Day 19: July 23, 2012

Today was our tourist-y fun day, since we'd finished sampling! We canoed from Moskey Basin and stopped at the wolf moose museum across from Daisy Farms!! It's also Rolf and Candy Peterson's house. Candy came out as we were pulling in and helped us get our canoes situated, and Rolf gave us a tour of the place.

This was one of the best canoeing days that we had!!

There were so many moose bones there- I believe Rolf said that they had over 2,000 in their collection. He talked to us about the health problems that moose suffer from, particularly in their old age that make them easy targets for wolves. There were two complete spines there, which was really interesting to see.

"Mooseum of Pathology" :) Moose get some of the same diseases that we get in our old age, namely arthritis, osteoporosis, and periodontitis.

These are a bunch of skulls without horns attached.

Here's a long row of moose jaw bones! There were a few of these that clearly showed health problems, including one that showed signs of really bad cancer. That would've caused the moose a lot of pain, making it a target for attacks by wolves.

On the left, there's the pelvis of a healthy moose, and on the right (in two pieces!) there's a pelvis of a moose afflicted by arthritis.

This is their huge collection of skulls with antlers!! The two right in the front died in a fight with each other and were found hooked together!

This skull probably belonged to a moose that was born female but that had too much testosterone for some reason. She ("it") would have been unable to reproduce, and developed these velvety, lumpy antlers.

We got to see their set of skulls with antlers attached- there are so many of them!! There were several abnormal ones too, like ones with asymmetrical antlers, ones with antlers three times as big and thick as is normal, and one with these crazy, lumpy, velvety antlers. Very interesting!! The symmetry and size of moose antlers is the greatest when moose are between 5 and 10 years old. Most of the skulls were in that age range I believe, but there was also a section for younger and older moose. Then we went inside and signed the guest book, and stayed to chat for a bit. Rolf showed us some videos that had been caught the previous morning on a camera placed at Lake Ojibway- we saw a moose, a wolf, a beaver, a family of ducks, a rabbit, and what he thinks was a muskrat! Not all at once of course, in separate clips. We told them about the wolves that we heard last night too- apparently they hadn't heard them, but they were very interested to hear about it!!

Then, we paddled next door to the Edisen Fishery, which was basically completely deserted, but still interesting. From there, we hiked to the Rock Harbor Lighthouse and ate lunch! We walked around in the rocks that were out front of it, and Charlotte found several pieces of Greenstone! We left them behind of course (Take only pictures, leave only footprints :) ), but we got pictures of them. Then, we explored the lighthouse a bit, which was very interesting. There was basically a museum inside of it, and we got to climb to the top of it too! The spiral staircase felt like it went on forever, even though the lighthouse was only 50 feet tall. Once we got up to the top, I was afraid that I would fall through the hole in the floor. :P

Welcome to the old Edisen Fishery!

Charlotte was a brave explorer- she climbed and claimed a rock tower!!

Mine was slightly smaller, but still admirable in my opinion.

Greenstone!!

I think that this is our only group photo from the entire trip!! Look at us- the four adventurers!! :D

The Rock Harbor Lighthouse

Angela, Charlotte, and Sarah at the top of the lighthouse!

What a beautiful view.

We hiked back to our canoes and went on to Mott, getting back around 4 pm. Charlotte and Sarah sanitized all of our gear, and then we went for a voluntary hike!

GASP

We hiked the Mott Trail before dinner- it had some cool views, and it felt nice to hike slowly for once. Normally, we're hiking with a purpose, but ambling along a trail is fun in its own way. :)

To a hungry camper, this may look similar to a hamburger bun.

But don't be fooled!! You'll have to wait until you're on the mainland for a burger!! :)

Sarah, the tour guide

Angela adventured over a partially submerged rock bridge in a small cove we explored!

After our extra hike, we were feeling really hot. So we jumped off of the dock into Lake Superior!! It was so refreshing. We got some cool pictures of us jumping in, too! Angela even took an action video with the waterproof camera.

Went to bed late, but it was a really nice day, and my sleeping bag was so comfortable. I discovered the glow in the dark zipper- it made me smile, and it's really useful when you're having a hard time zipping up your bag in the dark! We need to get some pictures in our Lafuma bags next time- this time we were so busy being satisfied and falling asleep quickly in them that we didn't have time to think about pictures. :) Tomorrow we'll start packing up, and get all ready to leave on the Ranger III on the 25th!