Our July 2016 trip to Lake Superior continued with our arrival at Rock Harbor on Isle Royale. Located near the northeast end of the island, Rock Harbor is the site of the only full-service lodge in the national park. Upon arriving at Rock Harbor, all visitors are required to attend a short orientation meeting with rangers. When commercial ferry boats arrive, two orientations are held simultaneously. One is for guests of the lodge and duplex cabins and the other is for backcountry campers. Proof of payment of the $4 daily user fee for the length of your visit is required at this meeting. Once the orientation was complete, we stopped in at the visitor center. Although small, the visitor center has an exhibit area, bookstore, and information desk. Across the breezeway is the camp store. Restrooms are located in a nearby building.
After leaving the visitor center, we walked around the marina to the Rock Harbor Lodge office to check in. As with most national park lodges, the room rates are considerably higher than at locations outside the park. In this case, they are the only option unless you want to camp. The guest rooms have very few amenities. There is an alarm clock. However, our room was clean and quiet. The very small bathroom was right out of the 1950s or 1960s, but totally functional. Air conditioning is not available, but windows on both sides of the room allowed for the lake breeze to blow through the room. The four lodge buildings are two-story. The lower level rooms have a bit more room with a balcony on the lake side, but the upper rooms are at ground level and don't require descending a set of stairs. Lodge staff delivered our luggage to the walkway outside our door from the ferry. At the end of our stay, we placed our luggage outside the room and the staff took it back to the ferry.
The lodge has two restaurants. We ate at both of them and found a variety of entrees available for each meal. We also found the service to be friendly and fairly fast considering the number of guests and visitors looking for hot meals.
Although most visitors would never know it, all electricity on the island is produced on-site via solar panels located near the park service maintenance area. Excess power is stored in batteries. Before the solar panels, power was produced by generators that ran 24 hours per day. Now the generators are only fired up to charge the batteries after a number of cloudy days.
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| Rock Harbor Visitor Center |
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| Visitor center exhibits |
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| Bookstore and gift shop |
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| Marina for private boats and ferries that dock overnight |
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| National Park service patrol vessel |
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| Isle Royale Queen IV |
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| View of Rock Harbor |
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| The Sandy and a water taxi at the lodge pier |
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| Chairs, table, and picture window in our room |
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| View from the room |
Entry to Isle Royale National Park is free. However, the park charges a daily user fee of $4 per adult (over 11 years) per calendar day. This fee is not covered by the Interagency Annual Pass, Interagency Senior Pass, or the Interagency Access Pass. In addition, this is the only national park that completely closes for the winter. The island is closed from November 1 through April 15.
The park website is https://www.nps.gov/isro.
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