Sable Island: Lots To Do

Boutilier family in the Blue Roomn (23K)

A musical evening in the Blue Room. I played piano and we'd all sing. Getting that piano out of the surfboat and up the beach was hard, but it was worth it.

Sailing on Lake Wallace

We sailed the dinghy on Lake Wallace. The men salvaged it from a wreck and named it "Trixie''.

In very cold winters we could skate.

We all had our own horses and we rode a lot.

We had school sometimes, with Miss Ancient.

Keeping In Touch

For years we had only the steamer to bring us mail and news of the world. My sister Berna died while working in Boston and it was 6 weeks before we heard. Father tried using carrier pigeons to take messages to Halifax, but it just didn't work.

In the 1950's they got their mail dropped out of an airplane!!

Mail delivery by airplane

We used flags, flares and cannons to communicate with ships. There was a flagstaff at each lifesaving station. Each flag meant something different and you could put them together to make a message.

In 1875 we got telephones, but they were only for talking among the lifesaving stations. We couldn't talk to the mainland. Alexander Graham Bell himself came out to visit and he gave me my first camera.

Morse code machine
We got a telegraph station on the island in 1905. My brother Dick and I both learned how to send messages in morse code.
The dots are for short taps, the dashes for long taps.

Click the handle to hear a message! Do you know what the message is?? (HINT: a distress call)
Play the morse code game.

Morse Code

A	. _
B	_ . . .
C	_ . _ .
D	_ . .
E	.
F	. . _ .
G	_ _ .
H	. . . .
I	. .
J	. _ _ _
K	_ . _
L	. _ . .
M	_ _
N	_ .
O	_ _ _
P	. _ _ .
Q	_ _ . _
R	. _ .
S	. . .
T	_
U	. . _
V	. . . _
W	. _ _
X	_ . . _
Y	_ . _ _
Z	_ _ . .