Michigan – Isle Royale National Park

Isle Royale National Park is an island located in Lake Superior. The island is approximately 45 miles long and 9 miles wide, with a ranger station and a small speck of civilization at each end. In between is remote wilderness, with over 150 miles of hiking trails, back country camping sites, lakes, ridges, bogs with carnivorous plants, and forests laden with beaver, moose, a few wolves and an assortment of smaller wildlife.

This national park is closed over the winter. To avoid the sort of mistake that will cause travel companions to threaten you bodily harm, make certain you’re checking dates when planning your trip.

Rock Harbor is on the eastern end of the island and is by far the larger hub of activity. It has some basic room/cottage housing options (no fancy whirlpool tubs or spas, so leave your cucumber eye masks at home), a restaurant, marina and boat rentals. Windigo is on the western end of the island and has a wooden dock, trees, a small visitor center/ranger station, trees, a few camper cabins (off-limits unless you booked them months in advance) and more trees.

This national park is one of the least visited in the National Park system. People go for the solitude and nature. In the case of Isle Royale, nature includes wolves and moose. These two species and how they interact have been monitored since 1958 and is the longest running field study of its kind. The wolves arrived via a temporary ice bridge that is believed to have formed in 1948. The moose are thought to have arrived in the early 1900’s by swimming. Adventurous beasts, those moose. Imagine just leaping off the shore and starting to doggy paddle out into a vast watery horizon in the hopes that you come across an island.

how to get there

Isle Royale is actually part of Michigan but we chose to do it when we visited Minnesota. This is an unusual divergence for me but I had good reason.

The national park is an island, thus requires a boat ride or a seaplane. A seaplane ride will cost you approx $360 to $440 per person for a roundtrip flight. Since we were not laden with cash, we went by boat. There are only a few ports in which to catch a ferry ride to the park. The ones in Michigan are:

• Houghton (6 hour one-way boat ride)
• Copper Harbor (3.5 hour one-way boat ride)

Or you can leave from Minnesota:

• Grand Portage, Minnesota (1.5 hour one-way boat ride)

See my reasoning here? We were actually going for a day trip, which is why the round trip boat time mattered to me, but we made up the minority. Most visitors to Isle Royale stay for several days to hike, camp, fish, boat and explore its quiet beauty. It’s one of the least visited national parks so you can really get your solitude on.

There are no vehicles allowed on Isle Royale so the only way to get to one end from the other is under your own power or via the ferry service, which has a few docks along the island.

We left from Grand Portage, MN aboard the Sea Hunter III and it safely dropped us at the west end of the island at Windigo Visitor Center. The other end of Isle Royale has Rock Harbor Visitor Center, which is larger and has more amenities. The ferry ride took 1.5 hours but we hit it on a warm day so the ride was beautiful and a fun part of the adventure.

The water in Lake Superior is the cleanest and clearest in all the great lakes, with water visibility averaging 27 feet. In more shallow still waters, this means you can clearly see the bottom. On the way to the island, the ferry paused for a few interesting sights including the Witch Tree (a white cedar believed to over 400 years old), a ship wreck (visible under the water!) and the Rock of Ages lighthouse.

options on where to sleep

1. Rock Harbor Lodge
   • Basic rooms – beautiful water views, have either one king bed or 2 double beds, can hold up to 4 people, private bathroom, no microwave or mini fridge.
   • Suite – 2 regular rooms joined together. One side has 2 double beds, the other side has a futon, refrigerator and microwave
2. Rock Harbor Cottages
   • Each cottage has a kitchenette, one double bed and one bunk bed. Linens included.
3. Windigo Camper Cabins
   • electrical outlets, no heat or A/C, two bunk beds, no indoor plumbing, picnic table and grill at each cabin.
   • These fill up within one week of reservations opening for the year
4. Tent Camping
   • there are 36 campgrounds spread out over the island – these are accessible by foot or water craft only and most people hike from camp to camp as they work their way across the island
   • each campground offers tent sites, water and an outhouse
   • there’s lots to know if you’re thinking about going – start with the Overview page at Isle Royale National Park

things to do on isle royale

• Hiking/backpacking
  • this can be anything from an easy 3 mile trail to a week long cross-island adventure
• Paddling
  • most of the ferry services will also take canoes/kayaks for a fee or you can rent boats at Windigo (I didn’t see any but supposedly this is a thing) and Rock Harbor (this is a definite)
  • you can paddle on Lake Superior (caution advised since this lake is famous for sudden storms, rough waters and shipwrecks), around the island’s inlets, harbors, coves and channels and to several nearby islands
  • there are also several interior lakes on Isle Royale and portage routes between them
• Fishing
  • If you’re fishing in Lake Superior, you need a Michigan Fishing License. If you’re fishing in inland lakes, no license is required.
• Boating
  • there are surrounding islands around Isle Royale that you can explore
  • here’s the list of campgrounds and docks which are boat accessible
  • there are some boats for rent at Rock Harbor
• Scuba Diving Shipwrecks
  • there are 10 shipwrecks around Isle Royale that can be explored
  • this is a bring your own equipment, come at your own risk, know what you’re doing activity
• Guided Tours
  • there are a handful to choose from at Rock Harbor – one includes a 3 hour cruise down the Portage Canal, the others include boat rides combined with guided hikes to interesting lookouts, lighthouses, research stations or along a boardwalk through a spruce bog
  • there are extra fees for the tours and some book up rapidly, so be quick with your planning
  • there are a variety of Ranger programs offered at Windigo and Rock Harbor
• Junior Ranger Program
  • This fun program is offered by the majority of the national parks and our kids love doing it. Each park has its own booklet that must be completed and then turned into a ranger. They will have a brief swearing in ceremony and the kids will be presented with a collectible ranger badge specific to the park.
  • We were able to complete the booklets and get the kid’s badges on our day trip to Isle Royale but it was cutting it close. You are allowed to mail the booklets in at a later time however and they will send your badges.

a one day itinerary for isle royale

• 8:30 AM – board the Sea Hunter III in Grand Portage, Minnesota. The ferry ride takes 1.5 hours. There are several interesting sights along the way, including a shipwreck visible just below the surface of the water.
• 10: 00 AM – arrive at Windigo
• 10-10:15 AM – listen to a mandatory ranger introductory talk. Get distracted by an adorable otter playing in the water beside the dock, miss the majority of the talk, hope your husband was paying attention.
• 10:15-10:30 AM – visit the small visitor center, get your national park book stamped, pick up the Junior Ranger books for the kids and use the bathrooms
• 10:30 AM – started the hike for Furman Lake, an approximately 3.5 mile round-trip hike
• 11:30 AM – make it to the Furman Lake overlook after pausing to study moose tracks, fill in a section of a Junior Ranger book and discuss possible gruesome outcomes if someone ate the unidentified berries growing along the trail. Eat lunch and strain your eyeballs looking for moose.

• 12 PM – head back
• 1 PM – Arrive back at the dock after pausing to allow time for one kid to fall into Lake Superior and get a wet foot. In between pauses, you must keep a pretty smart hiking pace.

• 1-1:30 PM – finish the Junior Ranger books and eat a snack on the dock
• 1:30 PM – hussle back to the visitor center to get sworn in and collect Junior Ranger badges.

• 1:45 PM – Board the ferry for the ride back to Grand Portage, MN
• 2-3:30 PM – Ferry ride back to Grand Portage, MN
• 3:45 – 5 PM – Drive 12 minutes down the road to Grand Portage State Park. Drag your wilting family on a one mile hike to Grand Portage Falls, which is the highest water fall in Minnesota and straddles the border between the US and Canada. Admire the view.
• 5:30 PM – on the way to dinner, devour an entire bag of Doritos in the car because everyone is starving (optional)

Tips, tricks and really handy things to know

• If you’re going for a day trip to Isle Royale, I would recommend either taking the ferry from Grand Portage, Minnesota (3 hour round-trip) or booking a sea plane. The next closest ferry ride is from Copper Harbor, Michigan (7 hour round-trip boat ride), which barely leaves you any time on the island. However, it also matters which end of the island you want to visit. The 1.5 hour trip from Grand Portage, MN, takes you to Windigo, which is the less-developed end of the island.

• There is a $9/day/person fee to be on Isle Royale. This includes the day you arrive and the day you leave. If you’re staying for several days, it may save you some cash to do the Isle Royale Season Pass, which is $60 and includes you and 3 other adults. Kids 15 years and under are free.

• If you’re visiting from Minnesota, there is a TIME CHANGE to the island. Since the ferries and seaplanes do not wait around for stragglers, be absolutely certain you’re on the right time zone when making your pickup times. Otherwise you might have to spend the night with the otters on the dock.

• If I had it to do over again, I would go to Rock Harbor and spend at least one night. Do some hiking, rent a kayak, admire the peace and quiet, try to spot a moose. We did the day trip and it felt rushed.

• There is a reason Isle Royale is one of the least visited parks and it’s not because it’s not beautiful. It costs money to get there and requires a good bit of pre-planning. This is not a trip to be taken impulsively. Because of low visitor numbers, many of the guided tours are only offered on certain days, boats/planes do not arrive at every dock daily and some of the accommodations (I’m looking at you Windigo camper cabins) are booked up as soon as the reservations open, so some thinking is required to maximize your fun. Plus, most of the activities available require some physical fitness so get your exercise on beforehand.

• If you are going to Windigo, it is RUSTIC. There is nothing to eat but some unidentified berries along the trail that may or may not cause profuse vomiting and your toes to turn purple. You step off the ferry onto a wooden dock, there is a bathroom and very small visitor center/ranger station and that’s it. Make certain you pack whatever food, water and gear that you require.

• The ferry rides can be COLD. The air temperature on the lake can be over 10 degrees colder than the temperature on the mainland. The Sea Hunter III was not large enough to fit everyone indoors, so some people have to ride outside. We happened to hit it on a warm day but even so, most people were wearing jackets and some were wearing hats and scarves. Dress like its going to be 10 degrees colder than you thought and you’re standing in a stiff wind for 1.5 hours.

• Lake Superior can be unforgiving, with rough winds and water. If you are prone to getting seasick, take medicine before the ferry ride. No one wants to arrive green and nauseous.