 Map of Isle Royale | |
  Isle Royale | |
| Geography | |
|---|---|
| Location | Lake Superior |
| Coordinates | 48°0′N88°55′W / 48.000°N 88.917°W /48.000; -88.917 |
| Area | 206.73 sq mi (535.4 km2) |
| Length | 45 mi (72 km) |
| Width | 9 mi (14 km) |
| Highest elevation | 1,394 ft (424.9 m) |
| Highest point | Mount Desor |
| Administration | |
United States | |
| State | Michigan |
| County | Keweenaw County |
| Townships | Eagle Harbor /Houghton |
| Demographics | |
| Population | 0 (2000) |
Isle Royale (/ˈrɔɪəl/,ROY-əl)[1] is anisland of the Great Lakes located in the northwest ofLake Superior and part of the U.S. state ofMichigan. The island and the 450 surrounding smaller islands and waters make upIsle Royale National Park.
Isle Royale is 45 miles (72 km) long and 9 miles (14 km) wide, with an area of 206.73 square miles (535.4 km2), making it thefifth-largest lake island in the world. In addition, it is the largest natural island in Lake Superior, the second-largest island in theGreat Lakes (afterManitoulin Island), the third-largest in thecontiguous United States (afterLong Island andPadre Island), the largest in the contiguous U.S. with no road link to the mainland, and the33rd-largest island in the United States.[2]
Isle Royale is defined by theUnited States Census Bureau asCensus Tract 9603 ofKeweenaw County, Michigan (a county found in the state'sUpper Peninsula). As of the2000 census there was no permanent population on Isle Royale.[3] After the island was made a national park, some existing residents were allowed to stay,[4] and a few leases are still in effect.
In 1875, Isle Royale was set off fromKeweenaw County, as a separate county,Isle Royale County. In 1897, the county was dissolved, and the island was reincorporated into Keweenaw County. The highest point on the island isMount Desor at 1,394 feet (425 m), or about 800 feet (240 m) above lake level.
Isle Royale is within about 15 miles (24 km) from the shore of theCanadian province of Ontario (near the city ofThunder Bay), and adjacently, the state of Minnesota and is 56 miles (90 km) from the Michigan shore, on theKeweenaw Peninsula, itself part of Upper Peninsula. There are no roads on the island, and wheeled vehicles or devices, other than wheelchairs, are not permitted.[5] Rock Harbor has wheeled carts available to move personal belongings from the Rock Harbor marina to the cabins and hotel. Also, the National Park Service employs tractors and utility terrain vehicles to move items around the developed areas at Windigo, Rock Harbor, and Mott Island.
Topsoil tends to be thin, which favors trees that have horizontal root patterns such asbalsam fir,white spruce, andblack spruce.
Siskiwit Lake is the largest lake on the island. It has cold, clear water which is relatively low in nutrients. Siskiwit Lake contains several islands, including Ryan Island, the largest.
Source climate data for Isle Royale is lacking, particularly for the winter season, though general summaries of seasonal variations are available and data from nearby areas have been used to derive deductions for purposes of scientific study.[6] For example, see the monthly temperature and precipitation table on theIsle Royale National Park page.
The island is composed largely of ridges, running roughly southwest-to-northeast. The main ridge, Greenstone Ridge, is over 1,000 feet (300 m) in many places.Greenstone belts are exposed, with rounded stones ofchlorastrolite, also known as greenstone, near and in the lake.
According to theNational Park Service, the north sides of the ridges tend to be steeper than the south sides.[7] Coastal areas were once submerged beneath prehistoric lake waters, and contain many tumbled boulders and other large rocks.
The island was a common hunting ground for native people from nearby Minnesota and Ontario. A canoe voyage of thirteen miles is necessary to reach the island's west end from the mainland.
In prehistoric times, large quantities of copper were mined on Isle Royale and the nearbyKeweenaw Peninsula. The region is scarred by ancient mine pits and trenches up to 70 feet (20 meters) deep.Carbon-14 testing of wood remains found in sockets of copper artifacts indicates that they are at least 6500 years old.[8][9]
InPrehistoric Copper Mining in the Lake Superior Region, published in 1961, Drier and Du Temple estimated that over 750,000 tons of copper had been mined from the region. However, David Johnson and Susan Martin contend that their estimate was based on exaggerated and inaccurate assumptions.[10][11] In 1670, aJesuit missionary named Dablon published an account of "an island calledMenong, celebrated for its copper."Menong, orMinong, was the native term for the island, and is the basis for the name of the Minong Ridge on the island.
Isle Royale was given to the United States by the 1783treaty with Great Britain, but the British remained in control until after theWar of 1812, and theOjibwa peoples considered the island to be their territory. The Ojibwas ceded the island to the U.S. in the 1842Treaty of La Pointe, with theGrand Portage Band unaware that neither they nor Isle Royale were in British territory. With the clarification to the Ojibwas of the 1842Webster–Ashburton Treaty that was signed before the Treaty of La Pointe, the Ojibwas re-affirmed the 1842 Treaty of La Pointe in the 1844Isle Royale Agreement, with the Grand Portage Band signing the agreement as an addendum to the 1842 treaty.
In the mid-1840s, a report byDouglass Houghton, Michigan's first stategeologist, set off a copper boom in the state, and the first modern copper mines were opened on the island.[12] Evidence of the earlier mining efforts was everywhere, in the form of many stone hammers, some copper artifacts, and places where copper had been partially worked out of the rock but left in place. The ancient pits and trenches led to the discovery of many of the copper deposits that were mined in the 19th century.[10] The remoteness of the island, combined with the small veins of copper, caused most of the 19th-century mines to fail quickly.[citation needed] Between the miners and commercial loggers, much of the island was deforested during the late 19th century. Once the island became a national park in 1940, logging and other exploitive activities ended, and the forest began to regenerate.
In 1980 acanine parvovirus epidemic swept though the island killing 36 of the 50 wolves living there[13]
The island was once the site of severallake trout andwhitefish fisheries, as well as a few resorts. Today, it has no permanent inhabitants; the small communities of Scandinavian fishermen were removed by the United States National Park Service (NPS) after the island became a national park in the 1940s. About 12 families have lifetime leases for their cabins and claim Isle Royale as their heritage, and several descendant fishermen fish the Isle Royale waters commercially.[4] The western tip of the island is home to several shipwrecks that are very popular with scuba divers, including theSSAmerica.[14] The NPSSubmerged Resources Center mapped the 10 most famous of theshipwrecks in the park, and publishedShipwrecks of Isle Royale National Park; The Archeological Survey,[15] which gives an overview of the maritime history of the area.
In 1845, anOjibwe woman named Angelique and hervoyageur husband Charlie Mott were left on Isle Royale, as hires for Cyrus Mendenhall[16] and the Lake Superior Copper Company. They were hired and carried to Isle Royale by Mendenhall's schooner, the "Algonquin", first to scout for copper. Angelique found a large mass of copper ore, upon which she and her husband were hired to stay and guard until a barge could come to retrieve it, promised in no more than 3 months' time. They were dropped off in July and were left stranded there until the following Spring. They were left with minimal provisions, which consisted of a half-barrel of flour, six pounds of butter, and some beans. A supply boat was promised to arrive after the first few weeks, but it was never sent out.
Angelique and her husband were left to survive in the wilderness with limited supplies, on an island with scarce resources. They lost their canoe in a fall storm, and their fishing net was destroyed. By January 1846, Charlie went mad with hunger and even threatened to murder and eat Angelique. He returned to himself, loving and soft, but was weakening greatly, and eventually succumbed to his starvation, dying. Angelique was forced to leave the body in the cabin and created a brush shelter for herself to live in. She survived by eating poplar bark, bitter berries, and by pulling out her own hair, plaiting the strands, and creating snares with it, by which she caught rabbits on rare occasions. In the Spring of 1846, theAlgonquin returned, and brought Angelique back to her mother. She died in 1874, in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario.
The full events were chronicled in a footnote as told by Angelique in the first printing of a book calledThe Honorable Peter White by Ralph D. Williams in 1907;[17] Angelique's story was pulled from the subsequent printing, thus making it the only written record that survives. Humans haven't normally settled year-round on Isle Royale. For about three thousand years, Native Americans used the land for copper and fish. These Native Americans usually limited their visiting to the island in the summer. Americans in the nineteenth century did the same thing.
The island and the 450 surrounding smaller islands and waters make upIsle Royale National Park.[18] It is the least visited national park in the lower 48 states.[19]
Recreational activity on Isle Royale includeshiking,backpacking,fishing,boating,canoeing,kayaking, and observing nature. Wheeled vehicles are not permitted on Isle Royale, such as bicycles or canoe portage devices; however, wheelchairs are allowed.[20]
There are numerous campgrounds, many of which are only accessible by water. There are two small settlements on the island proper: Rock Harbor, which has a resort, a marina, and basic amenities, and Windigo, a smaller facility on the far western end of the island. Both Rock Harbor and Windigo have paid showers and provisions available.
A typical National Park Service campground consists of a few shelters (cabin-like structures with one wall ofmosquito-proofscreen), individual tent sites with picnic table, and group camping sites. There are one or morepit toilets at each facility. Campgrounds along the shore have a boat dock and overnight boaters are a common sight at some campgrounds. Waterfront locations also attractcanoeists andkayakers. No wells are available, thus all water is usually filtered or thoroughly boiled to prevent infection byparasites and bacteria.
The island offers approximately 170 miles (270 km) of hiking trails for everything from day hikes to a two-week circumnavigation hike.[21] Some of the hiking trails are quite challenging, with steep grades. "The most popular, best marked and longest single route ...is the 40-mileGreenstone Ridge Trail that extends down the island's backbone."[21] The trail leads to the peak of Mount Desor, at 1,394 feet (425 m), the highest point on the island, and passes through northwoods wilderness, and by inland glacial lakes, swamps, bogs and scenic shorelines.[21] The most difficult trail is the Minong Ridge, which has a 13-mile hike from North Lake Desor to Windigo.[citation needed] It passes through quick elevation changes, high plants, and miles upon miles of hiking on ridges overlooking Lake Superior.
A number of habitats exist on the island, the primary beingboreal forest, similar to neighboring Ontario and Minnesota. Upland areas along some of the ridges are effectively "balds" with exposed bedrock and a few scrubby trees, blueberry bushes, and hardy grasses. Occasional marshes exist, which are typically the by-product ofbeaver activities. There are also several lakes, often with wooded or marshy shores. The climate, especially in lowland areas, is heavily influenced by the cold waters ofLake Superior.
The island is well known amongecologists as the site of a long-term study of apredator–prey system, betweenmoose andeastern timber wolves.L. David Mech began this study in 1958 as a graduate student at Purdue University.[22] There is a cyclical relationship between the two animals: as the moose increase in population, so do the wolves. Eventually, the wolves kill too many moose and begin to starve and lower their reproductive rates.[23]
Historically neither moose nor wolves inhabited Isle Royale. Just prior to becoming a national park, the largest mammals on Isle Royale were Canadianlynx and theboreal woodland caribou. Archeological evidence indicates both of these species were present on Isle Royale for 3,500 years prior to being removed by direct human actions (hunting, trapping, mining, logging, fires and possibly the introduction of invasive species). The last boreal woodland caribou documented on Isle Royale was in 1925. Though Canadian lynx were removed by the 1930s some have periodically crossed the ice bridge from neighboringOntario, Canada, the most recent being an individual sighting in 1980.[24] Though lynx are no longer present on the island, their primary prey,snowshoe hares, remain. Before the appearance of wolves,coyotes were also a predator on the island. Coyotes appeared around 1905 and disappeared shortly after wolves arrived in the 1950s.[citation needed] Four wolves were brought from Minnesota in 2018,[25] after some debate as to whether the introduction was an unnatural intervention.[19]
Other common mammals arered foxes,beavers, andred squirrels. Some foxes are quite used to human contact, and can be seen prowling the campgrounds at dawn, looking for stray scraps left by unwary campers. For its part, thewolf is an elusive species which avoids human interaction. Few documented cases of direct wolf/human contact exist.Ermine have been periodically sighted around docks. Other mammals that can be seen includemink (along the various lake shores) andmuskrats (occasionally at beaver ponds). Several species ofbat also exist on the island.[26] Reptiles include theeastern garter snake,painted turtle, andnorthern redbelly snake.[27] Six species offrogs and three species ofsalamander also live on the island.[28]
The island is accessible by private boat, seaplane,[29] three private commercial ferries, and a National Park Service ferry.
Scheduled ferry service generally runs May through September:
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48°0′N88°55′W / 48.000°N 88.917°W /48.000; -88.917
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