G.A.S.P.

The next day I took two side trips (moose hunts), leaving my stuff at Three Mile Camp, before heading back to Rock Harbor for the night. The second of these was a 2.8 mile trail from the lakeshore to the top of Mt. Franklin, one of the highest spots on the Island. I highly recommend this trail. It has forest, rocks, marshes, a beautiful beaver-dammed lake (where I hoped I would see a moose wading up to his kneecaps, but didn’t), a stream and a beautiful view from the top. I even saw a couple of wolf tracks in the mud on the trail, which I later learned is not all that common.

Just past the lake, as I crested a small hill, my heart dang near stopped. Ahead in the bushes, 150 or so feet away, munching on a fine leaf lunch, was Julia, a very respectable big old moose. I said (hopefully just to myself), please don’t move, please don’t move. I whipped out my camera and took photo after photo. I later noticed that these first photos would have been very difficult to use to convince anyone that I had seen anything other than a big brown-gray blob in the bushes. But Julia didn’t move, and I crept closer. More photos – she still just kept munching away. Closer – more photos – more munching. I was now only about 15 feet away, but still through the bushes. I got a couple of photos that were now clearly recognizable as a moose head. I waited. She ate. I waited. She ambled across the trail, and I got a good profile shot.

When I got back to Rock Harbor, I deposited my stuff in a shelter and took a couple of more hikes – one to the Seaplane dock and one, the Albert Stoll Jr. Trail to Scoville Point. Albert Stoll Jr. was the Conservation Editor for the Detroit Free Press in the 1920’s when he first visited Isle Royale and was greatly impressed by its rugged beauty and its vulnerability. It had been a resort community and a mining community for years, but there was now real danger that over-development would really ruin the place. Stoll wrote about it in his newspaper and campaigned vigorously for the Federal Government to buy and preserve this Island. His efforts were successful, and in 1946 the Government bought the last of the land and dedicated this National Park.

While out on the Stoll trail, I could see birds on one of the offshore shores. Shortly thereafter, a great clamor of honking arose – just a few at first, but then a mighty chorus. As I watched, approximately 200 Canadian Geese took wing and flew past me out to another part of the Island. It really was quite impressive. About 5 minutes later, a lone goose returned, flying the other direction, just above the water, and honking in solitude the whole way. I think he forgot something and had to go back.

Isle Royale is a special place. It has beauty to match most any other National Parks and unspoiled wilderness that perhaps only some of the Parks in Alaska can claim. It has fewer visitors in a year than Yellowstone has on a typical July or August day. There were probably fewer than 500 people (including Park people) on the Island while I was there. I didn’t get nearly as far into the wilderness as some (the Island is about 50 miles long and more than 10 miles wide in places), but even then I could walk for hours without seeing another human or even a trace, other than boot-tracks, of other humans.

The land itself started as bare rock just 10,000 or so years ago when the glaciers receded. Over time, small bits of dirt landed and stayed and gave rise to the lichens and other simple plant forms. As these took hold, they captured more soil particles that gave rise to the shrubs and ultimately the trees that now cover the Island.

One of the most interesting things about Isle Royale is its ecosytem created when moose swam to the Island from Canada, and wolves came to the Island on the ice during the severe winter of 1948/1949. Since then scientists have been able to study extensively the ebb and flow of these two species' fortunes. It goes something like this. About ten years after a moose baby boom, the herd is old and ripe for attack by the wolf packs. (A healthy moose is more than a match for a pack of wolves; wolves prey on the young, the old and the sick.) The wolf packs therefore expand – plenty of food for the young pups. This however causes a severe decline in the moose population, which means fewer wolves (less food) shortly thereafter. When the wolf population declines, more moose babies survive and the baby boom happens which then brings us back to the starting point ten years later. In 1998, there were only 14 wolves remaining on the Island (I believe the count has been as high as about 50). In 1999, however, do to favorable weather and apparently enough moose, the packs have grown to 25 members. There are three packs (East, Central and West) and they are very territorial.

I highly recommend Isle Royale for a week or two, or even just the couple of days that I had. Click on the button for a few of my many photos of its unspoiled, rugged beauty: