Isle Royale Natural History Association  

Seeing this incredibly beautiful island again only made me want to see more of it.  But, alas, I'm not a backpacker, and there's only a small part of the island you can explore doing day hikes from the island's one lodge at Rock Harbor.  I had been a member of the Isle Royale Natural History Association for several years, and so when an e-mail call was sent out for volunteers to spend a week working on some kind of maintenance project in the park, I decided I had found a way to expand my Isle Royale horizons.

But winter turns into spring and spring into summer.  Suddenly the details aren't trivial, they are right there in the living room, being tripped over daily.  I ordered so much stuff from LLBean I should have signed up to do a commercial for them.  The tent and sleeping bag worried me incessantly.  The information from IRNHA said that you didn't have to have a backpack, but you had to be able to carry all your equipment in one trip.  I tried putting everything in a duffle, but it only took me about ten feet of trying to carry it to realize that wasn't going to work.  And the weight wasn't even my main problem.  The bulk of the sleeping bag completely baffled me.  LLBean had thoughtfully included a little zip up bap to stuff it in, but even so, the final product was about the size of a 5-gallon bucket.  With it in the duffle, there was no room for anything else.  I looked at the pictures of the backpackers in the LLBean catalog, my only reference for how all of this was supposed to work.  The people in the pictures were hopping effortlessly from rock to rock with backpacks on, and their entire backpack didn't look as big as my poor sleeping bag.  What the heck was I doing wrong???

So I did what anyone with a computer does when they are perplexed; I Googled.  And Google didn't let me down.  I soon discovered that there really WAS a secret to carrying a sleeping bag: it was something called a "stuff sack."  Much to my dismay, I couldn't obtain "stuff sacks" from LLBean, so it was off to the mall and Eastern Mountain Sports where an extremely kind young man took pity on me in my ignorance and explained to me that yes, a sleeping bag goes in a stuff sack, and then the stuffed sack goes in a particular compartment on your backpack.  He showed me the compartment on a convenient backpack hanging nearby.  The compartment was about the size of a loaf of bread. 

Such was my faith in my new friend, however, that I not only purchased the stuff sack but the backpack as well.

Two hours later, I had finally managed to get the sleeping bag into the stuff sack.  There was no way, however, that it was bread-loaf size.  No matter how I tried, it would NOT go into the appointed compartment.

So frustrated I was in tears, I almost gave up right then and there.  Who was I kidding????  I couldn't DO this.  I had one last hope, so I dialed the number of a Boy Scout from our church.  "Alex," I said truthfully, "The fate of my vacation is in your hands." 

Alex wasn't old enough to drive, but his mom brought him over the next day.  I spread all my equipment on a blanket under a tree in the yard, and patiently he showed me that it would, indeed, fit in the backpack.  First of all, the sleeping bag could easily be compressed more, it was just a matter of tightening the straps more.  The tent and the sleeping pad could be strapped to the bottom of the backpack.  Heavy things go closest to your back and at the bottom.  This top compartment is good for rain gear.  We could pack it all in except for my camera and binoculars. 

"Can you leave those at home?" Alex asked doubtfully.

But there was no point to the trip without my optics! 

I protested fiercely.  So Alex found a way to fit them in as well.  However dubious he was about whether or not I could actually carry the pack with them included, he cheerfully found homes for them. "You'll have a great time," he assured me as his mom drove him away.  Easy for him to say.  He'd just returned from hiking the Rocky Mountains or the Grand Canyon or Death Valley, I forget.  Maybe all three.  After all, he'd been gone for two whole weeks. 

There were still many things to stress out over in the days to come.  How to pack for the trail was one thing.  Packing the same items for safe passage through Northwest's baggage handling system was another.  But thank goodness that I never gave up, even though I came close more than once.  Like when I learned our project involved putting a roof on a cabin.  (I'm afraid of heights.  Would I really be of any use to the crew?)  To find out, you can take a look at our cabin and the results on the Work Project page.  If you just want to see how beautiful Isle Royale is, you can go to the Natural Beauty page.   Or, to learn more about Isle Royale and the history of the cabin we worked on, you can visit the Journal Entries page.

Our crew was very proud of the cabin we restored.  I hope you enjoy this cyber visit to Chippewa Harbor.  If you have any questions about Isle Royale, I would be happy to try and answer them.  Or you can always contact the Isle Royale Natural History Association at their website.