Isle Royale, Michigan 
Hiking and canoeing don’t get any better
Than on this wilderness island in Lake Superior 

Years ago in winter, a scientist studying a pack of timber wolves on Lake Superior’s Isle Royale crossed his fingers and pitched his tent one dusk in the middle of a meadow that he knew the wolves used nightly to cross from one part of the forest to another. 

Although convinced the wolves wouldn’t endanger him, he still was anxious to keep them from approaching too close to his tent. Having studied canines for years, he decided to test the wolves’ respect for scents laid down as property boundaries by the “owners” of particular pieces of turf: He carefully streamed a circle of urine in the snow around his camp, hoping that the wolves would be stopped by his thin yellow territorial indicator and go around. 

His gamble paid off. The wolf pack, trotting through just before midnight, made a beeline for his tent, then stopped, caught up in a sudden frenzy of sniffing as its members explored each inch of his citron-hued barrier. Eventually satisfied that the maker of the warning had staked a legitimate claim, they honored the fragile line and skirted his tent.

The timber wolves of Isle Royale have flourished there for years, living off the moose and smaller deer that have thrived protected since 1940 on this 45-mile-long, nine-mile-wide wilderness island in northwestern Lake Superior. (Officially, Isle Royale is in Michigan, but even a casual look at the map shows that it is far closer to Minnesota than it is to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. The park’s history is far more closely bound up with Minnesota’s.)

Isle Royale stretches in a southwesterly-northeasterly direction, looking from above somewhat like an elongated rectangle that extends for miles, and then narrows and shatters into a series of outrigger islands, forming a small archipelago.

The island, heavily timbered in most places with a north woods mix of tamarack, larch, fir and pine, and the protected waters around it cover 900 square miles, an area three times the size of New York City’s five boroughs. The terrain is generally flat, and even the heights of the island’s  parallel ridges are only a few hundred feet above lake level (Superior sits at 600 feet above sea level while the island’s highest point is at 1,300 feet).

Make no mistake: Isle Royale is a wilderness park, reserved only for hikers and canoeists. You must hire a plane or boat to reach it, and once you’re there you must depend on your own muscles (or those of horses) to get around. You will never see a private all-terrain vehicle, swamp buggy or helicopter on the island. It is as close to the forest primeval as one get in the Lower 48, and for that reason confers bragging rights on those hardy few – 20,000 per year – who transverse it each year.

But that isn’t to say that man hasn’t made an imprint there or that amenities are impossible to come by. Over a 4,000-year period, starting with copper-mining Indians, who were then followed by Europeans and American settlers, men have dug, fished, hunted, logged, farmed, built lighthouses and resorts, and consciously exploited the island. At one point in the 19^th century, when copper prices were high enough to cover the costs of extraction and transportation, the island even boasted incorporated townships.

You can still see the rotting hulks of large boats (no matter how big a freshwater “boat” is, you must never call it a ship when it’s on a lake) that ran aground or were smashed by storms into the island’s stony perimeter), as well as the marks left by ambitious Native American and European-American miners, and reminders of catastrophic fires. But in the end, Isle Royale’s relative remoteness and difficult climate spared it the kind of massive spoliation that neighboring landscapes on the mainland suffered.

Even at the height of summer, the average daytime temperature is 69 degrees – a pleasant fact that induced the construction of several resorts over the years, beginning in the 1890s. Winters were and are a different matter: They are bitterly cold, and those few scientists and park rangers who populate the island during the dark season are reminded constantly that in the 2,500 miles of almost totally flat terrain that lies between them and the North Pole, there are few natural barriers to resist the swift southward flow of icy arctic air.

These days, people who’d like to enjoy some modest comforts while visiting the island opt for a stay at Rock Island Lodge near the park’s northeast end. The rustic wooden retreat features a main lodge and adjoining cabins, and offers boat cruises, fishing trips, hiking, swimming, canoeing and lolling about. The dining room specializes in fish recipes and will cook guests’ own freshly caught fish to order. 

Hardcore hikers often start out from the Windigo Visitor Center at the island’s west end and tromp along the Greenstone Ridge Trail, which follows the park’s spine, taking in side trips to the island’s north and south shores. Their ultimate goal is Rock Island Lodge, at the island’s opposite side, where they reward themselves with a pampered day or two at journey’s end. 

Domestic pets are absolutely forbidden on Isle Royale. No cats, dogs, mice, hamsters, lizards – nada. The reason is that scientists fear the contamination of wild animal populations, particularly the wolves, by pet-borne diseases.  

Most national parks offer wilderness experiences. But in the Lower 48 states almost all parks force you to endure congested roads, clogged parking lots and throngs of people before you finally reach the wild. Isle Royale is the grand exception: It isn’t a convenient place to access, and nobody is in a hurry to make that particular task any easier. The upside, of course, is the chance to walk quietly in a wild place that has been fiercely protected against all the aggravating distractions of modern life. There’s just the woods, the critters, the smell of nature and the flow of your own, now benignly slowed, thoughts. 

– Patrick Totty