SMALL BOAT CRUISE: Superior's NMCA

From the vantage of my home in Bayfield, Wisconsin I see the first leg of many small-boat cruises to the Apostle Islands.

- Bill Bland

But a few of the regulars keep right on going, crossing Lake Superior to enjoy the lake’s other welcoming archipelago at its northernmost corner. Scattered along about 100 nautical miles of coastline from Thunder Bay, Ontario eastward is a lifetime of camp-cruising. My son Lars, just married and with a new job, managed a few days to join me so we towed my Welsford Pathfinder to Rossport, Ontario to test the waters.

I built Ohboyohboy about three years ago, just before retiring and moving to Bayfield. But I still have much to learn about camp-cruising in her—between home remodeling and rotator-cuff rehabilitation I’ve missed a lot of the short sailing seasons in my time here. So there was lots we didn’t know about both making her go and camp-cruising.

Lars loves sailing but is a fan of a warm and dry tent on terra firma—both because of the lack of motion and protection from dew. So in our planning we marked keelboat anchorages described in Bonnie Dahl’s classic cruising guide Superior Way, and campsites from a crude map Lars found online. Many of the islands along the northernmost corner of the lake are now part of the Lake Superior National Marine Conservation Area, formally established in 2015. In our home waters of the Apostle Islands it is probably against some rule to sneeze within 2 n.m. of an island without covering your mouth, so we emailed Parks Canada for guidance on camping in the sanctuary. We received a prompt, pleasant, and vague reply that we took to mean “whatever.”