Snowball's Journal

Last year when I visited Isle Royale, I took along a moose puppet named Rocky.  Rocky is a favorite of the kids at the church where I teach Sunday school, and I wrote a story for them about his visit to the island and his quest to see a real moose. 

I don't know if Snowball's writing style measures up to the flowing prose of Meriwether Lewis; I think maybe he's more in the matter-of-fact style of William Clark.  In any case, I thought maybe there might be some kids out there who would enjoy peeking inside the pages of Snowball's journal.  Adults who are in touch with their inner child are welcome, too.

(The thumbnail size photos in the photo galleries can be enlarged by clicking on them.  Individual photos next to text passages are as big as they get.)

• Tuesday, July 26, 2005
• Wednesday, July 27, 2005
• Thursday, July 28, 2005
• Friday, July 29, 2005
• Saturday, July 30, 2005

• Sunday, July 31, 2005
• Monday, August 1, 2005
• Tuesday, August 2, 2005
• Wednesday, August 3, 2005

• Tuesday, July 26, 2005

Today we arrived on beautiful Isle Royale.

You cannot imagine what a sight greeted us when we pulled into Chippewa Harbor:  the water is like a gray green silk table cloth, it is so smooth and shimmery.  The man who was piloting our boat said the water is about 60 degrees, which sounded cold to Jan, but not too bad to me, a chubby, furry seal.  I was really tempted to jump right in.

But, there was no time for swimming. We had work to do! You won’t believe all the stuff we had to bring on the boat. First, of course, there was all the camping gear and food. And then there was all the stuff we needed for our work project.

In case you didn’t know, we are fixing up a cabin.  Rocky thinks that when we get finished with the cabin, we can move in there instead of sleeping in our tent.  (Rocky is very worried about wolves being able to tear open our tent.)

Jan says we aren’t allowed,  and anyway, our tent is just fine.

Of course, when Rocky actually SAW the cabin we have to work on, he wasn’t so sure that he would be any safer inside it than inside our tent.  It has a lot of outside leaking in through big holes in the roof and walls.  At least our tent is sealed.

On the boat we took from Houghton today there were some historical re-enactors dressed up like voyageurs.  These were the French fur traders of the 1700’s and early 1800’s.  I didn’t like them because they wanted beaver’s fur! 

There were also some men who volunteer to study loons. They said the name they call themselves is the Isle Royale Loon Survey Team, or

IRLoST  

for short.  They showed pictures of baby loons riding on the backs of their parents, which was interesting.  But more interesting was listening to recordings of the sounds they make.

I like the sound of loons - we saw one in the harbor tonight, and later we heard one of its weird cries.

Rocky kept track of the birds we saw today:  eagle (and at least one baby eagle in a nest!), loon, cedar waxwings, and merganser with babies.

Baby mergansers	Loon	Bald eagle

Well, it is almost dark.  I hope Jan and I can sleep.

Meanwhile Rocky is going to stay awake and listen for wolves.

• Wednesday, July 27, 2005

I can’t say I slept too well last night; first I heard some growly noises that I thought were BEARS even though Rocky told me no bears live here.

But then, just when I was starting to think maybe it was safe to go to sleep (since the growling bears never came any closer), a NEW sound made my black button eyes pop out of my head.

WHO - WHO - whowoowhoo!

“Who - who - who was that???!!!” I cried.

“Just an owl,” said Jan.

JUST an owl!  I don’t think that I slept one wink all night.

Still, we got up early anyway.  Jan took us on an early morning hike to the top of the hill above our camp.  Rocky and I couldn’t believe how beautiful it was.

 It was like being on TOP OF THE WORLD!

After breakfast we started on our project. Our first job was to gather up dead brush from around the cabin. We had to drag it UP a hill and dump it in among some downed trees. Jan said now we know how beavers feel when they have to drag branches to the middle of a pond and build a lodge. Tee, the lady who was in charge of arranging the branches in their final resting place, said she didn’t think that any self-respecting beaver would have anything to do with OUR lodge!

After lunch, John D. announced that we couldn’t do any more work on the cabin because we needed some big logs to nail the roof to.  So then we got the afternoon off.  Joanne said, “Who wants to take a hike?”

Tee, Hans, and I decided to go.  Of course, if I wanted to go, Jan and Rocky had to go, too.  They didn’t mind.  They wanted to go birding.

This was such a beautiful walk.  Tee, Hans and JoAnn wanted to faster so Jan, Rocky and I stayed behind.  We just took our time, looking carefully at everything. 

Three fat little chickadees were feeding on the lichens hanging from a spruce tree.  We watched them for the longest time.

We also got quite a show from a chubby red squirrel.  I think he wanted us to take his picture - maybe he thought he would get to be in a magazine.

But the best thing we saw was a magnolia warbler.  He had a bright yellow chest with black streaks that made it look like he was wearing a necklace.  (Sorry, no picture of him.)

BUT: we didn’t see any moose.  Or, thankfully, any wolves.

We did see a little tuft of light colored fur that we were sure must've come from a wolf, though.

Once again we are in our tent, ready to say good night. But guess what?  It’s RAINING!!!!

Tomorrow I’ll tell you if our tent stayed dry all night.

• Thursday, July 28, 2005

Today was a good news/bad news kind of day.

GOOD NEWS

BAD NEWS

1.  It stopped raining!

1.  It started raining again.

2.  Our tent didn’t leak!

2.  There were SLUGS all over the outside of our tent.

3.  It was Maryann’s John’s birthday and we had cheese cake with cherries!

3.  Jan’s snack bag got water in it and her Starbursts all got soggy.

4.  The boat came with our posts!

4.  Our posts had to be peeled of their bark and cut to size.

5.  We saw the bald eagle!

5.  The bald eagle seems to have eaten the baby mergansers.

6.  Jan and Steve almost finished the windows!

6.  The windows can’t be finished because two panes are missing!

7.  Jan saw a warbler!

7. She has no clue what kind the warbler is.

Well, all together, it was a good day.  After all, our cabin didn't fall down when we took off the roof, and John D. says that is a VERY good (and somewhat amazing) thing.

Right now it has no roof and no porch.  And no windows.  We weren’t really supposed to replace the porch, but once you start pulling things apart you find more and more that’s rotten.

Jan asked John D. when restoring the cabin ends and rebuilding it begins.  He said he’s not sure.

BUT WAIT!  I FORGOT TO TELL YOU OUR MOST EXCITING NEWS!

But I’m not sure if it’s GOOD NEWS or BAD NEWS.

That depends on who you talk to.

Jan thought it was WONDERFUL news.

But Rocky thought it was terrible news.

At 4:22 am, from over the hill, we heard a whole chorus of wolves!

I was a little scared, but not as much as when the owl hooted. For one thing, the wolves were farther away. And for another, they sort of sounded like they were singing. Of course, it kind of sounded like they could use a little more practice. It wasn’t much of a tune.

Bill	Hans and Joanne
John C. and Mary Ann	John D.
Steve and Judy	Tee

Here’s another thing I forgot to tell you:  we have two animals in our camp.  One is a chubby red squirrel.  The other is a snowshoe hare.  Of course, since it is summer he is brown, not white like he is in winter.  Good thing he’s not white or the wolves could find him more easily.

Hey, wait a minute… I’m white!

And Rocky’s brown…

Maybe I’m the one who should worry!

No, I’m not scared.  Jan will protect me.  And Hans has a hatchet.

• Friday, July 29, 2005

Merry Chris-Moose!

That’s right - Merry Chris-Moose!  Today is the day the Isle Royale rangers have their Chris-Moose party.

WE didn’t have Chris-Moose, of course.  We were too busy working because we had such BEE-YU-TI-FUL weather today.  And now we are proud to say our little cabin has a roof and a porch floor.

And just in time, too.  Because as we were taking a swim/bath, 3 visitors came by.  They were a lady who lived in Chippewa Harbor as a little girl, her niece, and her granddaughter. Nancy was the youngest child in the Johnson family.  They are very happy that the we are restoring the cabin because it is all that is left of their family home. They brought a plaque for us to put on the cabin when we finish.)

Nancy showed us pictures at dinner of the way Chippewa Harbor used to look.  She told us stories about what it was like when she lived there.   Here are some of the things she said that I remember:

Nancy grew up on Isle Royale.  Her father was a fisherman.  For a few years they ran a resort with 7 cabins.  Her dad would fetch tourists from Eagle Harbor and her mother and sisters waited tables and cleaned cabins.  When the park was formed, their family received a life lease, and for a while they stayed in Chippewa Harbor.  But their family moved away in 1953 because her father died and her mother couldn’t run the fishing business alone.

What they ate:

Meat - lots of FISH!  (Sounds good to me, a seal!)

Vegetables - grew their own

Other supplies - from Duluth or Two Harbors by boat

Nancy’s brother fell out of our sea gull tree and broke his arm.  (His mother set it.)

(Our sea gull tree is the big pine by the group campsite.  Every time Joanne announces food will soon be ready, the sea gull shows up and waits at the top of the tree.  He never seems to get anything to eat, but he always comes anyway.)

The main house was down by the apple trees.

They didn’t hike around the island much because there weren’t trails.

The fishing business was hurt badly by the lamprey eel which invaded the lake; also fish prices went down during WWII.

In 1931 National Geographic carried an article that talked about  moose corrals - moose were being captured and  transplanted to the UP because they were starving.  This happened because they had overpopulated the island and eaten up too much of their food supply.  (There were no wolves on the island then.  There were some coyotes.)  The moose corrals were in Chippewa Harbor.

Someone asked if they ever ate any moose.  “Moose meat tastes a lot like roast beef,”  Nancy said.  (Rocky's eyebrows went up at that statement!)

Gutzon Borglum, the man who carved Mt. Rushmore, liked to stay at their resort.  The Ah-wa-nee-sha was the name of their tourist boat.  The name is Ojibway for "Little Beaver."

The Winyah was the supply boat that took fish to market, early April to late November

There was a forest fire in 1936, started by loggers in Siskiwit Bay;  they almost had to evacuate.  The fire was put out by CCC men.

Their family also performed musical numbers for tourists on banjo, accordion and fiddle.

It was very interesting to hear about what it was like to live on the island.  Tomorrow, Nancy may take us on a hike to see exactly where the different buildings that she told us about used to be.

Let's see, besides having company, what else interesting happened today?  Well, when Maryann was wading in the harbor before Nancy and Pat and Samantha came, she found some things in the water that people had left behind.   She found lots of pieces of pottery and broken glass (good thing she had on sandals while she was wading!)   It's sad to think people might throw things into Chippewa Harbor on purpose.  But probably a lot of what she found ended up there by accident.  For instance, the big blue flip-flop with a broken strap was probably just lost by someone.  And also the pair of swimming trunks she found.

(Anybody out there recognize them?)

Rocky wondered if maybe the swimming trunks and the sandal belonged to the same unlucky swimmer.  I hope not!  As a furry seal I don’t fear the cold water but I have observed that humans don’t have fur to keep them warm.  Without clothes they appear to be very shiny and totally uninsulated!  Of course, some humans do have a nice layer of fat, but I don’t know if that’s enough all by itself.

We climbed to the top of the hill behind the camp and we heard the cries of the baby eagles and then we saw two of them, one in the nest on one on the branch. Rocky and I were quite worried that they might swoop down on us, but we didn’t see the parents and they babies didn’t seem to be able to fly.

• Saturday, July 30, 2005

Today felt like we were running a race… wearing hiking boots.
The weather report said thunderstorms were coming; but if we didn’t get the roof finished today, we would soon be too far behind to finish.
The first thing we had to do was saw off the peak of the roof. The boards on one side stuck up too high and so the men had to saw them off.

Then it started to rain.  The rain mixed with the sawdust and made it unsafe to be on the roof.  So after lunch, we took a break and went on the hike with Nancy and Pat and Samantha.  The paths we went on were overgrown with trees and bushes.  Sometimes we came to places where big spruce trees and had fallen over and were leaning across the trail and we had to go under them.  But we saw where the schoolhouse used to be,  and also the main resort building.  And we saw where Nancy's mother's root cellar once was.

We walked the shore of the harbor until we were on a high rock overlooking the harbor.

“Do you take your moose everywhere?” Samantha asked Jan.

Jan said yes.

There were lots of blueberries growing up from the cracks in the rocks.  They were small but very delicious.

Samantha started to ask about the other berries she saw growing.  Juniper bushes have blue berries, too, but they’re not the ones you eat.  There are lots of red berries on the island, too, and even some white ones.  Maryann said those are called bane berries, or doll's eyes, which is what they look like.  But Rocky said only raspberries and blueberries are edible.  But then we heard them talking about thimbleberries.  They aren’t ripe yet.  When they are ripe, they are red.  People make jelly from them.

I wondered if some the jars in Nancy’s mother’s root cellar used to have thimbleberry jelly in them.  I wished I could have tasted some.

Meanwhile Pat was looking out at the harbor.  I noticed two big rocks sticking up out of the water.  One of them looked like the back of  a giant whale.  Pat said that was exactly what they had called them - The Whale Rocks.

(There was a yellow color on the biggest rock which was actually a lichen.  Bill said it grows there because of the sea gull poop.  Which makes sense since there was lot of white stuff on the rock as well.)

After our walk, John Dunn decided it was safe to put tar paper and shingles on the roof and to - QUICK - HURRY BEFORE IT RAINS AGAIN!

We all worked as fast as we could.

Fist we cut black paper and nailed in on the roof.  Then we cut strips of heavy black paper coated with gritty sand and nailed it on the first layer of black paper.

When the roof was finished, John Dunn put a little tree in the porch rafters.  It’s a custom when the highest point of a building is done.

Then a boat came into the harbor.  It was Ranger Liz from the NPS.  She inspected the cabin and said it was good work.  She is already thinking of something we could build next year. 

Ranger Liz with Nancy and Samantha and the plaque we are going to put in the cabin.

We celebrated by having pop that Ranger Liz brought in a cooler.  Tonight Lake Superior is windy and wild.  It’s a good night to curl up in our sleeping bag and go to sleep.

• Sunday, July 31, 2005

A Sunday prayer by Snowball:

“God, you made this beautiful green island.  Thank you for thinking of such a wonderful place.  Help me to be the kind of creature who adds something good to your world.  Amen."

At first we thought today would be a terrible rainy day.  Nancy wanted to have a ceremony at the cabin to dedicate her plaque, but we had to hurry because the water taxi came for them just as we were ready to start.  The captain said HURRY!  “Bad storms today!  We have to go!”

So, we hurried.  John Dunn said we were pleased to have worked on the cabin and Nancy said tank you on behalf of all the immigrant families had made a living on Isle Royale before it was a park.

Captain Rick hurried Nancy, Pat and Samantha onto the boat.  Samantha was happy to be leaving; she didn’t like being cold and wet and not having indoor plumbing.

But we are getting quite used to it.  It’s not bad if you are a chubby seal, like me, or a wooly moose, like Rocky.  And Jan has the proper waterproof clothes, so she is practically a duck (or maybe actually a loon…)

(This is a picture that Jan took of Fritz last year when she and Rocky took the Voyageur II to the island.)

Later, a boat called the Duncan Bay brought us out tongue and groove boards for the floor.

Then a wonderful thing happened:

THE SUN CAME OUT!!!!!!

And, we finished our work by lunchtime because we found that the logs we were supposed to nail the floor to were rotten and now we need some 2x4’s.

So, we got the afternoon off.

Jan wanted to go birding.

I have decided I don’t like birding any more.  I got hot and we didn’t see anything interesting.

We walked back to Lake Mason.  There is a beaver lodge there but no beaver seem to live there now.  No moose, either, although Rocky say it looks quite moosey.

Did I mention it was HOT?????

I did?  Well, excuse me for saying it twice, but chubby, furry seals feel the heat very much.

No beaver.  No moose.   And the only new bird we saw was a red-breasted nuthatch.  He is kind of funny because he honks like someone is pinching a clown’s nose.  And he can hang upside down and creeps down the tree trunk.

But it wasn’t worth getting so HOT just to see him.

The only other bird we saw was a white-throated sparrow.  They are very common here but you hardly ever see them because they like to stay down in the brushy-brush.  But oh my, do you ever hear them!  They sing a lot, and they sing LOUD.

“Oh ca-na-da, ca-na-da, ca-na-da!”

But we did get to see one. Jan spotted one in a tree and she got a picture of him with his head tilted back and his little white throat blazing as he sang:  “Oh ca-na-da, ca-na…”

but then he stopped and flew off.  I guess he didn’t like being photographed during his concert.

Well, after supper Jan wanted a picture of the sunset.  Be we don’t face west anywhere. So we started hiking again.  I thought, “Great!  Back to Lake Mason!”  But no!  She passed THAT sign.  We kept going straight, towards Lake Ritchie.  Rocky and I had heard someone say that was 4 miles away, and we were a bit worried.  Neither of us wanted to be out after dark, me because of owls and Rocky because of wolves.

“I’m not going far,” Jan said.  But Rocky's been hiking with her before, and he shook his antlers.  "She always wants to see around one more bend in the trail," he told me.

Suddenly we stopped.  “Listen,” Jan whispered.  Rocky perked up his ears.  I heard it, too.  A kind of slosh-slosh on the other side of a big wall of rock and trees.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“HUSH!” said Rocky and Jan at the same time.

Then we heard a SNORT.

Even I knew then; it must be a moose.

But even though we waited and waited and W-A-I-T-E-D… it never came out were we could see it.

But as we stood on a high rock, looking down at the moose habitat, a strange thing happened.

We heard a strange lonely cry filling up the sky.  It was kind of like honking, but it was not like a goose.

Then two strange shapes rose up into the evening sky.  They were birds, but not like any I had ever seen.  Their necks were way longer than the rest of their bodies.

“What are they?” I asked breathlessly.  I had never heard such a lonely cry in my whole life.

“They’re cranes,” whispered Jan.

We watched them until they disappeared over the horizon. 

We never saw the moose.  But Jan said we would try again in the morning.

So for now…

GOOD NIGHT!

• Monday, August 1, 2005

Today we got up really early and took off for the place where we had heard the moose last night.  But the pond-y, marsh-y thing was empty.

So we hiked back to camp.

And guess what.

The moose had been to our camp!  It walked right through our “kitchen”.  It walked right up to Hans’ tent.  Hans opened the flap of his tent and - oh my!  A moose was RIGHT THERE.

And we MISSED it.

Rocky was SO mad.

But… there was not time to worry about it.  Today was our last day to work on the cabin and we had to put down a floor.

At about 9:30 AM a park boat came and brought us our 2x4’s.  They also brought the last two panes of glass.  So we could FINALLY finish the windows.

We worked hard until just after lunch.  And then, suddenly...

We were done!

To celebrate, we had a swim.

And then Ranger Liz came to see our finished cabin.  She brought her daughter Isabella who liked me and Rocky a lot.  She had her own friend with her - a teddy bear named Beary.

Isabella went down to wade in the harbor.  There was a sandpiper down there, too , that we had been trying to take a picture of all afternoon.  For some reason, the sandpiper didn't like Jan and Rocky and I.  But when Isabella came into the water, the sandpiper seemed to want to be close to her.  Eventually, it hopped almost up to her feet.

We also have begun to get a lot of other visitors who want to see the cabin.  News about our project seems to be spreading around the island.  For instance, we also met a little girl named Bridget who was here with her mother and grandmother.  They all went down to look at our cabin.

In the evening we sat on the big rocks by the harbor in front of the field with the apple trees.  We figured this would have been the Johnson’s front yard.

Nice view from your front yard, don't you agree?

We saw the merganser family diving for fish.  One, two, three, four, five… five babies dove under the water.  (It turned out that the eagle hadn't really eaten them.  At least, not ALL of them.  We were pretty sure there had been six babies when we had arrived.)  The mother led them out of the harbor into Lake Superior.  It seemed like too big a place for such little babies!  But their mother seemed to be sure of what she was doing.  When they dove, they leapt up and arched their backs and then disappeared for many minutes.

We also saw loons out on Lake Superior.  They never quite came into the harbor.  But then four other loons came up the harbor from the other direction.  And what a show they put on!  They laughed their crazy loon laughs and then stood up and danced across the top of the water.  Jan was worried because she thought they only did that when they were feeling threatened by something.  But Maryann said sometimes they do it just to show off.  If I could stand on my hind flippers and dance across the water, I would do it to show off all the time!  I think it's a terrific talent.

After that it was time for bed.  We all hate to leave this lovely place.  But tomorrow we go to Rock Harbor for our last day on Isle Royale.

• Tuesday, August 2, 2005

It was foggy this morning.  Jan woke us up at 4:15 AM this morning.  We said “Why?!”

“Two reasons,” she said.

1.      To look at the stars and the new moon.

2.      To make our big fat sleeping bag fit in this tiny little stuff sack  (it took half an hour.)

After breakfast, it was time to get our stuff down by the dock.  But it was so foggy, we weren't sure when... or even IF... our boat would come.

This is what the harbor looked like before breakfast.

This is what it looked like after breakfast.  Not really a lot of progress, wouldn't you say?

Our boat, The Beaver, finally came to pick us up.  We had to stop first at the ranger headquarters on Mott Island to drop off the leftover boards, old rotten wood, and tools and the 3 ladders.  Then it was on to Rock Harbor.

Of course, Rocky remembered this place from last year.  He was excited because he thought he would get to see Ranger Valerie again.

Jan was excited about two things:  a shower and a hamburger.

Jan got her wishes, but Rocky did not get his.  Ranger Valerie is working at a different park this year.

And Rocky almost missed finally seeing a moose again!

When Jan went to go take a shower, she left Rocky and me in her tent.  (We didn’t need a shower ourselves.)  And of course, she left her camera in the tent as well (no one takes a camera into the shower!)

But on the way from the tent to the shower, guess what she saw when she looked up into the woods!

Moose butt oops!  I mean, behind!

Then, when she looked again from another angle, she saw this:  A BABY MOOSE!

The behind belonged to its mother.

Well.  Jan made a bee line back to her tent.  She grabbed us and her camera and raced back to the place where she had seen them, but of course… they were gone.

So she asked two campers who were standing there where the moose went.

“Down the trail,” they said.

So we went down the trail.  Then we came to dead-end at another campsite.

“Where did the moose go?”

The man said, “Down through the woods two campsites back.”

The man had a British accent, and it would have been interesting to talk to him some more, but we did not have time to chat.

“They’re heading to the water!” cried Rocky.

I tell you what, Jan can move pretty fast when there are moose involved.  We scrambled through trees, crashed through bushes, and hopped over logs until we came to a beautiful wide foot path.  On the other side of the trail was a fringe of trees, but through the trees I could make out a long strip of blue water.  This must be the water Rocky was talking about.  Later I learned it was called Tobin Harbor, but at the time, Jan was too busy to explain things to me.  I just had to follow along as best as I could.

Jan spied a little trail that led to the water’s edge.  Quickly we cut for the water.

But too late.

A very rude, very noisy, family (of people) had seen the moose crossing the trail.  They were all down in the water, splashing and yelling.  The father waded all along the shore of the point of land where the cow and calf were trying to eat their lunch.

The rude family also drove away two loons swimming off the point.

“This is boring!” said the oldest son.

“When can we go?” asked the youngest son.

“Go now!” said Jan, but only Rocky and I heard.

But the father wouldn’t go.  He kept splashing and snapping worthless pictures with a little camera that probably had no zoom lens.  Every time the cow raised her head, he ran away.  But then he crept back again. 

The wife kept trying to get him to stop.  She was hot standing around in the sun.  He kept arguing with her.

We thought they would never leave.

Finally, Jan just yelled at them to quit splashing.  So they went back on the trail.  But we could hear them fighting amongst themselves for a L-O-N-G way down the trail.

Meanwhile, the moose kept munching.  We would see the cow’s big nose reach up and pull down a branch and see her bite off a mouthful of green.  Sometimes we would see the calf scamper across a small gap in the bushes.

But we could never get a picture.

So after about half an hour, we gave up.  It was too far out the way for Jan to bother taking us back to the tent.  So we went with her to the shower place.

Taking a shower was refreshing, according to Jan, but it was not cheap.  Yes, it cost $!  It cost $3 for a token to put in a machine that turned on the water.  Then, after 3 or 4 minutes, the water automatically shut off.  Just like a car wash, Rocky says.

John Dunn said better get two tokens so you don’t run out of water with shampoo on your head!

So that was $6.  Then, if you wanted to rent a towel, it was an extra $1.50.

Rocky and I think it was the best $7.50 that Jan spent on the whole trip! She seemed pretty happy about it, too.

Then it was on to the next thing on her list:  a cheeseburger!

JoAnn was going to make tuna tetrazini at camp, but one by one we all ended up at the café instead.  We all ate hamburgers or cheeseburgers and JoAnn did not have to cook at all.

So then she and Hans decided to take a canoe on Tobin Harbor.  And she invited us to go!

Riding in the canoe was very fun.  But getting the canoe to the water was very hard.

Hans and JoAnn were going to carry the canoe that the rangers had loaned us the way they usually carry their own, which is one person balances the canoe in the middle and carries it upside down on their shoulders.  But this kind of canoe was too heavy for one person so they carried it right side up, one person at the bow and one at the stern, holding onto special handles.

We carried the paddles and PFD’s.  (What?  You don’t know what a PFD is?  Then don’t go in a canoe!)

Personal

Flotation

Device

(or… a life jacket or vest.)

Riding in the canoe was great, especially for us, because Hans and JoAnn did all the work.  All they wanted us to do was sit very still and

Because we weren’t paddling, we sat on the bottom of the canoe, so we were down very low in the water.  Rocky said he felt like a moose swimming across a lake.  I felt like a real seal (even though I was still in my backpack.)

We paddled down the harbor to see some of the cabins that are still left that people can spend the summer in.  We had met some kids in Rock Harbor who lived in one of those cabins in the summer.  Their names were Spenser and Kara Gail.  They were friends with a girl named Sara Ann who was the daughter of the resort manager.  “We come here every summer,” they said.  “This is our island,” they said.

JoAnn and Hans had met some boys who also lived in one of the cabins.  We waved at them from our canoe.

We paddled all the way out to Lake superior, but we didn’t want to go out into the big lake.  We also passed by the Tobin Harbor “Post Office.”  This was the dock where Rocky said Captain Fritz delivered the mail on Voyageur II.

After the canoe ride, which was nice and cool, Rocky and I thought our physical exertions were over.

But no…

One more trip down the Tobin Harbor Trail to look for moose.

But… no moose.

Some mosquitoes as big as moose, but no actual moose.

And now…

One last tent night…

And then it will be time to leave Isle Royale.

GOOD NIGHT!

• Wednesday, August 3, 2005

I hate to tell you this, but today Jan woke up in a VERY bad mood.

First, it took 40 minutes to get sleeping bag to fit in its stuff sack.  This meant that she was far behind everyone else at getting her tent down.

“How’s it going?” asked Hans after everyone else was gone.

“Terrible,” said Jan.  So Hans helped her take down her tent.  Hans is very kind.

But the real reason she was in a bad mood is that she hates to leave Isle Royale.

I told her that to cheer herself up, she should go buy a few souvenirs for my friends Ethan and Cai.

While we were waiting to get on Ranger III, Jan saw a boy with a dog (stuffed dog) tucked in his backpack.  Then she noticed he had a pad of paper.

“It’s a journal,” he said proudly.

It told about their canoe trip to Belle Isle.

So Jan showed him my journal.  I felt very proud.

While we were talking, suddenly a bzzzzzzz noise came sailing towards us.  I looked to see what it was… then I rubbed my eyes with my flippers and looked again; I could not believe my eyes!!!  It was the BIGGEST mosquito I ever saw!

“That’s no mosquito,” said Rocky, laughing.  “That’s a hummingbird.”

Well, I never saw such a thing.  My, how it did buzz!

Then it was time to get on Ranger III.  I didn’t really want to.  Who would want to leave such a green and blue place?  The world we live in has so many gray-black places:  roads and highways and interstates and parking lots.

I wonder:  why could we paint them blue and green, like water and grass?

Maybe someday I’ll run for president and make that a law.

We had one more lunch of cheese and crackers and apples on the boat.  This time we had dried cherries, too, which cheered Jan a little bit because they are her favorite.

Rocky was in a bad mood for a little while during our boat trip.  After lunch, Ranger Paul sang some songs and read some poems he wrote about the island.  Then some girls said, “Please sing the wolf song.”

Rocky was not pleased.  But of course Ranger Paul did as the girls asked.

“Everyone sing along on the chorus,” Ranger Paul said.

“I will NOT!” huffed Rocky, and he put his big brown nose up in the air.

But the song had a mysterious tune and it made you want to listen and try to sing it yourself.

            Ranger Paul’s Wolf Chorus:

            “I am an Isle Royale wolf,

            It’s my nature to be aloof.

            If you happen to see me,

            Consider yourself lucky.”

But Rocky sang the last line like this:

“Consider yourself NOT lucky.”

Rocky asked Ranger Paul why there was no moose song.

“Well, I have some lyrics,” said Ranger Paul.  “But it needs a tune.  Besides, moose are #2.  Wolves are more popular.”

Rocky was horrified!

“Wolves are more popular!” sputtered Rocky.  “Moose are #2!."  He complained about this piece of information for a long time. "Maybe moose should become carnivores and howl at the moon,” Rocky snorted.  “Would that make us more POPULAR???”

Fortunately, about that time our boat pulled up to the lift bridge at Houghton and we got to watch them raise the bridge for us to go through, which distracted Rocky and put him back in a better mood.

And then we were at the dock.  And our adventure was over.

Jan went to out to dinner,  but Rocky and I stayed at the hotel and took a long nap in a real, soft bed.

                                       The End