at times was forced to set boundaries when they became pushy. My tripod proved to be of particular interest and it soon became the sacrificial prop for setting up shots.

The days were long and arduous but ultimately more rewarding than I could have thought possible. My time spent with the horses was cathartic. Unexpectedly the wild horses of Sable Island became my teachers. I had only to observe their natural behaviour to make relevant everything I thought I knew about horse body language and the nuances in their movements. It would cause me to have a new perspective on my horses at home and would lead to having an even deeper appreciation of the animals that had been my life's work. The wild horses of Sable Island survive decade after decade without human interference. The live, die, multiply, and exist peacefully, in an area not typical of a horse environment. Adaptable and hardy, they are proof that without human destructiveness, nature will endure, evolve and thrive.