Last Night at the Dassler Cabin

Isle Royale continued:

Upon our return from the Peterson's and the Edison Fisheries we had dinner, then I spent the evening sitting on the bench overlooking Tobin harbor. While it was only Monday, and the Ranger III didn't leave for Houghton until Wednesday morning, John had decided to get those of us who were leaving the island over to Rock Harbor on Tuesday. There were six of us leaving, and to get all of us and our gear to Rock Harbor would mean two trips in the skiff. We would have to leave very early Wednesday morning to get everyone there on time. So he chose the less stressful option, to ferry us to Rock Harbor Tuesday so we'd already be there for the boat's departure Wednesday morning. He secured one of the shelters at the Rock Harbor campground for us to sleep in, and we would be ferried to Rock Harbor Tuesday morning.

This meant, of course, that my work on the island was done and I'd have an extra day to explore. It also meant that Monday would be my last night at the Dassler cabin, so I wanted to take some time to sit and enjoy it. My journaling to this point had been mostly about what we'd been doing work-wise. I decided to sit and relax and take the place in for a while. Here's some of what I wrote:


So here it is, the last night at Dassler. Not sure how it happened so quickly. I am sitting on the bench that looks north across the end of Tobin Harbor. The sky is clear but hazier than it was earlier--perhaps a warm up is in the the works. The harbor is smooth and shimmering. 

Tiny, newly hatched spiders are floating everywhere on silken threads. I look up and see a pair of loons swimming slowly towards me. they dawdle in the water below, preening, foot waggling, diving. They come together and swim apart, and occasionally hoot softly to each other. A White-throated sparrow sings "Oh sweet Canada" beyond the cabin, his sharp song blending with the sound of low swells breaking on the point. I don't know that there's ever been an evening as perfect as this. 

Edwards Island (right) and Passage Island (in distance on left) from Dassler. The lighthouse on Passage is just visible to the right of the tiny island in the foreground.

Loons on Tobin Harbor.

--New cones on the spruce are soft and filled with sap. 

--No contrails mar the deep blue sky--it is absolutely, utterly flawless.

--Candy Peterson said some artists have come here and seen the accommodations and left. As if this place were about running water and electric lights.

--A seagull is perched on the Eastern-most rock of Smith Island, a splash of white on the dark rock.

--The loons linger on.

--As the sun slips closer to the horizon my heart aches. 

--If I am attacked by a wolf, please don't hurt the wolf. She is only doing what she needs to survive. We are not more important than them, despite our best efforts to convince ourselves otherwise.

--The gull has flown away.

--I look behind me and there is the half-full moon over the cabin.

Spruce cones.

Moon over Dassler cabin.

--The sun slips lower still and the chill air begins to climb the rocks.

--A breeze picks up and ruffles the surface of Superior.

--My fingernails are dirty--when was the last time I washed my hands?

--Sing me a lullaby, sweet little loons.

--The sun dips finally, fully, behind the trees and the loon--oh the loon!--begins her Northwoods song, as her partner swims past, oh so close. Thank you. A thousand times, thank you.

Next: Solo hike to Mt. Franklin and our departure.

Edison Fisheries and Peterson's Wolf Study, Isle Royale

Isle Royale continued:

After a few days of stormy weather Monday dawned clear and bright. We headed back to the Kemmer cottage to finish what we could of the boat house. It was not an easy job as the building sat on a rocky slope, and maneuvering the ladders and getting them level enough to work from was quite a chore. We ended up running out of paint before we finished.

Bob reaches up to the eaves. I worked on the green trim.

This is as far as we got the boat house. The second crew did some roof work and replaced rotted soffits and finished painting.

After lunch, four of us newbies took an hour boat ride down to the Edison Fisheries and to the Peterson's place, home of the decade's long wolf study. The Petersons have been studying the connection between the moose and wolves on the island, as controlled a study as is possible thanks to the confined nature of the island. I will not go into a lot of detail about their work, but you can visit their website/blog to learn all about it: www.isleroyalewolf.org  They are currently on the island doing their winter study, which is about the only time they can determine how many wolves are on the island, which last I heard was up to ten or eleven.

Map showing relation of Dassler cabin to the fishery and Peterson's.

It was a gorgeous, calm afternoon and we had a pleasant ride. We had to dock at the fishery as there was no room to dock at the Peterson's. We spent a little time exploring the buildings.

Edison Fisheries.

Alan chats with a Park Ranger while Liz and Annika look around.

I had to get a shot of these old motors. I grew up on a lake and I remember
there being one or two in the old boathouse.

There were some curiosities along the way, including this:

Sign on a picket fence that ringed a small area off the trail.

The Peterson's place was not really "their" place. Like all of the structures on the island it belonged to the Parks, and was known officially as the Bangsund Cabin after the family who last lived there. I love the cherry red paint and colorful window boxes.

Bangsund Cabin, headquarters of the Isle Royale Wolf-Moose Study

One of the things the Petersons have done is to collect moose bones. They send several teams out every spring to bushwhack the backcountry and bring back any bones they find. The result is an impressive collection, which can be studied to determine age, health and cause of death of these huge animals.

Collection of leg bones, lower jaws to the left.

The sign says, "Yes, They grow new ones every year!"

A few of the more impressive skulls were displayed separately. The tag reads: "Found by EarthWatch volunteers SW of Wood Lake, 2001.Moderate periodontitis. BIG! - metatarsus 404 mm."

This one was out there for a while!

We had the privilege of speaking to Candy Peterson for a while--Rolf was busy working on the roof of one of the buildings. She was gracious and a wealth of information. Of course, we had brought them cookies....

We left after about an hour as we needed to get back in time for dinner. It was a remarkable experience, one I didn't think I would enjoy but ended up finding quite fascinating. During one of our rainy days I had read over the copy of the 2013 Winter Study that someone had purchased and left in the cabin, and that helped pique my interest.  Oddly enough, I would run into Rolf two more times on this trip, once on the trail with Candy and another fellow, and once on the Ranger III returning to Houghton.

Next: my last night at Dassler and a hike up to Mt. Franklin

Rain and Fog, Isle Royale NP

Isle Royale continued:

After our day off and my very enjoyable hike to Rock Harbor with my new BFF Mary, I slept like a baby. John had caught wind of my chilly nights and gave me a wool blanket--what a difference! I woke at 6 am, and lay in my bag for a while enjoying being warm. I waited too long, though, and it started to rain. Not hard, but in a tent any rain sounds like a downpour. I crawled out of my bag, got dressed and donned my rain gear, and headed to the cabin for breakfast.

The rain never amounted to much, so I spent Saturday working with Mike, Jim and Bob at the Kemmer cottage, painting the boat house.

Mike behind the Kemmer cottage. Mrs. Kemmer, who wintered in Hawaii, kept gardens at her cottage, which are now overgrown.

Jim paints the boat house. 

We got a full day of work in, although by the end of the day a light rain was falling along with the temperature, and I could see my breath. After dinner we had a brief, heavy rain, and we started a fire in the fireplace to knock the chill back. Out of nowhere the wind started to howl. The sun had come out and we were taken aback by the sudden gusts. I grabbed my camera and ran outside. The wind was blowing up Tobin Harbor from the southwest, and menacing clouds plowed across the sky to the north and east.

Storm clouds pass to our north.

It was still clear to our west, so the sun lit the small islands, producing a beautiful juxtaposition with the grey sky and steely water.

As quickly as it had come up, the wind died back down. I sat and watched the weather for some time before fog started to roll in from the west, dimming the sun. Big swells were pushing in from the northeast, indicating weather and wind far out over Superior. It was eerie, since the surface of the water had calmed, but the swells were crashing against the rocks below me.

Fog and low clouds obscure the sun.

Just like that, visibility dropped to less than a half mile. I was struck by how quickly the weather changed, so dynamic near such a large body of cold water.

Scoville Point across the cove from Dassler cabin in the thickening fog.

Fog descends on the Stack cottage on Minong Island.

The bench overlooking Tobin Harbor, the Dassler cabin in the background.

Finally, around 4:30 Sunday morning, the storms caught us. Lightening flashed and thunder boomed, and I lay there trying to remember if there were any trees nearby large enough to reach my tent. By the time I got up at 6:30 the storms had passed and the sky was clearing.

Dawn from my tent.

We headed back to the Kemmer cottage Sunday morning. John was talking about sending us newbies over to visit with Rolf and Candy Peterson, who have been studying the wolves and moose on the island for nearly 50 years, after lunch. But I didn't have a warm and fuzzy feeling about the weather--it felt unsettled to me--and the morning forecast confirmed a chance of thunderstorms in the afternoon. I told John to count me out.

We worked on the boat house until lunch, then returned to Dassler. The sky began to darken, clouds chasing us across the harbor, and it started raining around 1:30 pm. It didn't let up until nearly 4:30, so no more work got done that day, and no one went to see the Petersons. We decided we would try for Monday afternoon.

Storms loom over Tobin Harbor, with the old pilings for the Dassler dock in the foreground. Due to the location of this dock, it was constantly getting ripped apart by ice and waves, and so has not been replaced.

After the rain passed I went down to the cove to fetch water to filter. A pair of Spotted sandpipers were making their way around the steaming rocks, which were now warming in the sun.

Scoville Point after the rain.

Spotted sandpiper looking for goodies.

Trees near Dassler cabin.

It was not long, though, before the fog pushed in again, thicker than the day before. I stayed in the cabin for a while, writing in my journal and sketching the layout of the cabin as well as a map showing the immediate area with the names of the small islands. (My plan, though I may not get to it, is to set up a page with my journal entries and I'll include those sketches there.)

Fog around Scoville Point

Next: Finishing the Kemmer boat house, and a trip to visit the Peterson's

On the Stoll Memorial Trail, Isle Royale NP

Isle Royale continued:

Thursday dawned as clear and bright as the first two days on the island, and after breakfast Liz and I took a short boat trip to Minong Island to do some painting at the Stack cottage. What an amazing place that was (but for some reason I did not get any pictures!). The house sits on the very tip of the island (see map below) and has amazing views of the end of Tobin Harbor and the great expanse of Lake Superior beyond. It is a castle compared to the other dwellings on the island--huge living room, three sizable bedrooms and a great big kitchen. The whole place is full of big windows, with a whole wall of them on the east side, and a covered porch off the kitchen. It would be an amazing place for the Artist-in-Residence, except for two things--it's on an island, so one could easily be cut off for days in bad weather, and there are no pit toilets, due to the thinness of the soil on Minong. That means chemical toilets only, which require more care, and I suppose they don't trust folks to take care of them properly.

Map showing Dassler and Stack dwellings and the Stoll Trail.

Liz and I worked on one of the two outhouses behind the cottage. Before we arrived the roofs had been removed, and while we scraped and painted the exterior on one outhouse, a few of the guys were busy replacing the roof on the second outhouse. The interior was empty, its floor having rotted out some time ago, but there was still a roll of tissue hanging inside, under this really cute folk art fish. We did not touch the interior.

Outhouse artwork at Stack cottage.

Friday, our third full day on the island, was our day off. Mary and I had decided to take a hike into Rock Harbor, maybe take showers, get some lunch, and do a little shopping at the gift store. It was another glorious day, and we were on the trail by 9 am.

Black duck in the cove near Dassler--another new bird!

Zack and Liz decided to spend their day off hiking from Daisy Farm, where they were dropped off, up to Mt. Franklin and back to Dassler, a jaunt of about 12 miles. That seemed much too ambitious for me, although I would undertake a similar hike later on.

Zack, Liz, John and Allen in our skiff.  Just look at that beautifully calm water! 

The views from the Stoll Memorial Trail, which runs from Rock Harbor to Scoville Point along the south side of the peninsula, were just stunning. Every view of the water and landscape was magical.

Dassler sleeping cabin from Scoville Point. The main cabin is hidden in the trees on the end of the point.

Up on Scoville Point

Stoll Memorial Trail. It amazes me that trees can grow in such a harsh climate in such thin soil.

We stopped a lot to watch birds and examine flowers. It took us over two hours to hike the two miles to Rock Harbor!

Calypso orchids. June is orchid season and I saw quite a few on the island.

Stoll Memorial Trail--yes, that's a trial that zigs to the right a bit.

Mary and I stopped here for a snack.

The whole hike was pure eye candy. I wanted to melt into the scenery.

We did finally make it to Rock Harbor, and had a wonderful lunch at the cafe. I devoured a veggie burger. I don't think there's anything better than a burger when you're really hungry. We were both shocked to discover that tokens for the showers were six bucks, so we decided to wash our hair in a bucket back at camp, even though we'd dragged towels and clean clothes with us.  I picked up a few T-shirts at the gift shop and had another ice cream sandwich before we started back.

Rock Harbor with the Isle Royale Queen IV at the docks. That boat sails from Copper Harbor, at the tip of the Keewenaw. It is therefore a shorter boat ride as it eliminates the hour the Ranger III spends in the canal, but it's also a longer drive to get there, and a smaller boat to take across Superior. Bigger is better, if you ask me!

We found John and Allen sitting on the patio outside the restaurant, enjoying their own ice cream, and we joked about how long it took Mary and I to hike two miles. As if to prove our point, not 20 feet down the path, and still within sight of them, I spotted this crossbill perched on the top of a spruce. Of course I had to stop and take pictures, and I could hear them laughing.

Female Red crossbill, another first! You can just see the hook at the end of her bill.

We had a close encounter with a Kestrel on the return hike. We were just entering a clearing when this bird flew towards us across the open space, and went to land in a tree near the trail. It appeared to spot us at the last moment and veered off, landing in a snag perhaps 30 feet off the trail. I thought at first it had a stick in its talons, but it turned out to be a black snake, whose head the bird had apparently already bitten off. He watched us watch him for a while, then he flew off.

Male Kestrel with a black snake, on the Stoll Memorial Trail.

Then finally, near the end of our hike, I was able to get a decent shot of a Yellow-rumped warbler. These little guys where everywhere, but I did not have very good equipment with me so getting a good shot was not easy. I had lent my small travel binoculars to Mary since I had my camera, and she was really getting into watching the birds the time we reached Scoville Point. She stood for some time admiring this bird, and declared that I just might have made a birder out of her!

The ubiquitous Yellow-rumped warbler.

Back at the cabin everyone was taking bets as to when Liz and Zack would make it back. It was after 8:00 before they staggered into the cabin, so I estimate they spent nine or ten hours on the trail. Of course, we'd taken seven hours to go four miles (although we were in Rock Harbor for over an hour). I cooked my last meal of the trip, a big pot of black bean chili. Mary made cornbread and fixed a salad, and we had quite a feast.

Next: Weekend weather delays