The Isle Royale Experience, Part 2

Hey Hey!

I hope you found my previous post about Isle Royale informative. Here is the next installment. Enjoy the pictures!

This is a view of the dock in Todd Harbor. I took it sometime after dinner and I was feeling in a reflective mood. Todd Harbor was where the team worked for 10 straight days. At the beginning of each of our work weeks, our project sponsor would drop off us at this dock. We would unload our belongs-which was a heck of a lot. Then we would have to walk up a hill to our campsite. This particular view is from the trail that we took to and from work each day. It was always the first sign of camp, or home, for me each day as I returned from a one-way hike of 5-6 miles. Because I did not get to see other parts of the island, this was probably one of the views that I enjoyed the most. Seeing my teammate out on the dock by herself, one can just get a sense of the magnitude and depth of the island where I lived for 6 weeks. Nature literally engulfed me. Also, it was during times of days like the one above (about 8:00 pm) where I felt most reflective. I had just finished a meal and was feeling especially thankful that I got the opportunity to fill myself up with calories. Moreover, I was thankful for the opportunity to be in such an environment, despite the fact that it was tough.

This is a sunset from the rocks behind our campsite. Now these rocks had so many different functions for the team during our time on the island. It’s where some of the girls would wash their hair and freshen up after work. It’s where I iced my foot after my Achilles tendon started swelling up due to the steel-toe boots I was wearing. It’s where the team went as individuals to just relish and soak up the environment. This was a particularly calm day. There were a few days where the waves were so darn high, crashing into the rocks. But when it was calm, the tranquility was so darn nice. I found myself just staring out into the water even when the sun went down and the mosquitoes ate at me.

Off in the distance, past the more defined couple of islands, notice the sort of hazy land masses. Those land masses are actually Canada, Thunder Bay to be exact. I really enjoyed how on a clear day you could even notice the ridges. Pretty sweet!

This is a shot I took of my guy teammates fishing off of the mini waterfalls across the harbor. From what we heard from our project sponsor, this was a great fishing spot that attracted a lot of trout. Not really an avid fisherman myself, I liked the waterfalls because it was just so interesting that mini waterfalls existed on an island. Over the whole six weeks, my teammates had two fish on hook. But no fish were ever caught. Based on that experience, I wouldn’t call this a good fishing spot. It turned out that the best way to fish on Lake Superior is to take a boat out so that you could cast in deeper water. The water near the shore was just too shallow.

At the time of this picture, I was sitting on a rock sharpening a stick with a pocket knife I borrowed from Alex, the guy on the farthest left. So while all of the guys had experience fishing, the only experience I had was a couple of casts in Sherman Lake and Pawnee City. Nothing extensive. But I still bought a Michigan fishing license the day before we left just in case I did end up fishing. I was sharpening the stick because I had the fantasy that I would be able to spear a fish. But I learned that it was most likely illegal. So over the 6 weeks, I didn’t end up coming up with my own spears. However, I did get to fish a couple times while on the island with a real fishing rod.

I'm Back

Hey folks!
I'm currently serving in Minot, North Dakota doing disaster clean-up for houses that were flooded about 2 months ago. We are going through a process called "mucking-and-gutting." Sounds clean, doesn't it? I'll explain all about it later. For now, I want to catch up on my blogposts and give ya'll some stuff about my last project in Isle Royale National Park. I wasn't able to let you all know what I was doing for about a month--no internet connection. So over the next few days, I'll back track and do a reflection on my experience. Enjoy!

The Ranger III is the ferry of the National Park Service that transports park-goers from Houghton, Michigan. The ferry ride takes about 6 hours. This was the Ranger III on the morning my team and I were heading to Isle Royale.

It was a mix of relief and excitement and curiosity as I stood there looking at the ferry. Relief because, after almost 4 weeks of waiting, we were going to be on our way for our next project.  The journey getting to Houghton had been long, almost 10 hours.  But we made it safely and we had all of our stuff. One thing in Americorps NCCC that will cause you stress before each project is packing and trying to fit everything you need into the red firefighting bag we are all issued. So I felt relief knowing that I was pretty sure I had everything I needed. Excitement because I was going to be camping for the next 6 weeks. I had never gone camping in a tent before so I was wondering how I was going to react. I wanted to see if I could survive out in the wilderness. I was pretty confident going into the project that I would be able to survive, although some of my other teammates were also curious to see how I would respond because I tend to express my shock and awe about even the smallest things really well. Curiosity, because despite my confidence, who knows what could happen to me out on the island. What if I do get freaked out by snakes and going to the bathroom next to a tree stump.

Surprisingly, the whole ferry ride was foggy. And we couldn’t see the island until we were almost at our destination place.  This picture was probably taken about 4.5 hours into the ferry ride. The fog added to the mysteriousness of the island that we would be spending a huge chunk of our time at.  It reminded me of the scene in Pandora when they fly to the floating mountains. One minute we’re just floating along and then out of nowhere, as if appearing from the mist, the island started to appear.

Once we completed our 6 hour ferry ride, we had a half hour stop over at Mott Island, the Park headquarters, where we met our site supervisor and gathered all of the materials we would need for the upcoming 10-day workweek including canteens, day packs, back packs, water filter, camp stoves, etc. Then we began the next leg of our journey and spent an hour and a half on the Beaver, a mid-size National Park Service boat.  Haha. I felt tough standing for most of the boat ride. I was cold and it started to drizzle a bit. But all I had was a bandana, long-sleeve shirt, and a life vest. I felt like I was going into battle. I could see the face of inexperience on me. I had no idea what I was getting into. I didn’t for-see craving certain foods, waking up at 5:45 in the morning everyday, or hiking 6-8 miles a day.

This is the tent that I ended up staying for the first 10-day workweek. It was a 1-person tent by Eureka! A funny thing is Alex and I thought that this was a 2-person tent and we were set to share this tent. It looked like it would be a little cramped. Thankfully, I got to have this tent to myself. Also, the first night we arrived the campsite we had wanted, campsite 1, was already taken and so we had to move to campsite 3. The campers left the next day and we were able to move in.

Those first few nights in my own tent were pretty sweet, although I always woke up in the morning feeling disoriented. But, it was pretty comfortable.