Copper Harbor has long been known as "The Gateway to Isle Royale." Isle Royale is a large island national park northwest of the Keweenaw Peninsula across Lake Superior.

Isle Royale is Michigan's only national park and one of the only two island national parks in the United States. It is mostly a spectacular northwoods wilderness, but there is one developed area in the park, Rock Harbor, to which the ferry out of Copper Harbor sails nearly every day in summer.
 
Copper Harbor and Isle Royale
 
Copper Harbor's reputation started back in 1930, a dozen years before Isle Royale became a national park. It was then that the first charter service to the island out of Copper Harbor started running. Ferry service to the island has continued ever since. 

The current ferry operating between Copper Harbor and Isle Royale National Park is the Isle Royale Queen IV, a trim, fast, 100-foot ship owned by the Donald Kilpela family, longtime Copper Harbor residents. The Kilpelas have owned the Isle Royale ferry service in Copper Harbor since 1971.

The ferry trip is a long one, some 55 miles from Copper Harbor. But that's the shortest distance for any transportation service from Michigan. The Isle Royale Queen IV makes the daily crossing in just over 3 hours. That's the shortest crossing time of any ferry service from either Michigan or Minnesota to the one developed area of the island, the Rock Harbor Entrance.

At Rock Harbor there's a small community.  The Rock Harbor Lodge offers cabins and motel-style rooms. The Lodge, owned by Forever Resorts, runs a superb dining room and the Greenstone Grill, and operates the Rock Harbor Marina, the Rock Harbor General Store, and other amenities.
 
The Rock Harbor Entrance is also the location of the Rock Harbor Visitors Center, operated by the National Park Service. Visitors can get complete information on making their Isle Royale visits memorable at the Center.
 
In addition, at the southwest end of the island, the Windigo Entrance (40 miles away from Rock Harbor), there is a small NPS Visitors Center, boating facilities, and a snack bar.
 
What Is There to Do on Isle Royale?
 
Isle Royale offers wonderful lakeside and ridge-top views, superb wilderness hiking and backpacking (of moderate difficulty), lots of wonderful wilderness campgrounds, fine canoeing and kayaking, great wildlife viewing and fishing, endless photographic opportunities, and much more.
 
It's a huge island, 45 miles long and about 10 miles wide, the second largest island in the Great Lakes. Isle Royale's terrain looks a lot like Copper Harbor and the Keweenaw Peninsula, but it's a wilderness and hence much more rugged and pristine. This makes it one of the most unusual places in North America, a spectacular and rugged Great Lakes wilderness that's very close to America's heartland. It is one of the largest wilderness parks east of the Mississippi River.
 
Except for the small developed area of Rock Harbor, the island is entirely wilderness. There are no roads or two-tracks. There are some 165 miles of wilderness foot trails leading to more than 30 wilderness campgrounds, some large, most small and remote. All camping is wilderness camping.

Visit the web sites of the National Park Service, the Isle Royale Queen IV, the Rock Harbor Lodge, and the blogs and web site of Copper Harbor's Captain Ben Kilpela (with many photos) for lots more information on visiting the island. 
 
Ways to Experience Isle Royale:
 
Stay at the Rock Harbor Lodge.  There are lots of things to do while staying at the island: day-hike, fish, sight-see, take a boat tours, rent a canoe or kayak, and more.  The Lodge offers excellent meals and rooms in various room-packages, or you can prepare your own meals while staying at one of the Lodge's popular Housekeeping Cottages. With its superb setting on the shores of Rock and Tobin Harbors, the Rock Harbor Lodge can serve as your wilderness base camp with all the comforts of home.
 
Wilderness Hike and Backpack.

Isle Royale's trails follow the Lake Superior shore, crisscross the vast, forested interior, pass lakes and streams of all sizes, and traverse the high ridges of the island. There are dozens of excellent hiking-backpacking itineraries that can be followed. Jim Dufresne's book on the island "Isle Royale Foot Trails and Water Routes" is the bible of island hiking. In Copper Harbor, Captain Ben Kilpela sells an informative pamphlet on loop trails on the northeast half of the island. But are available through the Isle Royale Queen IV web site.

Canoe and Kayak.
 
Isle Royale has become renowned across the world for the excellence of its sea kayaking and canoeing. There are many harbors and coves off Lake Superior and about two dozen inland lakes that offer great fishing and superb views. Isle Royale has set up several portage systems so that paddlers can travel by boat deep into the interior of the national park. If you love to paddle, Isle Royale is a must.
 
Visit for the Day. 
 
A Day Trip from Copper Harbor is a great way to get a taste of this wonderful place. The Isle Royale Queen IV offers fast round-trip service to Rock Harbor almost every day in summer, and more and more people are taking advantage of day trips. It takes a little over 3 hours to get to the island, where you have 3.5 hours for a long hike, a paddle, or some fishing. You can have lunch at the Rock Harbor Lodge, too. Or you can simply relax at one of hundreds of isolated and beautiful spots along the trails near the Queen dock.

Then it's 3 hours back to Copper Harbor, where you can have an outstanding meal at one of our village's fine restaurants and a great night's stay at one of our comfortable motels. 

The Isle Royale Queen IV offers many Day-Trip Specials throughout the summer. Check at the Queen dock in central Copper Harbor or the Community Center -- or give the Queen office a call at 906-289-4437.
 
A Day-Trip from Copper Harbor is an excellent way to experience two of America's great natural treasures, Isle Royale and Lake Superior, the world's largest body of fresh water.
 
Isle Royale has had a long and special connection to Copper Harbor. The businesses of Copper Harbor encourage you to make a visit to Isle Royale part of your next vacation adventure.