Isle Royale

We took the Ranger III from Houghton, MI to Rock Harbor Lodge at Isle Royale National Park.

Leaving Houghton you sail under the lift bridge.

It takes six hours for the Ranger III to cross the 73 miles to Rock Harbor with a stop on Mott Island. Just before getting to Mott Island, you sail by Tobin Harbor and see the lighthouse.

The Ranger III arrives in the late afternoon and then you wait in line to check in with all the other folks that arrived. We were able to hike the Stoll trail to Scoville Point in the late afternoon before supper.

The next day we packed a lunch and went on a hike to Mount Franklin, we stopped at the beaver pond along the way for a rest on both the way there and the way back. We took the Tobin Harbor trail on the way there and the Rock Harbor trail on the way back.

It was clear enough to see Canada from Mount Franklin.

We saw some ducks, but no beaver.

Some of the thimbleberries were ripe, and we sampled a few, they were good.

The next day we got a canoe and went over to the other side of Tobin Harbor. We hiked up to Louise Lookout, passing another beaver pond.

We walked back down and canoed a little further northeast in Tobin Harbor. There were cabins built here before it became a National Park and you can see the ruins of some of these in the area.

We saw some loons on the way back.

There was a younger male moose that had claimed the campground area as his territory. He walked through the main administration area twice in the four days we were there, but didn’t get to see that as we were out. The rangers have nicknamed him Bruce. We did encounter him blocking the Tobin Harbor trail, which caused us to backtrack and go around.

We also saw him through the trees several times, one time good enough for a photo.

In the mornings and evenings we’d try to find good places to look at the sunrise / sunset.