Day 2: July 6, 2012

Rode the Ranger III out to the island today! I got some pamphlets from the gift shop on the dock in Houghton about Isle Royale- here are the things that I found most interesting:

~The Isle Royale archipelago has over 165 miles of foot trails
~Around 80% of the Isle Royale National park is underwater in ponds, streams, rivers, and Lake Superior!

~From the 1800s to the mid-1900s, fishing was the main economic activity. It's still enjoyed as an individual activity by many island visitors!
~Copper mining was also a part of the economy of Isle Royale- some mining pits that have been discovered are from 4,500 years ago.
~Isle Royale is home to the famous wolf moose study! I'll make sure to give more details about that in a later post- we learned a lot about it!
~Ryan Island, an island on Siskiwit Lake, is the largest island in the largest lake on the largest island in the largest freshwater lake in the world!! (I heard this from a friend before leaving too. I think it was a question on Jeopardy!)

Got on the boat at 9 am!

The Ranger III in all of its glory!! It's a really nice boat.

This was when we first got on board!

I was so excited to be on a boat!!

And then we fell asleep. :P

While we were on the boat, we got to hear a presentation on the upper deck by David Toczydlowski. They call him "T-11" for short. His presentation was about climate change and its effect on the ecosystems of Isle Royale. We learned about how rain water becomes more acidic because of coal plant pollution, cars, and agricultural pollution. Air pollution is carried up North by low pressure systems, but the snow from Isle Royale is cleaner because more of it is from Lake Superior. He talked about how fast, thick snow insulates the ground underneath it, so it doesn't freeze. But as fast, thick snow becomes less common, the snow doesn't insulate the ground, and microorganisms freeze and blow open. Then, when everything unthaws, runoff pushes their remains into lakes, adding more nutrients to them. He also talked about how acidic components of snow melt out first- when the first half of a snowpack is melted, 90% of the acids are gone. If the ground freezes, these acids can be buffered. But if not, they run into lakes, further altering the lake chemistry. Very interesting!!

Went out on the deck of the boat, and the song that plays during Titanic when the boat sinks came on my iPod. I felt like it was a sign, and went back inside soon afterward.

We didn't sink though! Got to Mott Island safely. We stored our things, packed up what we needed for our first set of lakes, and canoed from Mott Island to Moskey Basin! Here's a picture of my interpretation of the main dock area on Mott Island:

It was raining on the lake. So we made sure to grab our Helly Hansen gear!!

We were warm and dry in the rain!! Wish I'd had my rain pants though.

When we go canoeing, we don't fool around.

 

Canoeing was interesting, because I've never canoed before and it was raining. Not too hard, but enough to get our stuff pretty wet over the 2 hour trip. We all had Helly Hansen gear on though! Somehow, Angela and my rain pants were left behind. :( But we figured we'll compare our experience without them to the experience with them on the August trip! On the way there, my torso was dry and warm, which was nice. My jeans, however, ended up pretty wet, which was uncomfortable. Those rain pants are going to be such a blessing, I can tell. I wish I had some kind of Helly Hansen backpack cover to keep my things dry as well as my body!

On the way, we saw some river otters, and several loons! The loons were stressed that we were there, and started calling and getting upset. So we paddled slowly and kept our distance.

It stopped raining as soon as we got to Moskey, so we moved all of our things into a camping shelter that was right off of the lake. The view was great! I had never heard of a camping shelter before, so if you didn't know, here's my interpretation of them:

I used our foot pump from Coghlan's to inflate my little water floaty that I bought for sleeping on. It went really quickly, and was really easy to set up! Thanks, Coghlan's!

Went to bed around 11 and slept like a rock. My Lafuma sleeping bag is sooooooo comfortable!! I've never had a mummy style sleeping bag, but so far I really like it. :)