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I’ve made a couple of day trips to Isle Royale, but the trips only solidified my desire to experience more. Much more.

And so, on June 25 I boarded the ferry Voyageur II at Grand Portage Bay in Grand Portage, Minnesota, for the 20-mile, two-hour trip across Lake Superior to the west end of Isle Royale National Park.

My goal? To backpack and camp on as much of the island as I possibly could in ten days.

To take advantage of favorable weather, the ferry company "Grand Portage Isle Royale Transportation Lines," which operates two boats in Grand Portage, adheres to a tight schedule and departs early in the morning.

Courtesy / Blane Klemek

And at Isle Royale’s Washington Harbor’s park service’s settlement Windigo, the boat will dock for offboarding passengers. Other passengers might remain onboard if additional destinations on the island are desired, as the boats make stops at many locations around the entire island.

Isle Royale is a remote, rugged, mountainous and heavily forested 45-mile-long and 9-mile-wide archipelago located in the eastern time zone and is part of Michigan. It’s the largest island on Lake Superior.

The island has a rich Native American history where Indigenous people once hunted, fished, gathered and even mined copper.

In later years upon European exploration and settlement, the island had thriving communities and activity of furbearer trapping and fur trading, miners and mining companies, and fishing and resort industry settlements. And in 1940 after nearly a decade-long process, the island became an official national park.

With a pack on my back weighing over 40 pounds (more when carrying water), I began my adventure from Windigo at around noon on June 25. Windigo is where hiking trails begin and a store and boat rental facility, a park service visitor center, cabins and campgrounds, and other modest amenities are located.

I chose the famed Minong Ridge Trail to begin a sweeping clockwise loop where I’d eventually return to Windigo via the Greenstone Ridge Trail and other trails on the Fourth of July from the Feldtmann Lake Trail.

Though I’m an experienced adventurer with years of big game hunting in the Rocky Mountains, as well as having enjoyed two paddling adventures in the Alaska wilderness and many trips to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, my time on Isle Royale was unique in every way imaginable.

No weapons were carried (or are allowed, for that matter), as the trip wasn’t a hunting trip, nor did I carry a fishing rod and reel. The trip was pure and simple: hike, camp somewhere new each night and observe nature.

Courtesy / Blane Klemek

Every inch across the miles of Isle Royale’s hiking trails has something new and different to experience. Where the Minong Ridge Trail ascends to the spine of basaltic rock formations comprised of lava flows from ancient volcanoes, one is struck by the fact that you’re walking on layers of basalt pushed nearly vertically by time and earth’s forces.

The bare rock, often difficult to navigate on, harbors plant and animal life regardless. The surrounding views of Lake Superior and scattered islands from various panoramic vantages are breathtaking.

While mammal life is not replete on Isle Royale (only around 18 species exist there), if you’re lucky you’ll observe one of the island’s most iconic species: moose. On my trip I was fortunate to observe seven total moose, including four close encounters.

I also awoke in my tent one morning to the sound of a gray wolf howling nearby. Other mammals include red fox, red squirrel, beaver, river otter, pine marten, snowshoe hare, and various other small rodents and species of bats, to name some.

Plant and bird life abound, however. Given the island’s delayed phenology, I enjoyed a replete assembly of blooming forbs, trees, and shrubs, as well as watching and listening to a dizzying array of singing and calling songbirds.

I observed and hiked amongst, for example, sugar maple, white pine, and yellow and paper birch old growth forests. Birds were galore — several species of thrush, diverse species of warblers singing and foraging everywhere, and calling loons from the island’s bays and interior lakes, too. Even sandhill cranes are present on Isle Royale.

In the end, my journey covered over 85 miles of the island from one end to within a day’s hike of the other end as well as on both sides of the island. I bivouacked in the wilderness as well as camped at the park’s remote wilderness interior campgrounds adjacent to several of its gorgeous lakes.

Courtesy / Blane Klemek

I also camped alongside Lake Superior at the island’s Todd Harbor on the northside and Siskiwit Bay on the southside. Without question, the sights, sounds, and scents are still fresh in my memory and will remain so until I return.

And though the adventure was taxing at times because of long distance hiking across rough and steep terrain with a heavy pack (and mosquitoes!), any discomfort was continuously offset by the overwhelming beauty of Isle Royale and the exhilaration it bestowed.

Indeed, whether your interest is a day trip or a wilderness experience that takes you to parts unknown across miles untold, Isle Royale has it all as we get out and enjoy the great outdoors.

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