Isle Royale Info

Isle Royale Journal - Spring, 2013

This journal details a trip to Isle Royale National Park, in the Spring of 2013, through words, pictures and videos.

This is a preliminary outline of what I hope to be a full movie one day featuring videos, pictures and narration of the trip. This was truly a unique trip and, most likely, a once in a lifetime experience on the island due to the conditions.

The Trip Home

Day Ten: GP to Copper Harbor:     
We started off the morning with fresh brewed coffee, carpet under our bare feet, warmth and a porcelain toilet; all of the comforts of civilization. I wish I was on the island! We are sipping coffee and beginning to pack everything up. Since I have extra days off because we had to leave the island early, we are going to go up to Copper Harbor. We hope to stop at the park headquarters in Houghton on the way.
     
We packed up our stuff, checked out and went and had breakfast at the restaurant. We then went to the dock and loaded up our canoe and went in and talked to Don and Paula for a while before hitting the road. On the way down to Duluth, the water falls were very impressive. We stopped at this one and I took this footage. I am not positive which one it was, but believe it was Gooseberry Falls.

Afterwards, we drove straight on to Houghton and parked downtown to go to a sporting goods store I like. We then talked about maybe staying in Houghton for the night. I had stayed at the Travel Lodge there once before and it was nice and reasonable. We walked there and asked how much and we were quoted $95 which I thought was way too high. We walked to the only other hotel downtown and it was closed with a for sale sign on it.
We decided to continue on to Copper Harbor. We arrived at Copper Harbor and every hotel in town was closed except for two, the Mariner and the Pines. We went into the Pines because it is older and seemed to have more personality. It was $65 a night and we decided to stay there. They had just opened up and it took them a while to find the paperwork to fill out and get us checked in. Once our stuff was in, we drove to the Harbor Haus to see when they were open and found out they were not going to be opening until Memorial Day. Bummer, I was really looking forward to a great meal there, oh well. We then drove to the store and picked up some beer before going back to the motel. We went into the bar attached to the motel and met some very friendly people and had a few beers. They had beer from a local brewery in town called the "Brickside Brewery". I had the "Stone Ship Stout" and it was excellent. It turns out the only restaurant in town open, The Mariner, had already closed so we ended up eating some frozen pizzas from the bar that had been there all winter. They weren't very good, but they were food. We stayed there until about midnight before retiring to our room.

Day Eleven: Copper Harbor to Marquette:
In the morning we woke up and packed up our stuff and drove down to the Queen dock to see if we could find someone at the store. We walked around a bit and looked in the window, but there was no one there. We left and drove to "The Pines" for breakfast. It was a very good breakfast at a reasonable price. I think I may choose that over the "Tamarack" restaurant in the future. After breakfast we went to the "Minnetonka" and picked up a few items. We drove back down to the Queen store and Miranda was inside and she opened it up for us (Thanks Miranda!). We purchased a whole bunch of stuff there before leaving. We drove down to Brockway Drive, which we were told was impassable up until the day before. We drove up what was basically a one lane track with many trees down that we had to go around. We stopped at the first scenic turnout along the road which offers a great view of Copper Harbor and the Isle Royale Queen Dock. While we were there, we spooked a deer and Nancy got a picture of it in mid-air.

We left there and continued on to the high point where there is a weather station. There were a half dozen other people up there that were "birding".

We went down the other side and went to Eagle Harbor where we stopped and explored the lighthouse and other buildings that were of course all closed.

We then drove on towards Houghton with a side track through Calumet without stopping. From there we drove to the Quincy Mine which was also closed. We then continued on to Houghton and went to the park headquarters where we looked around and had a conversation with Liz Valencia.
She wanted to know all about our trip and the conditions on the island. While talking to her, Valerie Martin came in and we hugged and said how nice it was we were able to meet up. I repeated the description of our trip and she described her trip out to Windigo on the Ranger when they could see the dock, but were unable to land. I gave her our itinerary for her records and we talked for a while before leaving. We were thinking about staying somewhere outside of Houghton, but I never stopped and we just kept on going to Marquette to stay in our regular motel "The Brentwood". After checking in, we went and had a quick dinner at Big Boy before retiring for the night.

Day Twelve: Marquette to Home:
In the morning, we packed up and stopped at one of our favorite stores in Marquette called "A Touch of Finland". From there, the rest of the drive home was uneventful.

Epilogue:
As it turns out, it would have been an absolute disaster staying on the island until Sunday. I was scheduled to be back to work and was back to work on Monday. If we had stayed, I would not have been back to work until Wednesday. The reason being, I was laid off the day I returned to work on Monday. I was given a check for the two weeks I was off (my paid vacation for the year). If I had not come back on Monday, I believe I would have received nothing and been totally screwed.