A woman living on a remote island off the coast of Canada could certainly give Robinson Crusoe a run for his money.
Zoe Lucas, 67, has spent more than 40 years living on Sable Island, a large smile-shaped sandbar measuring around 26 miles long.
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The only other residents on the patch of land are around 400 horses, 300,000 grey seals and 350 species of bird.
Talking to MailOnline Travel, Lucas, who is revered for her work as a naturalist, revealed that she has adapted to island life and never gets lonely.
She says her essential survival tools include a jotter pad, so she can take notes, and binoculars to observe the wildlife on the sandy shores.
Sometimes there are some rather odd things she spots through her lenses, however, with a fake leg being one of the more bizarre things that have surfaced on shore.
The citizen scientist from Halifax first visited Sable Island as a 21-year-old in 1971 while studying goldsmithing.
‘I wanted to come so bad. I originally came out here for the horses,’ Lucas explains.
Sable Island, which is only accessible by boat or charter plane, is home to hundreds of wild horses, which are completely unmanaged.
It’s believed the animals arrived on the island in the early 18th century to help with agricultural work when a settlement was attempted and later they were recruited to help man a lifesaving station.
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Sable Island – which is shrouded in fog for around 125 days of the year – is a notorious shipping hazard.
It is said to be home to more than 300 shipwrecks, earning it the nickname ‘graveyard of the Atlantic’. One of the more recent accidents occurred in 1981.
But Lucas says the environment, which could be considered as hostile by many, didn’t deter her and she swiftly returned to Sable Island and made it her home.
She set up camp on one end of the island, where former buildings from the abandoned lifesaving station once stood.
Supplies are flown in every two weeks to enable her survival.
Today Lucas lives in a wooden-clad house nestled in a collection of sand dunes. The simple abode was constructed by the Meteorological Service of Canada during the 1940s and it is now operated by Parks Canada.
Sable Island became a National Park Reserve on June 20, 2013, thanks to negotiations by Canada’s former Environment Minister, Jim Prentice, who sadly died in a plane crash.
Throughout the year a team of staff rotate shifts on the island, offering Lucas a little bit of company.
Talking with parks staff, it is clear that Lucas is highly respected.
Greg Stroud, an operations coordinator, told MailOnline Travel: ‘Zoe’s an amazing woman and has dedicated her life to Sable Island. She goes back to her base in Halifax occasionally but this is her real home.
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‘She’s worked closely with the Parks Canada so we can collaborate on projects.’
Stroud highlighted that island life isn’t too physically taxing, as Sable stays relatively mild all year around with an average annual temperature range of 18.6 degrees Celsius.
He continued: ‘Zoe is a very private person but it’s not surprising when you spend so much time out here alone.’
During a visit to Sable Island with the expedition company Adventure Canada, Lucas talked about some of the science she carries out.
Complementing her work, the non-profit organisation, Friends of Sable Island Society, runs fundraising efforts to help educate people about the little-known spot.
Over the years Lucas has collected the skulls of horses, so that scientists can better understand how they’ve managed to adapt to the stark landscape.
She also helps man a weather station and does a daily rubbish collection to help track the ocean’s pollution levels.
The day we visited, she hauled out a giant bag of plastic ribbons. She revealed that popped balloon carcasses commonly wash up.
Other quirky pieces of debris that have surfaced include a garbage bag of drugs, a refrigerator and a crateful of fresh peppers from a shipping container.
Though Sable Island has a slightly spooky guise, with tales of shipwrecks and ghost stories making the rounds, for Lucas this solitary spit of sand is pure paradise, minus the palm trees.
‘She’ll stay on Sable as long as she can,’ Stroud mused.
Source: https://t-tees.com
Category: WHO
