From Publishers Weekly
This engaging natural history celebrates one of the world's most precarious landscapes, a sand spit 30 miles long and less than a mile wide, plunked down 100 miles from the Canadian coast. Continually gouged by wind and wave and stingily replenished with sand by the currents swirling around it, the evanescent but intractable island has wrecked hundreds of ships over the centuries while sheltering enough greenery and fresh water to maintain a herd of wild horses. De Villiers and Hirtle (coauthors of Sahara: The Extraordinary History of the World's Largest Desert) explore the geological and oceanographic forces that shaped and maintain the island and the flora and fauna that cling to it. They also examine its place in human history, regaling readers with tales of the shipwreck tragedies that darken its past and recalling the many odd little communities of castaways, lifeguards and scientists that have washed up on its beaches. The island and its environs are now threatened by oil and gas drilling, rising sea levels and an ominous drift toward the continental shelf and the deep-sea abyss beyond. But while it lasts, a dynamic equilibrium fleetingly perched atop titanic forces of nature, the island is an apt metaphor for life itself. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
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, more 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. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

SYNOPSIS

Bands of wild horses and over 500 wrecked ships call Sable Island home, along with two government workers, the only living human inhabitants. The island is adrift in the North Atlantic, shifting slowly to the southeast, and miles of its shores come and go in a single storm, mirroring the fates of its past settlers. The authors trace the island's history and topology from its probable origins in glacial times to its fates in the mercies of the continental shelf and North Atlantic currents. The island will probably sink into the sea eventually. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

This engaging natural history celebrates one of the world's most precarious landscapes, a sand spit 30 miles long and less than a mile wide, plunked down 100 miles from the Canadian coast. Continually gouged by wind and wave and stingily replenished with sand by the currents swirling around it, the evanescent but intractable island has wrecked hundreds of ships over the centuries while sheltering enough greenery and fresh water to maintain a herd of wild horses. De Villiers and Hirtle (coauthors of Sahara: The Extraordinary History of the World's Largest Desert) explore the geological and oceanographic forces that shaped and maintain the island and the flora and fauna that cling to it. They also examine its place in human history, regaling readers with tales of the shipwreck tragedies that darken its past and recalling the many odd little communities of castaways, lifeguards and scientists that have washed up on its beaches. The island and its environs are now threatened by oil and gas drilling, rising sea levels and an ominous drift toward the continental shelf and the deep-sea abyss beyond. But while it lasts, a dynamic equilibrium fleetingly perched atop titanic forces of nature, the island is an apt metaphor for life itself. Agent, Bruce Westwood. (Nov.) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Sable Island is a low-lying, 30-mile-long sand dune on the edge of the North American continental shelf southeast of Nova Scotia. It lies right in the middle of a complex set of ocean currents, meteorological systems, and historical events. It is also the subject of this well-written, easy-to-read "biography" by de Villiers and Hirtle (coauthors of Sahara). Basque fishermen and Vikings were probably the first to see the island, which was later inhabited by feral horses that have survived there for almost 250 years. The authors also examine the politics of trying to preserve this fragile ecosystem. For some, the book will seem too broad, but readers wanting to delve more deeply into the various aspects of Sable will make good use of the extensive bibliography. A minor shortcoming is the lack of details on how to contact and get involved in the Sable Island Preservation Trust and the Sable Island Green Horse Society. Recommended for public and college libraries where interest is strong in the marine sciences, ecology, and Canadian and U.S. maritime history.-Margaret Rioux, MBL/WHOI Lib., Woods Hole Oceanographic Inst., MA Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews