The Great Mini-School Isle Royale Trip
By Maud Clawson and Jeff Jambeck
Beauty and adventure – Isle Royale! Doug, J.J., Howdy Doty, Shelli Arnold, Jeff Jambeck, Dave Macfarlane, Eric Boettcher, Eric Cobb, Hillary Williams, and I, Meredith Clawsen (Maud) woke up Wednesday morning (Sept. 17th) at Judge C. R. Magney State Park, near Grand Portage, Minnesota, to bitter, cold rain but also anticipating faces for today was the day that our faithful crew was to head out to Isle Royale. We arrived at Grand Portage at about 9 o’clock and discovered that our 3-hour boat tour was really a 7-hour tour. Cold, wet, clammy, we climbed onto the Voyageur II (we later named it The Edmund Fitzgerald II).
The boat was about 60 feet long and 30 feet wide. It was a cold, old aluminum tub. It looked like an old fishing boat with bus seats, which is what I think it was. All over this beauty of a boat were signs reading “If you get sick, don’t use the bathroom – go over the stern” or “You may help yourself to coffee but don’t touch anything else.” The crew – three all together – were the captain, who looked to be about 80, a grouchy lady (sea hag) who took tickets and told people not to put their feet on the bus seats, and a younger, quiet man with a mustache who took care of the packs and luggage. This crew was about as pleasant as their pleasant little signs.
As we chugged further out into Lake Superior the waves got bigger and the boat started bobbing up and down, up and down. Pretty soon my stomach started bobbing up and down and I started feeling like the exorcist. I needed fresh air and went to the stern. I was soon joined by Dave, Jeff, and Big D, who was the first to feed the fish with his technicolor yawn. I unfortunately was next.
At last the boat approached Isle Royale and many bays and channels which meant calmer water and a pink face for me. We made several stops as we went along the north shore of the island, mostly to let people off. We got to know some other people on the boat, a couple from Georgia who were really nice and whom we encountered midway through our trip and again at the end. They were really into nature. We also met a deep sea diver who was going to the island to teach the rangers how to dive.
We finally reached our destination, Rock Harbor, Isle Royale, which is on the east end of the island. Isle Royale, by the way, is 55 miles long and about 10 miles wide at its widest point. It is technically part of Michigan (although it is a lot closer to Minnesota and closer still to Ontario) and sits right smack in the middle of Lake Superior. It contains 14 clean, clear, serene lakes. It has the largest population of moose and wolves (per square miles) in the U.S. Since there is no hunting on Isle Royale (it is a national park, like Yellowstone), it is a perfect laboratory for scientists to study the predator/prey relationship between wolves and moose.
Anyway, after we landed at Rock Harbor, we were rounded up by a rangerette who gave us some background of Isle Royale and told us the rules. After this acquaintance with the island, we hoisted our packs and made our way to Rock Harbor campground. Immediately Big D and J.J., cook crew for the evenings, cooked supper while everyone else set tents up and got organized. After dinner was a time to explore, so Jeff and I headed out to find ourselves a moose and I couldn’t believe it – we did. He was a big guy eating plants out of the water. I don’t know if he enjoyed our presence because once he caught our eye he stopped and stared at us. Now imagine a quarter horse (with antlers) loose in the woods. That’s what this beast reminded me of. It was getting dark and we headed back. We had to get organized for tomorrow’s eight-mile hike to Daisy Farm Campground.
The first one up was the Big D and he shouted everyone’s name to rise and shine. Everyone got up good and prepared Mini-School’s famous oatmeal (goatmeal) breakfast. The weather was crisp and cloudy but the group was raring to go. Off we went with the Big D leading the way.
The hike was beautiful along the south shore of the island. You could see Lake Superior and the little islands that protruded out of the massive lake. It was nice to hear the lake crash against the shore and the wind shake the trees. I noticed that the air was so fresh. After about a mile everyone stopped and began peeling off layers of clothes such as sweaters and long underwear. The weather was cool, but when you are hiking with a big backpack on your back you don’t need much clothing on.
We stopped for lunch at noon and checked out a neat little cave called (oddly enough) Susy’s Cave. Big D took some snapshots and we were under way again. By mid-afternoon we arrived at our campground for the night, Daisy Farm. It was real nice. It overlooked Lake Superior, a creek, and a meadow with some wild apple trees. There was also a duck that joined us at our campsite and begged for food. Night was soon upon us and the group gathered down at the lake shore for this night was the full moon and it was the most incredible I’ve ever seen. It rose huge and bright orange. It beamed an orange glowing line across the calm lake and we all sat up and watched nature’s free light show. We finally turned in (hit the dirt – Ha Ha) as we were bushed from the day’s hiking.
The next day was a tough but very scenic hike. Chickenbone Lake was our next destination. Again the weather was good, thanks to the efforts of our super weather girl, Hillary. We did some rock hiking, some deep woods hiking, and some plank hiking. The park service makes small foot bridges of planks over muddy, swampy places. Sometimes they are as long as 1/4 mile. Often moose tracks and wolf tracks can be seen in the mud at these places. It was nice not to hear cars, barking dogs, radios, TV, or other people – just woods noises and Howdy noises. Big D says we probably would have seen ten times as much wild life as we did if Howdy Doty wasn’t along – especially after he eats sugar, he sure gets rowdy and noisy. Sometimes the red squirrels would get angry at us for being in their territory and would chirp loudly at us. They would look so funny doing it – Their whole body would tweak out. Eric Boettcher and I got a kick out of it.
As Eric Cobb and I were hiking, talking and sweating, I noticed a signpost that said “Chickenbone Lake, .3 miles.” “Three more miles!” I said, “I’ll never make it!!” Eric looked at me and said, “No Maud, three-tenths of a mile.” “Oh,” I said, feeling stupid but relieved. Chickenbone Lake reminded me of one of those sensitive Hallmark cards, it was so picturesque. Doug prepared some bannock, which was delicious, and Jeff made us chicken noodle dinner (Mini-School has another name for it). Everyone was pretty tired because we had hiked 11 miles that day.
(Jeff Jambeck takes over from here, folks) Our next destination was Hatchet Lake. We had our usually gruesome goatmeal breakfast and hit the trail. J.J. had to hike back toward Chickenbone Lake for a shirt he’d lost yesterday and said he’d catch up by lunchtime. He did!! We hiked uphill most of the morning and reached the top of Mount Siskiwit by lunch time. We had a great view of the boundaries of Isle Royale from here and could also see Thunder Bay, Ontario. We also could see Lake Siskiwit from here and Ryan Island which is the largest island in the largest lake on the largest island in the largest lake in the world. We then hiked until we got to Hatchet Lake, which was our first layover campsite.
On our layover day we ate, rested, took pictures, fished (no luck except Howdy lost most of Big D’s lures), looked for wildlife, and went on day hikes to Todd Harbor, about four miles away. It was fun to hike without a big pack. That night Maud, Eric Cobb, and I saw the Northern Lights and got real excited. We called everyone down to the lake to see them, but by the time everyone got down there they weren’t as spectacular as they were earlier. The rest of the evening was spent sitting around J.J.’s candle (no campfires are allowed on most of Isle Royale) talking, telling stories, and drinking hot chocolate (“‘cow-cow’ – even the bloody queen don’t get ‘cow-cow’.”), tea, and coffee. Later we all crashed, for tomorrow we had an eight-mile hike to Lake Desor.
On our hike to Desor, which was on the top of Greenstone Ridge, the weather in the morning was real foggy. In spite of the wet bushes and grass, which got your pants soaked, hiking in the fog was cool and kind of spooky. We passed Ishpeming Point (if you can pronounce it right, you win a prize) which had a little fire tower on top of it. Soon after that, the fog lifted on another beautiful day and in the afternoon Maud, the Erics, Hillary, and I saw a huge bull moose. We got about 50 feet from him.
Lake Desor was incredibly beautiful. Our campsite was situated in this white birch forest, and the view across the lake, with all the trees changing color, was breathtaking. That night Dave, Maud, and I saw a gnarly falling star that looked like it hit the earth. Also, in the evening before dark, Big D and J.J. hiked up the trail and came across this huge bull moose blocking the trail. They came back to tell us and Shelli, Hillary, and Eric Buettcher went to see him. Big D took some pictures, but when he tried to move too close, Bullwinkle lowered his antlers and stamped his hooves. Big D said “O.K.! we’ll take your picture from back here then.”
We had another layover day on Lake Desor and the weather was nice. Most people spent the day taking day hikes, cleaning up, and getting organized. Big D caught a fish, a white fish, which he shared at lunch. J.J., as usual, caught nothing but rocks. On this day J.J. played baseball with Big D’s head. He was swinging his walking stick like a baseball bat when the end broke off and hit Big D in the coconut while he was fixing dinner. Luckily, Big D wasn’t hurt too badly. J.J. did his best to blame Howdy and said, when talking about horseplay around the campsite, “It’s funny until someone gets hurt and then it gets funnier.” It was another clear, beautiful night. You could see almost every star in the sky. Quite a few of us sat up late down by the lakeshore and star gazed.
Finally – our last day of hiking – an 11-mile struggle to Windigo where the boat would pick us up. It really wasn’t so bad because it was mostly downhill after Mount Desor and Sugar Mountain, the backpacks were much lighter since most of the food was gone, and the day was the most beautiful yet. The trail wound mostly through maple trees which completely canopied the trail and were incredibly colorful — yellows, golds, reds. A real wonderland. Big D said that in all his years in the woods he had never seen more beautiful autumn colors on a more beautiful day.
We got to Windigo by mid-afternoon, set up camp, and found that some of the critters here were almost tame. The Canadian jays would light on your hand and eat flapjack crumbs. The red foxes would almost eat out of your hand and were always trying to ravage the camp site. One carried J.J.’s boot off a few feet before he chased him away, and Dave and I could hear them running into our tent lines that night. They chewed a strap off Hillary’s pack and did some other minor damage that night. Real pests.
The next morning we had to wait until 12:30 for the boat to come. Soon it began to rain so the rangers invited us into their building and showed us movies on wolves and other critters until the boat came. The boat ride back was just as wavy as the one out, but it was not as bad because we were running with the waves. The sea hag was just as crabby though.
When we landed at Grand Portage after a three-hour ride we said good-bye to friends we’d made, packed up the trailer, piled into Big D’s truck and J.J.’s car and headed for Grand Marais for showers, a swim, sauna and whirlpool. Dave and I had long hair, so we got to be eraser heads and wear these goony shower caps. Naturally Big D took pictures of us. After these joyous happenings, most of us ate pizza at Sven and Ole’s pizza place. Doug and J.J. ate at the Blue Water cafe and Shelly and Hillary ate at the Dairy Queen. Big D told us we could wander around town until 10 p.m. and then we crashed at the East Bay Hotel, all ten of us in one big room, having to put up with Hillary’s snoring, Howdy’s mumbling, and Maud’s sleep giggling all night long. Big D got everyone up early to get a good start home, and we were under way before it was light.
Everyone agreed that the Isle Royale trip was an excellent one in every respect.
Big D’s Note: The following quotations were overheard by me throughout the trip. I thought I’d record them for posterity:
“I’d rather meet up with a bull moose on the trail than one of those spiders in the outhouse.” – Hillary
“I didn’t shave my legs or armpits before this trip so I’d grow hair and keep warmer.” – Maud
“I can’t wait to get to the next campground so I can put up my tent in a shelter.” – Howdy
“Did you hear what he said!” – J.J.
Early in the trip we met another hiker who was telling us about the moose he’d seen, three cows and a bull. Hillary said “I didn’t know there were cows on this island.”
“I know how to make pasta. Pasta is my life!” – Maud
“How many people are in this group, anyway.” – Eric Boettcher – dividing up lunch on the last day.
“Let me get it straight now, Doug – Wolves eat moose but moose don’t eat wolves – right.” – Shelli – after I had spent ten minutes explaining the predator/prey relationship between the wolves and moose.
Third day of Trip – “J.J., you can have my Genera pants and maybe my down jacket if you’ll carry them.” – Eric Cobb
After a suppertime interrogation to find the powdered milk, Hillary said, “I’ve got the powdered butter.”
“Wow, my walking stick broke!” J.J., as a piece of it protruded from my head.
“I think I’ve decided to have a girl friend” Howdy on the fifth day of the trip. On the sixth day we found “April” scrawled on the ground all over the campsite, along the lakeshore, etc.
“A big, dumb, lovesick lummox!” – J.J.