People thought it was terrible to live on Sable, that we were savages But Sable was special to all of us. Once you left the island, your greatest desire was to go back again.

My family - I 'm holding my brother Jim's hand.

Our home at the main lifesaving station.

Lifesaving is why we were there, of course. 33 ships wrecked while father was superintendent. Some people drowned but we saved most of them. They stayed next door in the Sailor's Home until the steamer came and took them to Halifax.

Father and his crew had lifesaving drill every week. The crew kept the lifesaving equipment ready for the next emergency.
The crew salvaged as much of the cargo and wrecked ships as they could. The Government sold the salvage in Halifax to help pay for the lifesaving station.

Sometimes we made things out of wood from the wrecks. William Henry Horne, the lighthouse keeper, made this doll's cradle.

William Henry Horne

Wind and sand were hard on everything, especially the buildings. The men spent a lot of time replacing shingles and whitewashing.

A steamer brought supplies a few times each year. We brought them ashore in surfboats - barrels of salt pork, split peas, rice, brown sugar, navy beans, a big cask of molasses and cases of tea.



All the staff would ride up and get their provisions. They'd travel when the tide was falling, on a nice hard beach. If they missed the tide they'd have to wait for the next.

We were pretty healthy, until the steamer came. If someone on the ship had a cold or flu, we'd all get It. "Steamer cold", we called it. Father kept some opium pills and other medicines for emergencies.

Mostly, we made do with what we had. Vegetables grew very well with horse manure in the sand, but for 3 years the grasshoppers ate everything. I wore underwear with an elastic because they were all up your arms and down your neck.

We made wild hay and we put 5 acres of Timothy beside the house for the cattle. Everybody pitched in.





The men hunted ducks in autumn for fresh meat, and seals in winter for oil. We would raise a litter of pigs so everyone had a pig to put down for winter meat.

Wild Berries

The island gave us lots of berries - cranberries, strawberries, blueberries. Every October we all turned out for the cranberry picking, even the lifesaving crew. One year we picked 400 barrels of No. 1 cranberries and I made 48 quarts of jelly. I wished I had never seen a cranberry.

Scoops were faster than hand-picking, but it was still hard work.

The Government sold them for $5 a barrel. The money helped pay to run the lifesaving station.

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