Keeping It Fresh

A cluster of islands in Lake Superior remains one of America's last truly wild places.

- Stephanie Pearson

THE LAKE TROUT must have been hungry. Only five minutes after our guide, Marina Alexander, had rigged the fishing lines off the northeastern tip of Isle Royale, an island in Lake Superior, I reeled in a two-pounder. Its mottled, silvery body glistened in the sun.

"Catching a lake trout is fun," Alexander told my partner, Brian, and me, "but catching salmon is more fun. They are so pissed off when they get caught that they will work you."

Alexander, who is 28, has spent every summer of her life in Isle Royale National Park, an archipelago of more than 400 islands. The park encompasses a total area of 850 square miles, and 99 percent of it is designated wilderness. Four-fifths of the park is water, part of one of the largest bodies of fresh water on earth. At its center is the 45-mile-long, nine-mile-wide Isle Royale.

Options for getting to the car-free island are limited. You can arrive by floatplane or ferry from just four spots in Michigan and Minnesota (unless you have a private boat). And the winter weather is harsh, so the park is open for only half the year. As a result, Isle Royale is often referred to as one of the most remote and least-visited parks in the United States.

So what's the attraction? Visitors can find real solitude in a wilderness that feels untamable, despite a human history that dates back thousands of years. While introduced by the original seasonal inhabitants-the Anishinaabe-the practices of mining, fishing, and logging became official industries after Europeans made their way to the islands. In 1855, the Soo Locks—a system allowing freighters to navigate the waterways of the region-opened Lake Superior to the world, boosting tourism to the islands. Worried Isle Royale would continue to lose pristine natural habitat, seasonal residents successfully lobbied Congress to designate it as a national park; it was made official in 1940.