Summer is here, and, just in time, so is the heat.
Outside of time is Horse Island, the largest of the Thimbles. Officially uninhabited, at least by people, the island is mostly removed from the march of civilization. Its interior is “almost completely wooded with small stands of beech, pine, and cedar trees among mixed scrub and hardwoods.” Its rocky foundation, sculpted by untold tides, melts out into the water like sun-baked ice cream.
The island’s 17 undeveloped acres (save an old house, an outhouse and a research station) are owned by Yale and managed by the Peabody Museum, whose mission to keep them as wild as possible makes select allowances for researchers, Yale students, summer campers and, during a past summer, a journalist who would set the resulting photos aside for a sunny day.
Written and photographed by Dan Mims.
