A sensory journey through fog on the East Coast

I know exactly when my fascination with fog began. 

I read a line last summer that led me to isolated Sable Island, down the rocky cliffs at Signal Hill in St. John’s, and to the familiarity of my back deck. 

I came across Sara Spike’s Dalhousie University biography while researching another story.  

The line in question? “Her current research considers the role of fog in the everyday life of Atlantic Canadian communities from the early colonial period to the present.”

Fog. 

It’s something I didn’t think about a lot until I moved to Herring Cove, N.S. Sometimes the ocean view in the distance just disappears. I’ve learned the ebb and flow of the fog horn. 

That’s why Spike’s work caught my attention. 

“Everyone in Atlantic Canada has stories about fog or has memories of a really dense fog that they recall,” says Spike, a cultural historian who teaches at Dalhousie and is a research fellow at Gorsebrook Research Institute for Atlantic Canada Studies at Saint Mary’s University.

She’s writing a book on the cultural histories of fog in the region.

“Coastal communities sort of understood fog to be just part of their community. It was a neighbour … it was a character in their lives,” she said. “It was part of their daily lives and they had to take fog into account in all of their daily considerations.”

Spike is interested in the senses. 

“There’s a growing field of what we call sensory history of historians who are interested in this embodied experience of the past,” says Spike.

“And fog has really been a great way for me to think about sensation because so many of the stories about fog bring up the senses, bring up vision and sound and smell, even taste and certainly touch and the feeling of the sort of dampness.”

We know fog well on the East Coast. Grand Banks, N.L., is the foggiest place on earth. Sable Island ranks 10th, according to the World Meteorological Organization 

I recorded my journey through the fog, weaving together scenes from my search into an audio documentary called Through the Fog. 

There are personal reflections, history, some science and art. 

The funny thing is that when I went searching for fog, I couldn’t find it. 

When I took a helicopter ride to Sable Island, it was a bright and windy day. When I took a hike along Signal Hill, It was misty, and grey, and maybe there was fog in the distance? I met with Spike, twice, and still no fog.

But searching for fog showed me the importance of taking the time to look and to appreciate how fog has shaped life here on the East Coast. 

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