Oogab was troubled. The incredible run of big fish had disappeared, and his friends on the beach seemed much smaller than they were not long ago. And the gentle breeze of an hour ago was now a strong wind, testing the strength of his crude raft of lashed-together logs. The piles of fish he had speared were threatened by the increasing waves. His covering of fur, warm just hours ago, seemed chilly.

As this primitive man moved away from the protective shore that would someday be called the Keewenaw Peninsula, Oogab waved plaintively toward his assembled friends. He was being blown out into the open water, someday to be called Lake Superior, and he knew he would not survive. On the beach Auntang, his lifelong friend, called for help in gathering logs, vines and other materials to make another raft. He must save Oogab. After all, Oogab had made his sister soon to be a mother! With a crude branch to serve as a paddle, they pushed Auntang free of the beach and into the increasing wind.

Hours passed, the wind persisted. Darkness came and white-capped breakers pushed the rafts onward. A rising sun found the two rafts not far apart, still bearing two very cold primitives. And land was ahead, rough and wave splashed, but to their relief, it was land! With crude signals they made their way ashore.

Then, less than 1,000 years after the glacial ice had left Lake Superior’s largest island, human feet left impressions along the gravel beach.

To the apparent surprise of the U.S. National Park Service, humans have left these impressions in almost every one of the last 10,000 years on this island long known as Isle Royale.

An unknown race mined copper on the south shore of the lake, after finding native copper with silver in exposed rocks scoured by the glacial ice. Over many centuries these same people scoured the whole lake, finding Isle Royale laced with the same veins of the silver-bearing copper. Their mining efforts, using the smooth or grooved hammerstones, yielded ton after ton of native copper which found its way into worldwide trade.

After careful analysis, the early mining efforts on Isle Royale were deemed to be the efforts of at least 10,000 people for more than 1,000 years! The last of their primordial visits is thought to be about 3,500 years ago.

As reported in the January 1996 issue of this magazine, archaeological investigator Jim Paquette of Negaunee, Michigan, has established continuous habitation for the south shore of Lake Superior since the last glacial ice melted. Many of the humans who lived by killing and eating the animals attracted to the fresh green grasses must have either visited or heard of the island now called Isle Royale.

Modern mining efforts on the island began in the 1850s, persisting with limited success until the early 1900s. Fishing and the opportunity to own land attracted immigrants from several countries in the period between 1880 and 1920, parallel with tourist activity beginning around the turn of the century.

BETTY M. BIETI
The 400 feet of docking space at Siskiwit Bay is targeted for removal in the new Isle Royale National Park General Management Plan.

The island was a regular port of call for a number of passenger and freight vessels beginning in the 1870s, as it still is today. As a hay fever haven, the island attracted sufferers of every economic level.

Consideration to make the island a national park began in 1931, and the park was established on May 1, 1940. The first of many waves of National Park Service personnel assumed command of the island, the first having a good sized box of matches. Dozens of dwellings, resorts and seasonal camps were converted to glowing ashes by this team soon called “pyromaniacs” by those aware of their efforts. After nine years of the Great Depression, many almost destitute folks took the pittance offered for immediate sale of their property, rather than the “life estate” for continued use by any family member then alive. No one even thought that the almost immediate torching of homes and possessions therein was a possibility.

That the National Park Service was in total control of Isle Royale was never disputed. The wave of former military people who moved to the Park Service as the military downsized was a refreshing change. New docks and campgrounds were built, existing sites improved and old trails cleared. The early mines were carefully studied and the remains explained in attractive booklets. Early fishing families were introduced to visitors through companion booklets, as was the geology of Isle Royale.

Divers examined the many shipwrecks that surround the island, encouraging visitor traffic to view the wreckage from the surface or to use sophisticated diving equipment to explore below. The resurgence of fishing attracted sportsmen from all over North America, and “catch, photograph and release” was the order of the day.

Scout troops hiked the island, naturalists studied the back country and day visitors explored lakeside trails. Boaters brought their children to explore and learn, enjoying the many Adirondack shelters that the earlier Park Service people built and maintained. The magic of this beautiful island recharged, oh, so many human batteries just by being there!

In short, Isle Royale became and thrived as America’s premier maritime national park.

Incredibly, in the last four years, the Isle Royale so many of us have known has begun to die. Not from inattention, but from true bureaucratic zeal - from what I now believe is the most distorted government logic since our government proclaimed in 1973 that the last of our natural gas would be consumed by 1977.

After a series of public meetings supposedly seeking guidance, Isle Royale management published their new General Management Plan in November 1998. Using the Wilderness Act of 1976, where 99 percent of Isle Royale is already a wilderness, they plan to reduce island access by about a third. Docks and campgrounds are to be removed and torn down, despite the 1976 directive where visitor access “was to be maintained as at present.”

A heavily constructed dock, the only real shelter in Siskiwit Bay when the winds rise, is to be removed at a cost to taxpayers of more than $1 million. While this dock has provided needed safety for hundreds of small boats over the last 40 some years, it will be removed since it is offensive to some of the hikers who pass. For a fraction of that expense, we could build the hikers a new campground some distance away, preserving everyone’s dignity.

And this is just a start. The Park Service has put a $4 per day visitor fee on everyone visiting the island and seems to gain special pleasure from Canadian boats that stop for an overnight en route to other parts of the lake. Arriving in the evening and leaving the next morning, after paying $2.13(US) a gallon for gas, and a 20 percent surcharge for anything purchased at the Rock Harbor store, they must also pay $8 for each person aboard, since two calendar days are involved.

Are you surprised that boating visitors to the island have declined each of the last four years, with the 1998 reduction in boating visitors through the end of November at 30 percent of the previous year’s level?

But the National Park Service is alive and doing very well, thank you! Their headquarters, Mott Island by name, is sprinkled with lovely homes, new apartments and services to help them endure a summer on a remote island. But if you wish to enjoy Rock Harbor’s lodge, do it soon, since it may be leveled in three years according to the plan. You older folks will especially enjoy the new planned accommodations: “primitive cabins - 10 in number, with one central bathroom serving all 10 cabins.”

If you find this impending disaster not to your liking, consider becoming involved with the Isle Royale Boaters Association. Now some 1,400 members strong, each one paying $25 or more per year to belong, it has formally filed a protest in the required 30 days following publication to the new management plan. All of us know this is quite a challenge, but most of us have enjoyed and cared for Isle Royale for a number of years. Ask any boater who has been to the island. Stories of helping other visitors, be they hikers, canoeists, campers or other boaters abound. That a tiny fraction of the visitors - less than 1 percent - can trigger this level of destructive activity because of willing management defies logic.

Full updated information - and a membership offer - is available from the Isle Royale Boaters Association, P.O. Box 97, Houghton, Michigan 49931. Ask them for their “Visitor Impact Statement.” If internet access is available, check out the IRBA website (www.isleroyale.org) for photos and updates.

Feedback: jrm@lakesuperior.com