We usually arrive in Chippewa Harbor via a hop from Rock Harbor on the Voyageur II, on shorter excursions of six days and five nights, reserving ten-day and nine-night excursions for full cross-island adventures. For the moderately experienced hiker who has about a week to vacation, a Chippewa Harbor to Rock Harbor excursion is perfect. It offers opportunities to see every aspect of the island without needing to have the time to complete a cross-island hike. This shorter hike allows you to enjoy the harbor itself, visit the schoolhouse, fish in Lake Mason, and enjoy several campgrounds as you meander your way back to Rock Harbor.
Chippewa Harbor Proper
Chippewa Harbor has four shelters, each with a standing grill in which you can make a fire. There isn’t a whole lot to burn, however, because of the traffic that has come before you and burned up most all the suitable firewood. Not to fear. Your camp stove is sufficient for cooking, and a fire is not that important. Once you have your evening meal, take a beverage with you to the dock.
At the dock, let the peace of harbor creep into you. You can hear loons on the water with their haunting calls. At the right time of year, you can see a chick or two riding on the backs of their parents as the adult birds paddle about. Because the loons have no reason to approach the dock, they remain at a distance; using binoculars will give you the best view of them.
If it is windy, you will be able to hear the roar of waves on Lake Superior from the dock as you sit next to the calm water of the harbor. As you enjoy the calm, listen carefully. You might hear subtle thumping under the dock. A family of otters lives beneath it, and they frolic in the surrounding water. Look into the harbor, away from Lake Superior; you might see the two adults and three or four pups sliding down the bank near the campground and into the water.
From the campground, their activity is not visible because of the curvature of the rocks on the shore, but you can see them from the dock. If you are quiet, the otters will swim toward you, diving under the dock from about 10 yards away. If you are not quiet, you will see them swimming toward the opposite shoreline like five or six little boats motoring away from you. Like the loons, they dive and come up many yards away, but the otters seem less reclusive than the loons.
From the rocks above the water in front of the first and second shelters, you can sit quietly, too, to see the otters play. They will splash into the water in front of and below you, one after another, as they frolic and bond as a family unit. With the loons and the otters, a cellphone camera is a good choice for recording them because you can zoom in and capture images of their individual faces.
Chippewa Harbor Walkabout
To check out the hiking behind and above the campground at Chippewa Harbor, you need trekking poles, water, sunblock for sensitive skin, and your cellphone and/or a camera. You might need a coat, depending on the weather. Your first stop should be the Johnson Schoolhouse followed by the ridge where you can see onto Lake Mason and out over Lake Superior to the east, south, and west.
Johnson Schoolhouse
At Chippewa Harbor, there is a trail to the ridge behind the campground that is accessed by going through the tent and group sites. Cross behind Shelter 3, following the path through the thimbleberry bushes, passing a couple of privies. Once you pass through the group site, you come to an old apple orchard on your right. Pause for a moment. You will see a fork in the trail. The left branch goes up to the ridge. Go there second.
First, continue forward and down into the bushes beyond the orchard along the overgrown path. There, you will visit the Johnson Schoolhouse. It’s a tiny dilapidated, single room building that sits close to the water’s edge. If you kayak, you can see it from the water, and if you are alert for it on your arrival, you will see it from the deck of the ferry, Voyageur II. There are raspberries along the trail, so enjoy a quick taste. They are tiny and bright with flavor.
If it hasn’t been moved or rotted into the ground, there’s an old tree across the trail. You should be able to step over it. The schoolhouse will be visible in front of you. Continue for a few feet and step up onto the rickety porch of the schoolhouse.
There’s a hasp with a peg holding the door shut; remove the peg and open the door. It’ll creak and scrape on the warped floor. You will see broken items strewn about, an iron that was heated on a stove, a broken lamp, unrecognizable junk reminding you of how history recedes when no one pays attention. Yet on the back wall is a plaque that shares the name of the benefactor who sponsored the last renovation of the schoolhouse. Since then, the chinking between the logs in the walls has begun to come loose again, and each year its age shows a little more. It smells of old wood. The windows are single-paned and wooden, not much to keep a winter out.
Outside again, remember to pull the door shut and replace the peg in the hasp. Then take a step or two toward the water. Sit. Really, have a seat in the bushes on the shore. Take off your shoes and soak your feet for a moment in the cool water of the harbor. Conjure up in your memory the sounds of little ones reciting their A, B, Cs. Hear the scrape of chairs on the wooden floor. Feel drafts that must have filtered in through the wooden door and walls. Imagine a single teacher and a half a dozen pupils. Then come back to the present. Hear the loons, the herring gulls, the waves. Pick one more raspberry and eat it; then put your shoes on. You have a ridge to climb.
Chippewa Harbor Summit
On the way back from the schoolhouse toward the group sites, take the trail to the right and up the hill across from the orchard. It’s scattered with gravel on the bedrock at the junction, which can roll under your boots, but in a few feet, the trail crosses bare rock. As you continue, it veers right across the bedrock. Juniper bushes cling for dear life, and you will walk through short thickets of them lying closely on the rock. Along the way, you will pass sugar plum bushes. On the mainland, these grow to be twenty or so feet tall. Here on the island, they can bear fruit at only one foot tall. Don’t go around eating berries that you can’t identify because they will make you sick, but if you can identify what a sugar plum is, you can try them. These are sweet purple berries with small edible seeds when they are ripe. They change from green to red to purple in their progress to maturity.
You will also find tiny blueberries which you can taste growing on stunted bushes. They are so small, only a smear of blue on the tongue. Make sure you differentiate between juniper berries and blue berries. Don’t eat the juniper berries that grow on evergreen shrubs. If you are in doubt, check the leaves. Blueberries do not grow on bushes with needles. If you squash a berry, it should smell like a blueberry from the grocery store. If you are not sure, that’s okay to pass them by.
Continue up the path, watching for cairns to guide you. There are a couple of places where you will wonder where the trail went, but look for evidence of foot traffic and for cairns. Weave your way up and up and up the side of the ridge, eventually making small switchbacks until you scramble up the last, steep incline and emerge from the bushes into the open area at the summit.
You will likely have cell service here but resist using it for a while. Instead, notice the thick lichens. Notice the stunting of the trees. Notice the dead trees and the living ones. Notice the moss on the dead trees. Turn back toward the way you came. Notice Lake Superior and know that it extends all the way to Minnesota. You can’t see that far, but you are gazing toward Grand Portage and Grand Marais. Turn left and see the vast expanses of water toward the south. Turn eastward. Smell the air. Inhale the breeze.
Feel the sun on your skin. Walk along the path toward the promontory that looks over Lake Mason. There is a path that meanders back and another that goes slightly more directly there. You’ll see some birch and spruce treetops from the trees that are growing on the cliff side. Notice the dead tree centered on the promontory that died in its vigil overlooking the lake.
Have a seat on the rock and take note of what you see. Moose may be grazing in Lake Mason below. A wolf may stop by for a drink. Hear the wind in the trees. See the sun glinting off the water. There is so much water all around.
Think about how isolated the Johnsons must have felt with only their children and the schoolteacher and her children to keep each other company. Think of the schoolteacher who was there without a husband. I wonder if any of them came to the summit to scan for boaters who might have come to visit them and break the insular solitude that must have cocooned them all in their separate isolations. Once you are ready, take out your cellphone and capture the spaces in every direction. Then call.
You will likely be able to reach whoever is important to you. Don’t rush. Let the peace of the island fill your conversation. When you are ready to descend, go slowly. The gravel slides over the bedrock making for a precarious descent. When you get back to the main trail, pick an apple from the orchard, and remember to taste the thimbleberries on the way back. They grow all along this trail through the group site and the individual tent site in campground.
Day Hike to Lake Mason
The day hike to Lake Mason is worth the effort, regardless of whether you bring a fishing pole. If you go, take a bottle of water and a snack because you will enjoy the short walk and the views of the lake, and you will likely linger. Also bring insect repellent because you may need it and a headlamp if you forget the time and run out of daylight in your reverie. When you set out, take the trail from the campground toward Moskey Basin, but in a half mile, or so, you will see the sign to the right, directing you to Lake Mason.
It is a short and not challenging walk to get there. Be mindful that moose graze in the shallow lake and in the stream that leads from it toward the harbor.
Lake Mason drains into a stream that leads to Chippewa Harbor which is an inlet leading to Lake Superior. The inlet leads quite a way, and boaters can travel inland past Chippewa Harbor dock and campground to view the remains of a sunken boat and to fish in the placid water of the inner Harbor. The shoreline of the Harbor is not conducive to foot traffic.
On Lake Mason, you can walk right up to the shore where you can cast into the water. There are plenty of snags, but a barbless hook might be a little less apt to catch them.
If you continue past the first open areas along the shore, the trail goes down a small grade and heads around the lake, but you end up in an ill-marked swampy area that is difficult to traverse. There is evidence of passage, whether that is by moose, wolf, or people I don’t know. The swampy trail dissuades me from going further.
Instead, you can choose to fish from the rocky areas on the shore where you have firm footing, or simply sit and observe your surroundings. Many people choose to sit in the open spaces along the shore to view the water and whatever is happening there—and there is always something going on.
Watch the water birds. Ducks paddle about and herring gulls squawk as they squabble over whatever it is they find. King fishers are patient birds, waiting and watching, until they lock eyes on their prey and dive with no grace whatsoever into the water.
They plunge loudly into the water at the head of the lake, emerging with minnows in their beaks. Meanwhile, grasshoppers click on the sun-warmed rocks near where you sit.
At Lake Mason, you have a sense of the connectedness of the places you visit. Look up to the ridge, and you will see the promontory from whence you looked over Lake Mason. You can identify the birch and spruce trees and even the rock you were sitting on. Look for the dead tree that is centered on the rock where you sat. There is no rush. When you finally decide to return, enjoy a leisurely stroll back to the campsite.
In the evening when darkness descends, the stars stand out from the blackness of a cloudless night sky. If you are lucky, the aurora borealis will mesmerize. Sitting at the picnic table out front of your shelter in the rocky and open campground of Chippewa Harbor, the midnight panorama extends across the sky, and the luminous moon reflects on the water.
Hiking from Chippewa Harbor to Lake Richie
Following your night in Chippewa Harbor, you set out for Lake Richie or Moskey Basin. You will follow the length of the Harbor for a ways, crossing swampy ground, and then veer off toward the interior, clamoring over rocks toward the Lake Richie Trail. On our last excursion, I met a wolf face to face about a half mile prior to the Lake Richie junction. I was headed toward Lake Richie and Moskey Basin, and the full-grown grey wolf was intently focused on his path, taking the trail from the junction toward Chippewa Harbor. For a moment, we both stood with eyes meeting, twelve feet apart, each as startled as the other. Then it diverted around, catching the trail again ten yards past us.
Since the trail traverses the boundary between two different wolf packs’ territories, you are likely to see lots of footprints along the trail. Your chances to see a wolf depend on whether one is heading that way and if it sees you first and diverts before you see it.
We usually visit Lake Richie but spend the night in Moskey Basin because Lake Richie tends to be prone to algal blooms which are toxic. If you see pea-soupy-looking water, avoid it. Do not swim in it, nor filter it, nor drink from it. There is no way for water contaminated with an algal bloom to be made drinkable. If you try to use your filter, you will contaminate it and make it unusable, which leaves you without a means to purify water for the rest of your excursion.
That said, Lake Richie is beautiful and should not be passed by. It’s a short .2-mile diversion to continue on the Indian Portage Trail at the Lake Richie Trail junction to get to Lake Richie. There, you can take a bathroom break, but the best thing is just to sit and observe the placid, peaceful lake that provides a post-card quality photo opportunity. When you are ready, return to the junction and forward on the Lake Richie Trail to the junction with the Rock Harbor Trail and go right and over the bridge into the Moskey Basin Campground. Of course, Moskey Basin is lovely.
Look for Part Two coming soon as we head from Moskey Basin to Daisy Farm and take a couple of day hikes to see nearby sites. . . . This excursion taking the Voyageur II to Chippewa Harbor and hiking back to Rock Harbor is available on our website. It is scheduled from June 14 to 20, 2024.