midsummer photos

Paddling near Blake Point on an exceptionally calm evening; if only that area always looked like this!

A sunset over the trees, looking back from the Snug Harbor marina.

Another quiet evening; a beautiful sailboat in Snug Harbor.

Another view out towards Blake Point.



It's not always this calm and peaceful in these parts, but it's always this gorgeous.

Merry Chrismoose!

At the end of every July, across America - well, you know, at least in a few places - we gather together and celebrate the ultimate holiday:

In fact, us Snug Harborites usually celebrate Chrismoose twice: once right here, with the friendly folk at Rock Harbor Lodge, and once down at Mott Island with the rest of our Park Service pals. This moose probably better represents a Mott Chrismoose:

As usual, both events were a smashing success, and both involved copious amounts of delicious food. Some highlights:

1. The Lodge Chrismoose featured foot-long hotdogs, homemade veggie burgers, candy-cane cookies, and those awesome frozen strawberry lemonade things, along with many other delicious treats. Not to be beaten,

2. The Mott Chrismoose featured a 138.5 lb pig, thanks to many hours of Levi and Jared watching it - all throughout the night, mind you. This was a giant pig. I do not know that I have ever seen a larger roasted pig. There was also corn, and - just to make my day - deviled eggs. YES.

3. The Lodge Chrismoose Canoe Race was won by Forrest and Col, representing for the Park Service as our District Ranger's sons. I don't want to rub this in anyone's FACE, or anything, but I think the Park Service has won for a few years in a row now...

4. Both events involved some jumping-off-docks activity. I mean, how else do you commemorate occasions when you live on an island?

5. Oh, and the weather did its thing - by that I mean, Lodge Chrismoose had to be rescheduled, and still occurred on a chilly, gray day, but Mott Chrismoose was on one of our hottest days yet. And they were on two consecutive days. I do not know how anyone thinks they can predict this stuff.

So Chrismoose is done, for another year, leaving Isle Royale best represented by THIS moose:

What's the spirit of Chrismoose? It's definitely about joy, I think - and new and old friendships, and eating well under a big sky, and enjoying the cold water of the lake. It's about celebrating how lucky we all are to live here on this crazy island, together. It's about how fricking goofy moose look, and how cool the loons sound at night. And, of course, it's about stuffing your face with roasted pig.



sunning ourselves

Erin Lehnert picked up our turtle sheets just now (we've been taking turtle accounts from visitors since early June; visitors just love reporting things) and we all remarked on the fact that turtle sightings have dropped off dramatically in the past couple of weeks. Erin, as she is wont to do, had a satisfying explanation: with the warm temperatures in the inland lakes, the painted turtles have less need or desire to head out into view and sun themselves.

This is NOT true of human residents on the island, painted or otherwise. These warm days are full of people sunning themselves across Snug Harbor, sprawled on docks and rocks and boats. I am sure we could get visitors to dutifully come in and report numbers and behavior of sunning backpackers as well, but so far I am not able to report exact data. It's roughly in the vicinity of "a lot." The lake is always there for a cool-down (much more reasonable now than it was a few weeks ago.)

When backpackers and NPS residents are not out enjoying this blissful weather, they might be seen lurking around the scads of thimbleberry bushes, poking at the berries hopefully, waiting for them to ripen. They're so close. It might happen any minute now.

There is, of course, more to life than sunshine and berries. The IR Boaters Association has moved out (after feeding us a remarkable feast of fried trout, coleslaw, homemade tartar sauce, and cake), but Snug Harbor is no less busy. The ferries are full; trails have been wreaking havoc on people's feet left and right; and random events, like the surprise arrival of the USGS research vessel the KiYi, keep us all on our toes.

Now get out there and sun yourself. I'll send a visitor to come tally you.

boaters' weekend in the snug

Today would be a typical day in Snug Harbor.

The Queen IV came in at 11:30 with 91 passengers and left again at 2:45 with slightly fewer.

The Voyageur left in the morning and the seaplane made its rounds.

The interp rangers - answering questions, telling stories, explaining leave-no-trace ethics, and generally helping things run smoothly - were awesome.

Visitors enjoyed the heck out of our interactive mammals table.

Visitors also enjoyed the heck out of the balmy sunshine.

The major difference between today and an actual typical day in the Snug is that this weekend is the Isle Royale Boaters' Association weekend, with their annual (get excited) massive fish fry on Saturday evening. So this means that instead of seeing mainly THESE in the marina:

Instead we're seeing a lot of THESE:

It always gets a little more exciting when the boaters pile in, and we love to have them here. Bring on the boater orientations! Bring on the season passes! And definitely, DEFINITELY, bring on that fish fry.

Every Day is Lake Superior Day

Firstly, I apologize for the long wait between posts; I was off-island for a few days (back in the sweltering heat of the mainland; I'd had no idea how good we have it out here) and Snug Harbor is picking up in busy-ness besides, as it always does after the fourth.


Melissa discusses the America in the shadow of one of its old lifeboats.



I returned on Lake Superior Day, when we celebrate this massive THING that's always around us, sparkling, making the weather crazy, keeping us cooler than our poor neighbors down south, inviting our jumps off the dock, generously providing a home for delicious fish, etc. We are defined and controlled by Lake Superior here on Isle Royale, and really every day could aptly be called "Lake Superior Day", but we choose to wrap up all of the celebration handily on the fifteenth. 



Valerie and her roving ROV were a big hit with the kids in town.



The past couple years we've seen a rather subdued celebration, but we went all out this year, with a sort of Lake Superior "festival" in the harbor. Valerie helped visitors explore the underwater world of the marina with 'Torch,' our friendly ROV. Robert explained how we turn Lake Superior water into safe and delicious drinking water to intrigued crowds, and Paul talked about scuba diving and zebra mussels with a slew of diving equipment props. The Buckleys told commercial fishing stories while Carl covered the sport fishing angle, and Melissa took visitors into the past with a giant map of the America shipwreck. Alina and Erin ran a popular 'Lake Superior dunk tank' trivia game on the dock, in which lucky winners got to push a wet-suited Erin into the harbor.



Erin frolicks into the lake after another successful round of trivia.



Dozens of visitors roamed the stations, and Lake Superior Day 2012 was pronounced a rousing success: especially after several of us leaped off the Ranger III dock as the Queen rolled out. I ended the day with a Lake Superior themed evening program in the auditorium. Fun was had by all, lemme tell you, even if it was about 4,000 degrees and remarkably muggy outside.

We're on the second half of summer now. The fireweed is blooming and the thimbleberries are green on the bush. Stay tuned for more stories and fun; Snug Harbor just gets more exciting from here on out.

Donna talks fishing with a crowd.

Paul shows off some scuba equipment to interested visitors.

lovely weather we're having

 So - it's raining. Again. I'm writing this in the brightly-lit cocoon of the visitor center, while it pours down torrentially outside, the sound of the raindrops on the pavement blending nicely with the rumbling thunder, and lightning over the harbor trying to compete with our lights inside. Our weather has been one extreme or the other lately: crazy hot and sunny, or a no-holds-barred thunderstorm. The weather report, of course, has no idea what's happening. It's still cheerfully proclaiming that it's rather sunny right now and might, just maybe, rain a bit later this afternoon.



Painted turtles; a bigger fan of all this water, I presume. Photo credit: Erin Lehnert

For those of you in the area looking for some indoor entertainment, come check out our programs in Rock Harbor. We give coffee talks every Sunday, Monday, and Friday morning at the Lodge's beautiful guesthouse, harbor walks every afternoon at one, and evening programs in the bug-free, dry auditorium every day at eight pm. Next week, come hear the current artist-in-residence, Sara Tabbert, speak on her work and her art here on the island. (She's currently based out of Fairbanks, AK, but is more well-known in our VC for being the baby on the cover of "Summer in the Ishpeming Fire Tower.")

Shameless plug over - enjoy the rain and these photos, and try to stay dry!

A few small wood carvings from the current Artist-in-Residence, Sara Tabbert.

Yours truly,

the Snug Harbor Reporter

Independence Day 2012

Attention all stations:
Happy Fourth of July, Isle Royale!!!!!

For yet another day, the sun is shining, the day is warm, and life is good in Snug Harbor - perfect weather for celebrating our nation's birthday by eating a whole lot of delicious food. (Alternatives: jump off the Ranger III dock wrapped in red, white, and blue bunting; climb the Ojibwe fire tower and sing 'God Bless America' at the top of your lungs; drink a cold beer and sing country music to yourself whilst trolling up and down the channel and eating a hotdog; hold the world's first deep-woods baseball game; etc.)



The Ben East luna moth



In all actuality, this holiday is pretty quiet in Snug Harbor; it's a Wednesday, so there's no Queen IV, and the Ranger left hours ago this morning. There are just a few visitors hanging about the marina, and even the birds seem quiet. Later the Lodge will hold their traditional cookout and canoe race, but we did a lot of our celebrating last night, with a raucous potluck at the Ben East, well attended by guests from Mott and Davidson and, of course, Snug Harbor. There was a somewhat stunning amount of food and a rowdy game of B.S.



An ex-black-billed cuckoo.

Besides the excellent cameraderie of friends combined with food, we've had a lot of two awesome things here this week: one being lightning, the other luna moths, which for some reason are EVERYWHERE these past few days, their silken green wings relaxing nonchalantly on walls and decks and daisies all over the harbor. Practically every night there's one on the Ben East kitchen door, probably hoping to get inside and hang out with us. (Speaking of things wanting to get inside and hang out with us, a bird flew a little too recklessly into our kitchen window the other day and met his end on the sunny deck. I snapped his last photo before Zim gave him a boot into the shrubberies. We think it's a black-billed cuckoo - any confirmations of that?) The luna moths should be gone soon; the adults don't have mouths, and only live about a week. It's just as well we didn't invite Mr. Luna Moth to our potluck.

The lightning, on the other hand, was a one-night only deal. Another mind-boggling storm hit the night before last, dumping another inch and a half of rain and lacing the entire sky with stringy bolts of white-yellow lightning. Like reckless buffons, Alina, Erin, and I watched it all from the puddled surface of the Ranger III dock, relishing the enormous realization that we are tiny, tiny beings in this big and electric world.

Up on the ridge between Lookout Louise and the Lane Cove junction, with a view downhill of our water tower.