Finally, We Make it to Isle Royal National Park!

Waiting to board the ferry

We arose the next day to find the lake conditions a little rougher than we had expected. The waters were fairly protected at the ferry dock and our adjacent motel, but with a fairly stiff southwest wind, we knew the open waters might make for a bouncy ride to Isle Royale. We got everything together for the day’s journey and headed over to the ferry office to check in. We were surprised at the number of people that were going over to the park with us. We were the only day trippers and everyone else were going over to spend a week in the wilderness. The season was just beginning so the campers had to pack in everything they would need for the duration of their stay. As we were boarding the ferry, the captain came by and told us that the conditions on the open water were rough. As day trippers, we would be on the ferry a total of 7 hours that day, and it may not be pleasant. We told him that this was our only chance to visit the park and we would be all right (we felt we were pretty familiar with Great Lakes sailing conditions!). After we boarded, Capt. Larry went forward to the helm and listened to the NOAA weather forecast. The seas were reported at 1-2 ft. with SW winds at the western buoy, so it wouldn’t be too bad! With the wind direction and large fetch on the lake we would experience some rolling around, but we shouldn’t have brutal, crashing conditions like we experienced when we traveled on Lake Michigan. We left the harbor and were bounced around the first hour, but then things settled down and we slept and read the rest of the way over.

Jane figures out where we are

Heading for the bay

No seaplanes in the Tobin Bay

Rock Harbor and boat dock

Saginaw Point lighthouse

Honkers outside our motel room

We arrived at Isle Royale’s Rock Harbor visitor’s center just before noon. The ferry left to deliver the members of a wolf pack research team to the interior of the island, and then would return to pick us up. The island of Isle Royale is in Michigan, but is actually closer to Minnesota and Canada than the Upper Peninsula. It is approximately 45 miles long and 9 miles across at its widest width. Many years ago moose swam over from Canada and populated the island. The moose population thrived, but the winter of 1949, a land bridge formed between the island and Canada and a lone pair of wolves arrived and set up a unique predator-prey relationship. This relationship and the moose and wolf populations have been extensively studied, and you can read more about the ecological dynamics at this link. Because we only had around 3 hours at the park and many park offices were still closed, we were limited in what we could do. Of course, the first order of business was to obtain our stamp at the visitor’s center. We believe that we were the first visitors to get the stamp for 2012 as we had to change the stamp date to the correct year. We had a picnic lunch along the shores of Rock Harbor and then walked to the amphitheater, an old lodging display, and the park’s restaurant and lodge. We then hiked across the island to a complex of rental cabins that overlook a beautiful Tobin Bay. This bay is also home to the seaplane docks which is another way of coming to the island. We hiked along a wilderness trail until Capt. Larry’s knees started to complain. Returning to the visitor’s center, we chatted with the rangers while we watched our ferry return to the dock. One ranger told us that more people visit Yellowstone National Park in a day than visit Isle Royale in a year, and in recent years approximately 14,000 visitors have come to the park. However, he also noted that Isle Royale has the highest rate of return visitors of any of the national parks. If this is accurate, then there are not many people that have seen this beautiful place and that thought made us feel like we were part of a special club. Around 2:30 p.m. we boarded our ferry and watched as some campers that had come over the previous Friday for the weekend loaded up their gear for the return trip. The ride back to the mainland was much smoother than the morning trip and we napped most of the way. It was early evening when we docked and we headed out to a restaurant for some supper before turning in for the night.

Sunset by the shores of Gitchi Gumee, by the shining big sea waters