'It was like coming home': N.S. woman battling cancer makes unlikely return to Sable Island
A Nova Scotia woman fighting cancer made an unlikely return to her childhood home.
Nova Scotia’s Sable Island is a mysterious place to the vast majority of Canadians, evoking images of ponies, seals and shipwrecks.
But for one local woman fighting cancer, it means home.
On Monday night, Sylvia Dooks-Higgins and her sister Janet Lynch returned to the sands of Sable Island, thanks to the kindness of strangers.
“It was like coming home,” said Sylvia, who was just six when her family moved to Sable Island.
Sylvia and Janet’s father Arthur Dooks became the last of the Island’s lighthouse keepers when he was assigned there in 1955.
“We were free-range kids. We just went everywhere on the Island,” recalls Sylvia. “Every day was a different adventure. Everyday we went to the beach, it was always something different that washed up, or died there.”
“The lighthouse was about 100 feet high, and we would climb it all the time. Up the ladders and down,” says Janet.
The sisters share fond memories of the island and its unique wildlife, including ponies and seals.
“We even had a pet seal for a while. We were down to the lake, and we seen a baby seal all by itself, and the seagulls were closing in on it, so we took it to the barn, and kept in the barn,” recalls Sylvia.
“When we got into the lake, the seals would be right in there with us. They never hurt us or anything, they would just swim with us and pop up right in our face,” adds Janet.
But some other ocean animals were more of a worry.
“Mom would sit on the bank while we were swimming, and if she saw a shark coming she would holler ‘Shark!’ and we would get out of the water,” laughs Janet.
The Dooks lived on Sable Island until 1960. Sylvia remembers the phone ringing as they prepared to leave.
“My father wasn’t in the house, but when he came in he asked me if anyone had called, and I said, ‘Yes, some man named Dief called and he said we could take two ponies home with us’,” recalls Sylvia.
“And my father said ‘Sylvia, that’s John Diefenbaker, Prime Minister of Canada!’. And I said, ‘well he said we could have two ponies!”
The sisters didn’t know if they would ever return to their childhood ocean playground, but a comment to family started a series of events that would lead to a very special trip.
“I said to my daughter-in-law and son, ‘it would be good to see again’,” recalls Sylvia.
Her daughter-in-law Colleen Murphy listened, and started a Facebook fundraiser, giving a truly sentimental gift at a time that Sylvia really needed it.
“I have multiple myeloma. I started treatment again this month, I already had nine months of it before,” says Sylvia.
The fundraiser didn’t meet its goal, but the family reached out to Fred Stillman of Kattuk Expeditions
“But there were no seats available,” says Stillman, meaning the earliest a trip could be organized was 2022.
That’s when the kindness of strangers came into make Sylvia’s wish possible.
“A friend of mine who was booked on this particular trip said ‘look, if you need two seats just take mine, I’ll go next year’,” says Stillman.
Stillman says he learned more in one day with the sisters than he did in all of his previous trips to the Island.
“Worth every bit of it for me to hear all those stories," said Stillman.
But like all good things, this day came to an end, for two happy sisters, filled with warm memories.
“Our life out there was very unique… not many kids have that kind of childhood,”
A unique childhood, leading to a unique homecoming over 60 years in the making.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Several flight attendants from Pakistan have gone missing after landing in Canada
Multiple flight attendants from Pakistan International Airlines have abandoned their jobs and are believed to have sought asylum in Canada in the past year and a half, a spokesperson for the government-owned airline says.
Cargo ship had engine maintenance in port before Baltimore bridge collapse, officials say
The cargo ship that lost power and crashed into a bridge in Baltimore underwent 'routine engine maintenance' in port beforehand, the U.S. Coast Guard said Wednesday.
A Nigerian woman reviewed some tomato puree online. Now she faces jail
A Nigerian woman who wrote an online review of a can of tomato puree is facing imprisonment after its manufacturer accused her of making a “malicious allegation” that damaged its business.
Far North police 'dispatch' polar bear stalking schoolyard
Police and local hunters in an Ontario Far North First Nation community have “dispatched” a polar that was showing abnormal behaviour and treating the area as a hunting ground.
Donald Trump assails judge and his daughter after gag order in N.Y. hush-money criminal case
Donald Trump lashed out Wednesday at the New York judge who put him under a gag order that bars him from commenting publicly about witnesses, prosecutors, court staff and jurors in his upcoming hush-money criminal trial.
Families shocked after Niagara Falls hotel cancels bookings made year in advance of solar eclipse
After having the foresight to book their Niagara Falls hotel rooms more than a year in advance, several families planning to take in the solar eclipse next month were shocked to find out their reservations had been cancelled.
B.C. rescuers face 'high likelihood' of failure to reunite orphaned orca with pod
The race to reunite an orphaned orca calf that’s stuck in a shallow lagoon with a neighbouring pod has entered its fifth day, and a marine scientist says the clock is ticking.
Video shows police interrupting auto theft in progress outside Toronto home
New video footage obtained by CP24 shows the attempted theft of a vehicle in a North York driveway earlier this month that was ultimately interrupted by police.
What happens after we die? Most Canadians say an afterlife does exist, survey shows
A new survey from the Angus Reid Institute has found that a majority of Canadians believe in some form of life after death, a proportion that has held steady for decades.