Captain Don R.

The 5 days-a-week runs have begun on the Queen IV. Here's a shot of my brother Captain Don R. Kilpela on the Queen Dock one eveing this week. That's our nephew Sam Eberhard behind him. Sam is working as a deckhand this year on the Queen, the third and last of the Hancock Eberhard boys to work for us in the family business. That's the Queen IV in the background, of course. Special day-trip prices for the month of June are now in effect, just $31 (!!) for a day-trip over to Isle Royale during the whole month of June. Come on up and join in the fun. It's a great day, 3 hours over, 3.5 hours there, and 3 hours back. We'd love to show you this great American wilderness, along with a great boat ride across the world's largest body of fresh water.



My next shot is of the Queen IV in the distance coming in past the Habor Haus restaurant this week. It had reportedly been a fabulous day on the Lake this day, with calm seas almost the entire way. We love these days as much as our patrons.

The Queen IV Arrives in Copper Harbor

The season must be just about to begin, since the Isle Royale Queen IV has moved from Houghton to Copper Harbor for the start of the 2007 season on May 15. This is a shot of our two-year-old vessel by Captain Donald Kilpela, Sr. of the arrival a couple days back. By the way, I stole this shot from my Dad's blog "Circumnaigating." You will want to check that blog out. It not only has an interesting series of posts on the history of Isle Royale passenger ferry service out of Copper Harbor, the GATEWAY to ISLE ROYALE as it has been called for decades, but also the current series on my Dad's adventures in the oil tanker business. The blog can be found at:

http://www.circumnavigating.blogspot.com/

A Poem Mentioning Isle Royale

If you know my blogs, you know that I write about literature and poetry on my Yvor Winters blog and, hence, you also must have guessed that I follow and study poetry. For the first time in my life, I ran across a poem that mentions Isle Royale in a national publication of some sort. The poem was published on Poetry Daily, a site I follow, and can be found at:

http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=13633

I just had to mention it. I won't give you my opinion of it or an interpretation. It seems pretty clear to me. But it was rather interesting that I stumbled across it.

Opening of the 2007 Season Draws Near

We're getting ready! Captain John and Captain Don Kilpela report that work has begun on preparing the Isle Royale Queen IV for the 2007 sailing season to Isle Royale National Park. Our superb new boat is currently moored on the Houghton waterfront on Portage Lake, about 45 miles from Copper Harbor, as the crow flies. Last week, there was a huge blizzard, one of the biggest ever (even for the Keweenaw), in the western Upper Peninsula that dumped 30-50 inches of snow, depending on location. My brother John says that the new snow has mostly melted. My daughter Miranda has been on the reservation phone up in CH most of the late winter and spring. Say hello when you're making your reservations. Here's a shot of the Queen IV from a couple years ago, heading out for the island on a gorgeous morning. Not long now until we begin repeating this scene.

Isle Royale's Moose and Wolf Populations Drop in 2007

The report on this year's winter study of Isle Royale's famed moose and wolf populations has been released. Things continue to go badly for the moose, and now the wolves, as would be predicated, have declined as well. The MTU news release on the report is attached as a comment to this post.

2006 Slide Show, Photo 18

I close this year's slide show with a shot of some of our passengers disembarking from the Isle Royale Queen IV in Copper Harbor. This was taken the Sunday of Labor Day weekend, 2006. Note our beautiful new pier. It was a good summer. I hope you're planning a trip for 2007. More to come on this blog besides the annual slide show as the spirit moves me.

2006 Slide Show, Photo 17

A shot along one of Isle Royale's nicest and easiest trails, from Moskey Basin to Lake Ritchie. It is always a satisfying moment when after a couple miles of fine hiking you finally see Ritchie come into view down the ridge east of the lake through the tall aspens that form stands all along the way. The view has changed a lot since my early days on the island, when I was a teenager in the early '70s. The forest up this ridge was denser and you couldn't see Ritchie in the distance, except for a very small glimpse. But the aspens have grown taller in the 30 intervening years and there have been other changes along this trail. I really enjoy this moment and always pause to savor it, and Lake Ritchie really is a beautiful place to visit at any time.

2006 Slide Show, Photo 16

In early September, 2006, a touch of fall had come to the high ridges of the island. That's not so strange, but there was more color than usual, at least in my memory. The splash of color along the Greenstone Ridge, the spine of the island, was brought about by the maples turning early in 2006. This shot was taken on a wonderfully cool, sunny late afternoon on the trail from Daisy Farm to Mount Ojibway. It's a nice trail that gives you just about every kind of terrain found on Isle Royale in a two-mile hike -- ridge, forest, swamp. And there is the reward of the view at the end, that great vista to be seen from the Ojibway Fire Tower.

2006 Slide Show, Photo 15

Oh what an evening it was! This shot was taken from the Tooker's Island dock one August evening, at about 10:00. That's Inner Hill Island in the distance and Rock Harbor to the right. Open Lake Superior is on the left, out of the picture. My Dad used to say always that one of the special moments on the Big Lake is when the moonbeams fall across the water. And here they are, caught on film. You can order this as a large print from me. I can even frame it for you. My daughter Miranda and I are going to be putting up an Isle Royale Store some time soon, with clothing and photos and other IR items.

2006 Slide Show, Photo 14

The M/V Sandy passing by on Rock Harbor. The Sandy is the touring vessel of the Rock Harbor Lodge. It makes trips to various locations, near and far, on the northeast end of Isle Royale. I've taken many trips on the Sandy over the years and have always enjoyed Captain Ron Jeddda's narrations. The Sandy also makes a few trips up and down Rock Harbor as a water taxi, though the Lodge uses other, smaller, faster boats for that service more often. They can reach locations farther out on the island with their fast boats.

2006 Slide Show, Photo 13

Along the Rock Harbor trail, late August. Here's a good look at harborside trail conditions nowadays on the island. You frequently come across long sections of trail that are criss-crossed with roots and dotted with rather good-sized rocks. Wear good ankle-high boots is my recommendation. This part of the RH trail is directly across from Mott Island and close to the old Siskiwit Mine, which is still a very interesting place to explore in the dense thickets surrounding the old mine shafts. The area has become increasing overgrown in the past couple decades, so it must look completely different from how it looked in the late 1800s, when miners worked along Rock Harbor. Rather hard to believe any longer that mining ever took place out here, so far have we come from the copper mining boom days of long ago.

2006 Slide Show, Photo 12

A thicket. Sometimes you want to go off trail to find some berries or inspect a patch of wild flowers or to get a wider view. And often as not you wind up working your butt off scratching your way through thickets like this one, on Inner Hill Island on Rock Harbor. The forests of Isle Royale are often daunting, mostly because of downed trees. The reason there are so many downed trees: the soil is thin, the trees don't put down deep roots, the island is exposed to heavy winds off Lake Superior, and, as consequence of these conditions, many trees, large and small, get blown down before their time and wind up creating difficult tangles in the woods.

2006 Slide Show, Photo 11

I promised to get back to the island's berry crop. Here's a shot of some of the wild blueberries that I picked one day in mid-August. The blueberry season was very short. It was just too dry. But the berries were excellent, large and abundant, for a brief time, as you can see from the photo. Berry season is always a favorite time for me and other members of the family, especially my brother Captain Don Kilpela, who loves Isle Royale thimbleberries, which come out near the end of August on the island. That's almost a month after the thimbleberries come out in force on the Michigan mainland.

2006 Slide Show, Photo 10

Two backpackers passing on the Rock Harbor Trail. It's been so dry the hiking was generally excellent on the island this past summer. The only problem was the dust. Hikers tramped on the ground without rain for so long that a thin layer of very fine dirt formed along many long stretches of trail. That's nothing to complain about, but it was certainly a little odd. I did a lot of hiking on my days at the island this year. I've been spending most of my time in my canoe in recent years, but I might try to get in a little more hiking since I enjoyed the walks I took so much.

2006 Slide Show, Photo 9

It was a somewhat dark and blustery afternoon in early September when I went down to the historic Edison fishery for a visit. The fisherman and his wife were gone to Mott for supplies, so I was there alone. Walking back to the visitor's dock to get in my boat, I stopped by the main house and found this patch of day lilies blooming by the back door. You never know when flowers will bloom on the island, and there are often surprises late in the season. Before I saw this shot, I had spent some time over at the Rock Harbor Lighthouse, which is close by, but I couldn't get my boat up on the stone beach there, as is my usual parking practice, because of the heavy seas rolling into Middle Island Passage.