If you're not into backwoods camping, but still want to enjoy some of Isle Royale's wilderness, staying in at the island's Rock Harbor Lodge is a great way to experience some wilderness while still enjoying the comforts of home.
The lodge has 60 motel rooms, but we opted to book space in one of their 20 duplex cottages and use that as our base for various day hikes, photo-taking excursions, and a little canoeing.
We docked at Rock Harbor and loaded our luggage onto a wheeled cart for the short walk back into the wooded area to our cabin.
The cabin was tucked into the woods enough so that you were barely aware of any of your neighbors, and it was only a short walk back down to the dock, dining room, grill, camp store, and a marina where visitors could book boat tours, boat rentals, and guided fishing trips.
Furnishings weren't fancy, and the space included a bedroom, bathroom, kitchenette, and studio seating area. The lodge also provided linens, towels, and kitchen utensils for cabin guests.
The feature that really wowed us, though, was the large picture window overlooking a wooded area and serene Tobin Harbor. We spent one memorable night parked in front of these windows in our darkened cabin as we watched a spectacular thunderstorm that rolled in over Lake Superior and continued throughout much of the evening.
You could pack in food or check out the limited selection of groceries at the dockside store. You purchase supplies here if you're happy with something like cereal, or maybe eggs and fried bologna. We cooked breakfast a few days, but we opted to eat most of our meals at the lodge's main dining room or Greenstone Grill.
The menu at the dining room isn't large, but it invariably features fresh lake trout. Meanwhile, the Greenstone Grill has a nice little dockside patio, the perfect place to enjoy a beer and a burger dockside.
The lodge's is only open from late May until early September, and we'd booked our stay to end on the last day of the season.
You do have to be flexible when you visit Isle Royale, as we found when we ended up spending an extra day on the island. The weather on scheduled departure date looked great at Rock Harbor, but rough water farther out on Lake Superior caused by the thunderstorm we watched from our cabin on last scheduled night on the island caused postponement of our ferry trip back.
While the Isle Royale Queen IV ferry we'd taken to the island "almost never cancels" summer trips due to weather, they do warn travelers of possible delays with the ferry schedule in late summer or September. Delays usually 4 to 8 hours, according to the ferry company, but we experienced a full day delay.
This wasn't too bad for us as the lodge simply rebooked guests from the previous night back into their cabins. Some people bemoaned the fact that the grill and dining room ran out of beer early in the evening, and the wine supply was running dangerously low. I felt sorrier for the campers who spent the night out in the storm and hiked at least several miles to the marina, only to have to turn around and hike back out to their remote campsites.
We stopped by the camp store to see if we could find some reading material for our last night on the island. They had a handful of books Nevada Barr mysteries left, so I found something I hadn't read before. Meanwhile, Tim had read all of the books at the store, so he ended up reading the Susan Wittig Albert mystery I'd brought over and finished the night before.
Once we checked back into the lodge and resettled back into our cabin, we used our ferry-delay day to squeeze in a little extra hiking and picture-taking before returning to the mainland on the next day’s ferry.
© Dominique King 2010 All rights reserved
The view from that window is amazing! I could sit there all day.
Posted by: Sarah V. | July 13, 2010 at 07:28 AM
Sarah-We referred to that window as our "big screen TV" and spent a lot of time just chilling in front of it....especially during the evenings to check out the stars and storms :)
Posted by: Dominique King | July 14, 2010 at 06:08 AM
This looks so lovely! So good to run into you yesterday, and now I'm catching up on your blog and really feeling like a vacation is in order! ;)
Posted by: Mariah | July 19, 2010 at 06:53 AM
Mariah-Thanks for stopping by.
I always feel like a vacation is in order, which is probably why I like writing about travel. I can always take a little virtual vacay :)
Posted by: Dominique King | July 20, 2010 at 05:39 AM