Sable Island Shipwrecks: Disaster and Survival at the North Atlantic Graveyard

Richard Wilbur is supervisor of the Legislative Research Service at the
New Brunswick Legislature, and the author of The Rise of French New
Brunswick.

This definitive study of the shipwrecks on Sable Island is saved from
becoming a dismal list of wrecks and victims by the author’s attention
to the lifesaving crews—mostly Nova Scotians, who found themselves by
choice or necessity on the desolate sandbar awaiting yet another victim
to be tossed up by the merciless Atlantic.

In establishing Sable Island’s place in navigational history,
Campbell indicates how the “founder of Newfoundland,” Sir Humphrey
Gilbert, lost a ship to Sable in 1583; how the island claimed English,
French, and American vessels over the next two centuries; and how the
island got its herd of wild horses. We also learn how it took the
influence of Prince Edward, fourth son of George III, to establish a
permanent lifesaving unit on this remote island, after most of his
personal possessions were lost when the ship that carried them foundered
on Sable in 1799. Within a year, a grant from the British Parliament
established a station.

The author vividly depicts the often remarkable and heroic efforts over
the next 110 years by Sable Island lifesaving crews. Unfortunately, this
absorbing account ends abruptly with the establishment of the marine
radio station in 1905. A pity the author did not round off his saga with
some more-recent Sable material—marine incidents during World War II,
for example. A minor cavil for what is a great read.