Welcome to the Isle Royale Info site. This site is dedicated to providing information about Isle Royale National Park located in Lake Superior. It is meant to be a central point of reference for anyone wanting to go there, or just know more about Isle Royale.
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.
Day Five: Wednesday, May 8th
satellite may 8th.
8:00 am, 37° in shelter, 29.40” steady, steady:
It smells like rain and there are a lot of clouds in the sky.
8:48 am:
I am just fixing our second pot of coffee. The sky is now filled with puffy white clouds with blue sky behind them. It is very quiet this morning, not a single sound. Yesterday morning the air was filled with the sound of birds and loons.
fixing the morning coffee.
us sitting in the meadow.
10:30 am 46° in shelter:
I am sitting at the picnic table we moved into the meadow in the sun! It did not look like we would be in the sun when we woke up. It was almost all clouds and some looked semi-threatening. It also smelled like rain. But the heavy clouds have moved out and we have blue sky with white puffy clouds that are the very thin kind. We had two kayakers pull up by the shore around 9:15. We heard them, but never saw them until I walked down and they were paddling away. I am guessing it was Rob and another ranger. Besides the weather radio, it is the first voices we have heard since they dropped us off at Rock Harbor. A lot of boats are going back and forth from Mott Island to Rock Harbor this morning. I guess they are finally starting work over there. I am surprised we have not seen the Ranger III come in. I believe we went to bed around 11 again last night. We have been pretty consistent so far. To bed at 11 p.m. and up at 8 a.m. That may change at Caribou Island if we have a fire.
12:20 pm:
We have the tent down and everything ready to be packed into the dry bags.
1:15 pm:
We are all packed and on our way down to take off. Goodbye Tookers Island!
1:45 pm:
We are taking off from Tookers. The lake is relatively flat with very little, if any, wind. It should be a nice paddle.
map of route from "isle royale info" book.
davidson house (compare snow to picture on day one).
davidson house (boreal research station) from dock.
video: tookers island to davidson island dock (16:43)
Three Mile Campground (compare snow to day one).
iceburgs!
mott island basketball net (compare to pre-trip picture).
mott island docks (stitched together).
bridge between mott iIsland and east caribou island.
video: davidson island to mott island – part one (18:55)
video: davidson island to mott island – part two (20:55)
video: davidson island to mott island – at 6x speed (6:42)
ice flow across the harbor.
through the ice pack.
in the ice pack.
[Note: We had a camera mounted to the front of the canoe for this entire trip, setup to take a picture every 30 seconds. We believed it was capturing the trip and the ice, so we did not take many videos. Alas, the footage did not come out for unknown reasons. Also, Nancy's camera battery died right when we were in the midst of it, so we have limited video of the second half of the trip and the ice flows.]
video: ice flows in the harbor (2:42)
pulling up to the caribou island dock and scaring away the geese.
3:30 pm:
We are at Caribou Island! It was a very interesting paddle. We actually had to paddle through ice flows getting here. It took us 1:45 to get here, but we were taking our time and we stopped for a while at the Davidson Island dock, and we also stopped for a while when we were in the big ice flows. When we pulled in we scared off a pair of geese that were staying there. They just wandered into the water as they saw us coming in. Almost all of the snow was gone on the south shore of the big island, but you could still see it in the woods.
campground layout from "isle royale info" book.
caribou island fire ring and shelter from the dock.
5:45 pm:
We are all setup; packs unpacked, tent up, water filtered and we have our comfy clothes on. The front of the shelter was wet and had pine needles in it. I imagine it was from snow that recently melted. I would guess there was snow there the day before as it was soaked. There is a snow pile in the very front of the picnic table that may have been part of a drift going into the shelter.
Ice continues to flow past the campground along the harbor. The sky is totally cloudy, but there is very little to no wind and the lake is flat. I am not sure the pictures will do justice to the ice. What was on top of the water was only a third, or most likely a quarter of what the entire ice was as most of it was under the water. They were extremely heavy, and if the wind kicked up and blew them, they could be dangerous to our little Kevlar “IR Us”.
6:30 pm:
The wind has kicked up and is coming out of the north. The ice has blown in to the dock area and it is now ice locked. We have put the spare tarp up over the front of the shelter and placed all of our heavy items on the bottom of it. It is billowing into the shelter. We tried to walk up to the point at the west end of the island, but the trail is quite snow covered and we have comfy clothes on that we did not want to get wet. There were a lot of moose droppings out there. There was definitely a moose here recently. Maybe it was here to calve.
video: caribou island campground (6:09)
caribou island toast.
7:28 pm 52° outside, 29.30" steady, steady:
We are sitting at the picnic table. The strong north wind continues, but it is ok on the table as the temperature is not too cold. We just did a toast to celebrate being at Caribou. Our dinners are in the oven and they should be ready in around 45 minutes. I am hungry and I am looking forward to eating.
8:05 pm:
We have been sitting at the table talking and enjoying a cocktail. We are now going to go in the shelter to eat our dinners out of the wind. We have setup our chairs against the wall where we will be more comfortable.
our brief encounter with two moose.
11:10 pm:
We are sitting in the shelter and it is super windy outside, but it is warm and toasty in the shelter. Well, we had a fun moose adventure. We were sitting here eating our dinner. Actually, we had just finishing, when we heard them coming. Then all of a sudden they were standing right in front of the door. I mean right in front of the propped open door, about two feet in front of the door opening. Nancy’s camera was on her side of the tent, opposite us. My camera was missing in action as I had left it somewhere. The moose took off when she saw us. We got out and I could not find my camera. We backtracked where we had walked down to go to the point, and we ran into the cow moose and yearling by the outhouse. They were heading east from towards the point right towards us. I was by the outhouse, but Nancy was right on the trail they were running on with no protection and she got the best shots she could while looking for protection as they ran right by her after I spooked them. They continued toward the east end of the island. Nancy later found my camera down by the canoe where I had left it when we got water. The irony is, the reason I brought it down there is, and I remember telling her this, I was once down getting water at Whittlesey Lake with three other people and a moose walked right up on us and none of us had a camera. The other irony is, between us, we have two still cameras and three video cameras and not a one was handy. Worse thing about it is I had a GoPro mounted on a tripod within 1’ of the cow. The wireless was not on though. If it would have been, I would have had it right in front of the camera. Oh well. Almost forgot, when we got back there was a small snowshoe hair behind our shelter. It was too dark to get a good picture without scaring it though. We have been sitting in our warm shelter ever since.
11:45 pm:
We have moved into the tent and are getting ready to go to sleep. I just prepared coffee and water for the morning so it is within reach. I am always happy when I wake up and just have to start the stove. Especially when it is cold, which I think it might be.
11:55 pm:
Lights out.
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