How do you wrangle wild sheep off a Nova Scotia island? With strategy, strength and a bit of sneakiness

On a balmy Saturday morning in September, Jake Wentzel grounds his five-metre aluminum boat on a windswept island off southwestern Nova Scotia.

He turns to face the dozen men and women who have risen at the crack of dawn to join him.

“We’re going to stay as nondescript and secretive as possible,” he says as a chorus of bleats and baas floats down the grassy hill.

Mr. Wentzel, a third generation sheep farmer, has assembled a crew of friends and random volunteers to help with his annual September roundup, otherwise known as wrangling the West Ironbound Island sheep.

The plan is to catch the young males and herd them onto a boat destined for the mainland. There, they will be butchered to be savoured by Mr. Wentzel’s friends and family, a tradition that keeps the ewes from bearing lambs in the dead of winter when most wouldn’t survive. He returns every December with a lone ram to propagate the flock.

For half a century, the family has raised free-roaming sheep on the 49-hectare island due south of Lunenburg, a tradition Mr. Wentzel now teaches to his own children, aged 11 and 14.

In 1972, Mr. Wentzel’s grandparents, Ron and Mona Wentzel, brought the first sheep to the island, to keep the grass down during the summer while they spent time at their cabin. While it’s relatively rare to see now, farmers often grazed sheep during summer months on the hundreds of islands that pebble the sea here and elsewhere in Atlantic Canada. Mr. Wentzel is one of the last to do it in these parts, and the only person he knows who grazes sheep year-round offshore.

That first winter in the seventies, half the herd of North Country Cheviots (a breed originally from Scotland) learned to eat seaweed; the other half didn’t survive. In the decades since, their descendants have sustained themselves through harsh Maritime winters by sheltering among thickets of red spruce and feeding on piles of kelp that wash up on the shore.

Mr. Wentzel, 38, a homesteader, lives off-grid on a farm in nearby Conquerall Mills. For 18 years, he’s raised the West Ironbound Island sheep, taking over from his father, Kurt Wentzel, who died in 2021. At the annual wrangling, he’s seen broken fingers, rolled ankles, a young woman who needed stitches and a man who duct-taped his shoes to his feet after his sneakers kept coming off during the rough and tumble rundowns. He’s also spent many, many hours chasing sheep that elude capture.

The roundup is all about strategy. These sheep are essentially wild, which Mr. Wentzel says means no collies or shepherds are going to corral them into the loosely constructed paddock with ease. These sheep need to be duped.

At the top of the hill, Mr. Wentzel sprinkles a bit of feed from a yellow bucket and the sheep come galloping. He then sprints down the field, dropping handfuls of grain. “C’mon guys. C’mon guys,” he yells, using the flamboyant sheep-calling voice he learned from his dad. He bounds over patches of pearly everlasting, driftwood and rocks, leading a flock of about 50 yammering sheep. “C’mon guys!” he says.

A train of animals obediently trails him – but then the tail end of the herd begins to disperse. Sheep dart toward the woods. At that moment, teams of wranglers burst from the bush, their arms outstretched like scarecrows. The sheep zag back on course.

The herd funnels into Mr. Wentzel’s paddock above the shore. He swings the gate and ties it shut. The mad dash is over, at least for now.

West Ironbound, with its rolling green pastures and rugged shores, has been Mr. Wentzel’s playground for as long as he can remember. As a child he camped on the island, kayaked to it and bottle fed its orphan lambs.

The island has changed hands since his grandparents sold it in the nineties, but today it’s protected by Kingsburg Coastal Conservancy, a non-profit trust that has given Mr. Wentzel special permission to continue farming his sheep there. Today, he and his young family visit often to fish, climb on the rocks and hike. Sometimes they stay at the cabin that his grandparents built. Without the sheep, he says, the island would lose its magic; the trees would grow in and the pasture would be lost.

“The sheep are taking care of the island as much as we’re taking care of the sheep. I feel like, in a lot of ways, the island helped raise me.”

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In the pen, Mr. Wentzel and his team jog single file behind the sheep, coaxing them toward a smaller enclosure. But then one kicks up its heels and jumps the rope fence. Several others follow like spooked deer and Mr. Wentzel wipes his brow. It’s time for what he expects to be the most futile part of the mission, a gamble he never expects to win.

He and his strongest deputies head toward a decrepit lighthouse. They spot the wayward flock dashing off to a craggy track of coastline. Mr. Wentzel, carrying his yellow bucket, sprints ahead.

He knows he could never catch the group. The best he can hope for is one. So he sets his eyes on a long tail and, with a burst of energy, sails over the rocks in his rubber boots. He sees a hoof slip and the sheep stumbles a bit. It’s his last chance: Mr. Wentzel hurtles himself at the animal and, feeling wool in his hands, holds on for dear life.

“They’re like mini football players when they’re on their feet. But if you can get them off their feet or on their side, they just give up entirely and relax,” he said.

One of the deputies lifts the 50-kilogram sheep onto the shoulders of another man. He lugs the animal, who looks to be smiling, back to the beach and places him in the bow of Mr. Wentzel’s boat.

On the way back to the mainland, the boat engine dies. Eight sheep huddle in the keel of the bobbing vessel, salty water spritzing them in the choppy waves. White sharks were tagged right in this spot just a few days ago, Mr. Wentzel says without a hint of alarm. Calmly, he sprays starting fluid into the engine; fortunately, the sheep don’t rock the boat. Eventually the engine sputters to life, and he texts the butcher to say he’s on his way.