Curious Sights on Isle Royale (7th in a series about Isle Royale)

Loreen Niewenhuis is an author, adventurer, and dynamic speaker. 

She has completed a trilogy of 1,000-mile adventures exploring the Great Lakes and has authored three books about these adventures. 

To learn more about her work, or to engage her as a speaker, go to 

http://www.laketrek.com/great-lakes-speaker/

This May, I hiked my fifth Moosewatch Expedition on Isle Royale. 

And this time, I was thrilled to be a team leader.

Before we hiked out of Windigo into the wild island, I told my team, "Be curious. Be observant. If you see something cool, gather the team."

There is so much to see on the island. 

Over 700 types of lichen grow there!

Check out these curious things we noticed:

This strange growth on a tree was curious...

Fungi? Extrusion of sap? Alien life form?

Enormous bracket fungi (notice foot for scale!)

The garter snakes were waking in May

HUGE burl (a deformity on a tree caused by stress or injury)

A beaver cut this tree off about 4 feet up...did they stand on each other's shoulders? Use a little ladder?? Just extremely tall beaver???

Creatures Awake

Loreen Niewenhuis is an author, adventurer, and dynamic speaker. 

She has completed a trilogy of 1,000-mile adventures exploring the Great Lakes and has authored three books about these adventures: 

A 1,000-Mile Walk on the Beach  [A Heartland Indie Bestseller]

A 1,000-Mile Great Lakes Walk   [Winner of the Great Lakes Great Reads Award] 

A 1,000-Mile Great Lakes Island Adventure  [Long-listed for the Chautauqua Prize]

 

To learn more about her work, or to engage her as a speaker, go to http://www.laketrek.com/great-lakes-speaker/

Islands are isolated ecosystems and generally have a limited number of creatures on them.

Isle Royale has only 15 mammals living there, and only three species of snakes (garter, red-bellied, and rat snake).

My Moosewatch Team came across two species of snakes this May:

Garter snake (upper photo) and Red-bellied snake (lower photo)

Another life form was waking up on the island.

This ant colony was still huddled together for warmth, but check out their antennae on the video below...