Sable Island, Canada

Sable Island is a sand bar - 42 km long and roughly 1.5 km wide - located far offshore, approximately 160 km southeast of Canso, Nova Scotia, the nearest landfall. The island has been the focus of human activities, imagination and speculation for roughly 500 years. Shipwrecks, wild horses, seabirds and seals, and inaccessibility have endowed this narrow wind-swept sliver of sand with a special mystique. The island is the subject of extensive scientific research and of numerous documentary films, books and magazine articles.

Sable Island, with a surface area of about 3400 ha, has a topography comprised of beaches, sand dunes, inland fields of grass and heath, and freshwater ponds. The physiography of the island is the result of atmospheric and oceanic influences. The shape and position of the dunes reflect the prevailing westerly wind direction and storm trends. Ocean currents, waves, and tides modify the width and contour of the beaches and change the dimensions of east and west spits.

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