Chris and I just got back from a vacation in Michigan. In the first part of the vacation we traveled to Isle Royale and backpacked for 4 days and 3 nights. After that we were with a group from ONAPA doing a tour of the UP natural area around Manistique.
Isle Royale
Isle Royale is the least visited of all of our National Parks. It is an island in the western part of Lake Superior, with transportation to the island usually by ferry, although you can also get there by sea plane. Here is a LINK to NPS page. We left Copper Harbor and traveled on the Isle Royale Queen IV for the 3 hour and 15 minute trip to Rock Harbor. |
After a short talk from the rangers (making sure we all knew about leave not trace, and what needed to be done to the water), we started down the trail to Daisy Farm, a 7 mile hike. Almost immediately we started seeing large numbers of wildflowers. Chris quickly recognized a huge number of Bunchberry flowers, and we saw a lily like flower.
The Bunchberry, Cornus candadensis was a very common on the island. For this blog, I am going to link to the Herbarium of Michigan's website, which has excellent descriptions and photos, so click on the name and it will take you to the link. Once there if you click on All Images, you will see many photos of the plant.
We had never seen the yellow lily before, so that evening we looked through Newcomb's Wildflower Guide (our luxury item), and discovered it was Yellow Clintonia or Clintonia borealis. If you click on the photos in this blog you should get a larger image.
The tail was often very close to the lake, making the hike much more bearable with our heavy packs. Chris had a 27 lb pack and mine was 37 lbs.
The next flower we saw was the Star-flower or Trientalis borealis. It took a few moment to remember this one, but we had recently seen it at Daughmer Prairie Savannah on an ONAPA teasel removal work day.
Besides the buchberry, the other plant we say along most trails and in the camp sites was Thimbleberry or Rubus parviflorus. I had read about hikers later in the year consuming large quantities of the berries while walk, we mostly saw flower and a few early fruits high up. We actually had trouble with the identification of this one, but confirmation on posting in the outhouse. Unfortunately the Latin name was incorrect on that poster.
We did spot some slipper type orchids. The Pink Lady-Slipper (Cypripedium acaule) was past a bit, but the Yellow Lady-Slippers (Crypripedium parviflorum) was in full bloom.
The two things people will ask about when you go to Isle Royale are the Wolves and the Moose. Since it is mostly a closed population, the predator prey relationship has been studied very intensely there since 1959. Unfortunately, the wolf population is down to 3 wolves on the island. The study results can be found HERE. We did not see a wolf, but we did find some scat that first day. Easy to identify since there are no dogs or coyotes on the island, with the next largest carnivore being a fox.
That first day we also saw Harebells (Campanula Rotundifolia) , there were fairly common growing on rocky outcrops.
Wood lilies (Lilium philadelphicum) were found routinely on the island, but were often found with a single flower.
Native honeysuckle was present along the trail. We think it was probably Glaucous Honeysuckle (Lonicera dioica), but it could have been Hairy Honeysuckle (Lonicera hirsuta). Both are native species
At the Daisy Farm campsite, were were able to find a shelter, these have 3 wooden walls, and roof and floor, and one screened wall. With the wold coming off the lake and forecast for rail we were happy to have a shelter outside of our tent. At the campsite, Chris spotted this Nodding Trillium, not in bad shape, but not a great photo as it was getting dark and I was very tired.
The hiking was done and we after setting up camp and filtering some water, we had a nice dinner of freeze dried lasagna. That ends day one, day two to follow.