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REGION
TWO
Isle Royale
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Lake Superior's rugged wilderness island, 48 miles from the U.P.'s northern shore, has its own foggy magic. The island has wolves, moose, and striking volcanic and glacial landscapes.
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This roadless wilderness island allows visitors to experience the natural world in an especially remote, beautiful, and geologically interesting place. Isle Royale National Park covers the biggest island in the world's largest freshwater lake. The island was formed of the ancient volcanic rock known as the Canadian Shield.
Isle Royale is a very special, subtle place that exerts a powerful mystique. People who spend enough time here to accept it on
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its own terms usually want to return.
Solitude in the wilderness is Isle Royale's attraction for many. There's no TV, no reliable cell phone coverage, no pay phone at the moment (summer 2008), and showers only at Rock Harbor and Windigo.
Many people are drawn here by adven-ture and physical challenge in hiking or paddling, though it's also possible, for a considerable fee, to appreciate the island's unusual natural features without backpack-ing and rustic camping.
The island is actually an archipelago with over 100 smaller islands. It's about 18 miles from the Canadian mainland, near the Canadian port and industrial center of Thunder Bay (population 109,000). Thunder Bay was formed in the 1970s when Fort William and Port Arthur combined.
Isle Royale has been managed and protected as a wilderness by the National Park Service since 1940. Its waters are home to naturally reproducing coaster brook trout and lake trout that are genetically the most diverse in Lake Superior.
All boaters are urged to clean and empty their craft very carefully before bringing them to the island.
Ferries take visitors to Rock Harbor on Isle Royale from Grand Portage, Minnesota, 22 miles away, or from Houghton (73 miles, 6 hours) and Copper Harbor in the Upper Peninsula. From Copper Harbor it's a 56-mile trip to Rock Harbor. The new ferryboat has cut 1 ½ hours off the time for a 3 ¼ hour trip. That permits day trips.
At Rock Harbor are a hotel, housekeePing cabins, a campground, boat rentals and charters, and sightseeing cruises. Both Windigo and Rock Harbor have interesting free evening programs in summer featuring the island's natural and human history. Windigo, at the island's southwestern tip, is the destination for ferries from Minnesota.
Hundreds of moose, sometimes even thousands, live on Isle Royale. Their numbers expand and crash depending on the severity of winters and wolf predation. Moose have reduced the diversity of plants on the main island. Especially near dawn or dusk, visitors may see moose, browsing shrubs or wading to eat submerged aquatic plants. (In 2006 and 2007, moose numbers were down, and they weren't seen as often.) Moose are amazing animals to watch, with their huge heads and antlers and thin legs. They can be dangerous, especially cows with calves. So keep a safe distance.
Islands with their limitations are ideal for scientific research studies. Isle Royale's wolves arrived over ice in 1949. They are the subject of Michigan Tech's wolf-moose study, longest-running predator-prey study anywhere, conducted by retired but still active professor Rolf Peterson, his Purdue mentor Durward Allen, and his successor, professor John Vucetich.
No bears are on the island. Foxes are the island's scavengers, hanging around campgrounds and docks hoping for a handout. Don't encourage them, and keep your food in your tent.
The calls of loons reinforce the atmosphere of solitude. (Motorboats along the shore are the island's biggest noise generators, and a threat to nesting loons.) Theoretically, the howl of a wolf, the most secretive of animals, could be heard. But what sounds like a wolf call is probably a loon.
The 45-mile-long island has a special attraction for paddlers, backpackers, boaters, anglers, birders, and geologists. Small deposits of gemstones, including the famous Isle Royale greenstone, occasionally occur in the vesicles or spaces formed by air bubbles as the volcanic rock cooled. (Removing rocks, flowers, plants, or driftwood from a national park is prohibited, however.)
The island has long, rocky, protected bays and inland lakes; high ridges; open Lake Superior shore where waves can come crashing in; and bogs and wetlands with orchids and other unusual plants that have escaped browsing by moose. Greenstone Ridge is the island's backbone and its longest hiking trail. Inland lakes and a deep cove make it possible to canoe or kayak from one side of the island to another, with six portages.
Isle Royale even has a few "mountains" (actually ridges) and lookouts, which de-scend to Lake Superior at the dramatic Five Fingers area on the island's northeastern end. They trail off into smaller islands and reefs. Ten shipwrecks around different parts of the island are attractions for divers today because Lake Superior's cold water preserves them in excellent condition. Of the four lighthouses, the Rock Harbor and Passage Island lights can be viewed via the park concessionaire's sight-seeing boat.
For thousands of years, the island was used for hunting, fishing, and mining copper from surface deposits. Benjamin Franklin really does seem to have secured Isle Royale for the U.S. in negotiations with the British. He thought its copper would be useful in electrical experiments. Inaccurate maps at the time also led to confusion about whether the island belonged to Britain or the United States.
Commercial copper mining occurred in the 1840s, again in the Civil War era, and later during the 1880s. Mines with housing for upwards of 80 men and their families were near McCargoe Cove, Windigo, and Siskiwit Bay. Many trees were cut for use underground and above ground. Isle Royale is not a place to see big old-growth trees, due to mining activities, forest fires, and rocky soil. (Maples and yellow birch do well in the better soil at the island's southwest end.)
In the early 1900s, steamship companies built resort hotels on Isle Royale and its western neighbor, Washington Island, near Windigo. They were part of the northwoods resort boom fueled by well-to-do Midwestern city people seeking a cool, pollen-free climate and rustic fishing retreats. Individual families built cottages at Tobin Harbor, close to Rock Harbor, and on the island's west end.
The outstanding Lake Superior fishery for lake trout led up to a hundred families of commercial fishermen to live here, usually only from spring through fall. Fishing peaked in the 1920s. In the 1930s falling prices triggered the gradual demise of the island's commercial fishing. The lives of island fishing families are depicted in books of historical photographs and in the wonderful watercolors of Howard Sivertson, son of a commercial fisherman, who spent his boyhood here. His memorable Once Upon an Isle ($21 list) features facing pages of a written recollection and scenes painted from mem-ory. He shows being out in a fishing tug, for instance, and hanging out the wash and shooing away a moose.
Summer people were the ones who suc-cessfully lobbied to have Congress pass a bill in 1931 to protect the island for future generations as a national park. In 1940 the National Park Service took over management of the island. The descendants of the resorters who lobbied for the national park still form the core of the Isle Royale Natural History Association (irnha.org). It markets around 10 books and various maps, posters, and gifts it has produced about the island and its natural history.
Each summer the association's artist-in-residence program invites five artists and writers to spend two or three weeks apiece on the island. Artists then give presentations at Rock Harbor. The program is funded by IRNHA, the National Park Service, and donations from park visitors.
Three-fourths of the island's visitors are backpackers or paddlers who stay in the more remote back country. For those in search of personal challenge, the steep ups and downs of the island's trail system and the long portages can be more of a challenge than expected
Many nearby families from Minnesota and Copper Country consider Isle Royale a beloved destination for family boating getaways. (There is a $4 daily user fee for visitors over 12.)
Divers are in their own fascinating world, accurately described in mystery writer Nevada Barr's Superior Death, featuring detective Anna Pigeon. Barr's perceptive view of Isle Royale National Park Service personnel and visitors is con-sidered on target; after all, she herself has been an NPS ranger.
Surveys of Isle Royale visitors show that most want solitude. That turns out to be not all so easy to find between the Fourth of July weekend through mid August, when most visitors come. The island is quite popular, drawing some 17,000 visitors annually. The average stay is four days, far longer than more widely visited national parks. (—May, 2008)
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HELPFUL AREA INFORMATION
http://www.msu.edu/user/kilpela/index.htm
http://isle-royale.blogspot.com/
Isle Royale National Park
Houghton Visitor Center and Shop
800 E. Lakeshore in downtown Houghton.
(906) 482-0984. nps.gov/ISRO
E-mail for info: ISRO_ ParkInfo@nps.gov
Next to the dock of the imposing Ranger III, the visitor center in downtown Houghton accommodates both a bookstore and a year-round staffed information center where park rangers with detailed maps can answer prospective visitor questions and provide some advice. You're apt to get a recording, but be sure to leave a message.
At the bookstore the Isle Royale National History Association shop offers a tightly focused selection of books, maps, DVDs, and posters either about Isle Royale or about subjects pertaining to it, such as wolves, moose, field guides, Native Ameri-can culture and Keweenaw history. Some poster images are from the natural history association's artist-in-residence program. A substantial portion of all merchandise profits go to the national park. Mail orders are welcome. Call (800) 678-6925 or e-mail: irnha@irnha.org. For the complete online catalog, visit irnha.org.
By the dock at 800 E. Lakeshore. From Shelden Ave./U.S. 41, look for signs, turn north just before entering downtown at the tall Best Western Franklin Square Inn. From June 4 thru late August: open Mon-Sat 8-6 including holidays. For the rest of the year, open Mon-Fri 8-4:30. Closed holidays. Wheelchair-accessible.
Rock Harbor Lodge
Info about lodgings, sightseeing, rentals, and more by phone. In season: (906) 337-4993. Other times: (270) 758-2001 (concessionaires at Mammoth Cave, KY). rock-harborlodge.com (quite informative)
Isle Royale Ferry Service
In Copper Harbor. The ticket office has a small book and gift shop. From U.S. 41, turn north at the Minnetonka Resort. isleroyale.com In season: ( 906) 289-4437. E-mail: captaink @pasty.net
Two worthwhile sites are full of the photos and personal experiences of Captain Ben Kilpela, who has been exploring the island for over 30 years.
isle-royale.blogspot.com
msu.edu/user/kilpela/irhome
Grand Portage-Isle Royale
Transportation Line
A short overview of visiting Isle Royale from the Minnesota/Windigo perspective is on
isleroyaleboats.com.
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