Man ComesAnd Goes
If you spend much time at Rock Harbor, chances are
you will take a walk out toward Scoville Point on the Stoll Trail. About
halfway to the point you will pass three small pits in the rocka
small sample of many pits excavated on Isle Royale by Indians, hundreds
of years ago, in their mining of copper. Collectively, they represent
man's first appearance on this young island.
In many ways, Indian use of Isle Royale was like most
later human activity here: it was seasonal and exploitative, and finally
it was abandoned. Unlike other animals, man has never been able to live
long-term and harmoniously with this rigorous, remote land.
![](images/nh8n.jpg)
Minong Ridge, near McCargoe Cove, is the site of both
prehistoric Indian copper diggings and a late 19th-century mining
operation of the Minong Company. (Photo by Robt. M. Linn)
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As we have seen, plants followed close after the
retreat of glacial ice out of the Superior Basin, and animals followed
the plants. Close upon the heels of animals came man, the hunter. By
6000 or 7000 B.C., possibly earlier, Indians had reached the north shore
of the lake. We don't know when they first ventured the 15 or 20 miles
to Isle Royale; but by about 2000 B.C. they were mining copper on the
island. (Wood from a pit near Lookout Louise has been radiocarbon-dated
at 2160 B.C. plus-or-minus 130 years.) Using rounded beach cobbles, they
hammered the rock away from the pinkish veins of pure copper. Perhaps,
too, they used fire to heat the rock and make it more friable, though
this is uncertain. Probably these early visitors came in small groups
during the summer, worked a number of pits, and returned to the mainland
for the winter. Quite possibly they burned off the vegetation, as white
miners later did, to find the copper veins more easily. They used the
malleable metal for spear points and other implements.
For about 1,000 years, Indians mined copper on Isle
Royale, the Keweenaw Peninsula, and other areas around Lake Superior.
Some of this material, presumably through trade, found its way to
southern Manitoba, the St. Lawrence Valley and New York, and northern
Illinois and Indiana; but the chief area of use was eastern
Wisconsin.
Then, on Isle Royale, the archeological record goes
blank until about 300 B.C. By this time, little mining was being done
here, though some use of copper continued. Much copper must have
remained in circulation, however, for it was during the period from 500
B.C. to 500 A.D. that the Hopewell Indians of southern Ohio, Indiana,
and Illinois used Lake Superior copper to make numerous highly artistic
ornaments. We know that Indians used Isle Royale rather extensively
during these centuries, since their occupation sites have been found at
Indian Point (at the mouth of McCargoe Cove), Chippewa Harbor, Merritt
Lane, Washington Island, and other places. Bones uncovered at the Indian
Point site indicated some of the contemporaneous animal life: caribou,
moose, beaver, lynx, snowshoe hare, muskrat, loon, bald eagle, sturgeon,
shorthead redhorse sucker, and turtle.
Judging from the number of sites found, the period
from 800 to 1600 saw the peak of Indian activity on Isle Royale. After
the arrival of Europeans in the Great Lakes area, Indian culture began
to disintegrate and their numbers declined. By the 1840's, when white
miners came to Isle Royale, the only Indian encampments were one at
Sugar Mountain, where they tapped maples for the sap, and a seasonal
fishing camp on Grace Island.
In their 4,000 to 5,000 year use of Isle Royale,
Indians apparently left only small pits in the rock as lasting marks on
the landscape and life of the island. If they burned the plant cover in
their search for copper or eliminated beaver or other animals in
fur-trade days, there is no evidence of this today. They seem to have
left the forests full of game and the waters full of fish.
The same cannot be said quite so confidently for
those who followed, though modern man's record has been better here than
it has in most places. During the 19th and 20th centuries, people have
come for fish, copper, lumber, and finally for that most fragile and
elusive of natural resourceswilderness. Even that last quest has
left its mark on the land.
In historic times, fishing has been the most enduring
economic activity on Isle Royale. The many reefs and miles of shoreline,
as well as great range of water depths and several types of bottom
material, provide for the varying seasonal needs of lake trout,
whitefish, and herringthe chief species sought. Sheltered harbors
give fishermen bases from which to operate.
Commercial fishing began here before 1800, when the
Northwest Fur Company took fish from the north side of the island to
supply its stations at the western end of Lake Superior. In the late
1830's, the American Fur Company established seven fishing stations on
Isle Royale. Their catches were good, but the economic depression of
1837-41 dried up their markets. Since that time, commercial fishing on
Isle Royale has continued largely as an individual enterprise, and for
the most part it has been successful. Nearly every sheltered cove has
had its fish houses and log cabins, where fishermen and their families
lived from spring until fall. Most returned to mainland towns in winter,
but a few hardy souls lived here year-round. For various reasons,
fishing declined through the present century. In 1972, only four
commercial fishermen still operated on the island, partly as employees
of the National Park Service, which strives to maintain some of this
activity as an integral part of Isle Royale life.
![](images/nh8o.jpg)
This 1890 photograph shows a fishing village
in sheltered Chippewa Harbor. Visitors to the harbor today find
that the forest has grown up around the village site. The decline
of Great Lakes fishing in this century brought about the abandonment
of a number of such settlements.
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Lake Superior, though productive, has not remained
the rich source of fish it was when Europeans first settled here. In the
1880's, when fishing was booming on Isle Royale, a decline in whitefish
catches was noticed. Whether overfishing was the main problem is not
known, but whitefish numbers have remained low to the present.
Man's activities were directly responsible for a more
recent shock to the Lake Superior ecosystem: the building of the Welland
Canal allowed sea lampreys to bypass Niagara Falls and enter all the
upper Great Lakes. By 1952, these eel-like, parasitic animals had
appeared in Lake Superior. They attacked primarily the lake trout, and
within a few years had decimated its populations. Fishermen were forced
to turn to the herring, a smaller and less profitable species.
Eventually, use of chemical poisons in spawning streams brought the
lamprey under control and the lake trout recovered to the point where a
small take became permissible. But herring remained the chief support of
the declining Lake Superior fishery.
The introduction of smelt into the Great Lakes about
1912 was deliberate, but this, too, may have had some adverse effects.
Smelt proliferated and now, in spring, run up Lake Superior streams in
enormous numbers. Fried smelt make a tasty dish, but, according to many
fishermen, they eat large numbers of eggs and fry of other fish,
including the larger commercial species. This belief and other aspects
of smelt ecology still await scientific study.
Of all economic enterprises on Isle Royale, copper
mining undoubtedly has had the greatest environmental effects. The chief
impact came from the use of fire to remove the plant cover from the
rocks. As any bushwhacker today discovers, the underbrush is thick in
many places. Copper prospectors burned thousands of acres to aid them in
their search. In the next chapter we will trace some of the extensive
biological effects of such fires. Miners also cut wood for fuel,
building material, and mine props, and made clearings for
settlements.
Post-Indian mining occurred only in the 19th century,
during three periods of activity. The first lasted from 1843 to 1855.
Much exploration was carried out, but only small quantities of copper
were obtained, under dangerous and uncomfortable conditions. Two of the
more easily seen mines from this period are the Smithwick Mine, a
small, fence-rimmed excavation on the Moose Trail near Rock Harbor
Lodge, and the Siskiwit Mine, which is on the north shore of Rock Harbor
opposite Mott Island.
Interest revived between 1873 and 1881, when larger
(but fewer) operations, benefitting from improved mining technology and
better transportation, were carried out. The largest of these was the
Minong Mine, near McCargoe Cove. Following the lead of the prehistoric
miners, who had dug hundreds of small pits in Minong Ridge, workers of
the Minong Company sank two shafts and blasted large quarries in the
ridge. At its peak, production here required 150 men who, with their
families, formed a substantial settlement. There was a blacksmith shop,
a stamp mill, an ore dock, and railroads between mine, mill, and dock.
Today the mine area looks like the scene of some ancient bombing raid.
"Poor rock" piles lie huge and bare in the forest. Pits and quarries
yawn eerily in the side of the ridge. Rusted, twisted tracks go nowhere
on their grass-grown roadbeds. Nothing remains of the town. Its site is
now occupied by a lovely open forest of aspen, its openness the only
hint of man's former presence.
![](images/nh8p.jpg)
Pete Edisen with a record catch16 boxes of lake
herringin 1965. (Photo by P. A. Jordan)
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The other substantial operation of this period was
the Island Mine, about two miles northwest of the head of Siskiwit Bay.
A town was laid out on the bay shore, and this became the county seat of
the newly established Isle Royale County (now a part of Keweenaw
County). But fire, low copper prices, and poor deposits cut short the
life of the mine. Nothing remains of this town, either; but the Island
Mine Trail, which follows the old road to the mine, passes by the shafts
and rock piles, half-screened by the surrounding forest.
The final quest for copper lasted from 1889 to 1893
and centered in the Windigo area. A town was built at the head of
Washington Harbor and extensive diamond drilling was conducted to
locate the metal, but the deposits proved too poor. The only production
from these efforts was geological data, on which much geological
understanding was subsequently based. Thus ended man's 4,000-year search
for copper on Isle Royale.
The island's isolation and its shallow soil, which
does not allow large stands of tall trees to develop, may have been the
chief factors that saved it from intensive lumbering. Aside from the
cutting done by miners, there were only two significant episodes of
lumbering. In the 1890's a Duluth company cut white-cedar and pine along
Washington Creek and floated the logs down to Washington Harbor, where
they were held in by boom chains. This venture ended when a big storm
caused Washington Creek to flood and break the log barrier, sending the
harvest out into Lake Superior.
![](images/nh8q.jpg)
On the shore of Wright Island an abandoned fisherman's home is a
reminder of the days when Isle Royale's fishery thrived. (Photo by Robt. G. Johnsson)
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Fire ended the other operation. In the early 1930's,
while land acquisition for the newly authorized park was underway, the
Consolidated Paper Company was logging spruce and fir from its holdings
at the head of Siskiwit Bay. In July 1936 a fire started near the lumber
camp and eventually burned nearly a quarter of the island. Though 18,000
cords of pulpwood stacked near the bay were saved, much of the company's
forest holding was left a charred wasteland.
While men sought, rather unsuccessfully, to exploit
the island's natural resources commercially, a nonconsumptive form of
exploitationone that would eventually assume dominancewas
beginning. Since the 1860's a few tourists had been coming to Isle
Royale to enjoy its fishing and its tranquil, remote, romantic wildness.
During the early 1900's, with the rapid growth of midwestern cities and
the introduction of lake excursion boats, tourism picked up. Resorts
were built on Washington Island and at Windigo, Belle Isle, Tobin
Harbor, and Rock Harbor. People acquired cottage sites, particularly on
the islands and long peninsulas at the northeast end of the island.
The appreciation of cottagers and tourists for Isle
Royale's peace-giving blend of woods and water eventually crystallized
into a movement to make the island a park. At first a state park was
visualized, but later sentiment favored a national park. In 1922,
Representative James C. Cramton of Michigan made the proposal in
Congress. After a long battle between proponents and opponents, Congress
in 1931 passed a bill making Isle Royale a National Park project. Lands
were gradually acquired and several Civilian Conservation Corps camps
were set up to construct trails, fire towers, and the necessary
buildings. Isle Royale National Park was formally established in 1940
and was officially dedicated in 1946. Then, as now, occasional foul
weather complicated travel to the island. The Park Service director and
assistant director were unable to fly from Houghton for the dedication
ceremony; 1,000 others made it by some means.
Isle Royale's preservation as a park was the
achievement of many people, but the man who first planted the idea in
many minds was Albert Stoll, Jr., a Detroit newspaperman. After a visit
to Isle Royale in 1920, he wrote a series of editorials, for the Detroit
News, promoting park status for the island. The trail now memorializing
him leads past the Indian pits mentioned at the beginning of this
chapter to a plaque about Stoll at Scoville Point, thus touching on the
first and also the most recent phases in man's long relationship with
this island.
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Most of Isle Royale National Park is kept in a wild state, with a
minimum of visitor developments such as this boardwalk through the
white-cedar swamp on Rock Harbor Trail. (Photo by Robt. G. Johnsson)
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What did the people of the United States inherit from
the prehistoric past through establishment of this park? Remarkably
much, we can conclude. Man may have eliminated the lynx and the marten
from the island by trapping, and he probably had diminished the fish
populations around its shores. He had introduced some non-native plants such as
clover and had made clearings in the forest. But generally his
activities had not disturbed the normal workings of nature. His fires,
though concentrated in time and far reaching in their effects,
apparently had the same long-term results as the lightning fires that
surely have burned this island since it first bore trees. For some
decades he had not hunted the animals but had let predators, prey, and
vegetation find their natural balance. He did introduce the Norway rat
and white-tailed deer, but these did not survive long. In 1946,
excluding a few buildings and trails, the island scene and its plant and
animal components were probably nearly the same as they had been four
centuries earlier, before Europeans arrived here and set eyes on the
"floating" island.
To be sure, however, some "natural" changes had
occurred, particularly among the larger animals. Woodland caribou,
probably residents of the island much of the time since early
post-glacial days, disappeared about 1927. Moose, probably present at
various times in the past but absent during the 19th century, reappeared
early in the 20th. Coyotes were seen and heard through the first half of
the 20th century, but disappeared about 1955. And wolves, which no doubt
hunted moose and caribou here in distant centuries, were not regular
residents during the 19th and early 20th centuries but be came firmly
established in the 1940's. Thus change has continued, with or without
the presence of man, since the island was born.
As commercial fishing declines and cottage leases
expire, old ways of life on Isle Royale fade away. But in some ways the
pattern of human activity remains the same. Visitors come for a few days
and return home. Park Service people and a few others come in spring and
leave in the fall. No one stays permanently. For a week or a season the
island attracts us, but in the end the wild forces beneath the beauty
send us back across the water. Only for moose and beaver, wolf and
raven, spruce and fir is Isle Royale a true home.
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