The Wild Northeast Corner of Lake Superior

Parks we explored.

Words and even pictures are inadequate to describe the beauty of the northeast shores of Lake Superior.  We cruised and hiked in the four parks circled on the map.  Lake Superior Provincial Park was covered in my last blog.

Pukaskwa National Park is wild and remote and covers an area of roughly 700 square miles.  The highlight here is cruising 2.5 miles up the White River to the rapids and hiking and crossing the suspension bridge over the gorge.

Dick on the suspension bridge, 75 feet above the White River gorge

Looking upriver from the suspension bridge

Looking downriver from the bridge

Our boats, Betty Sue and Salty Paws, anchored just before the base of the White River rapids.

The Pukaskwa River forms the southeastern border of the National Park.  The river was a little tricky to enter but opens up to a nice anchorage.  We then dinghied up to the beginning of the rapids and hiked further up the river to a beautiful spot.

Ron, Dick and I on the trail.

A trail follows the coastline for much of the National Park.  From five different anchorages, we hiked roughly 10 miles on the trail.  A typical scene is below.

One of our stops in the National Park was Otter Island, location of one of the key lighthouses in this section of the Lake.  The facility was manned until 1988 and was fairly extensive with a dock, power station, helicopter pad and more.  We were surprised to find the old lightkeepers' quarters unlocked.  Inside was a table covered with old logbooks, newspapers and even a guest book for cruisers to sign.

Below is a picture of the last November entries in 1985.  On November 21st it was -11 degrees Celius (12 degrees F).  There was snow on the 22nd.  The last entry on the 23rd reads "Lift Off" indicating that they left by helicopter.  This had to be a lonely assignment even with an assistant lightkeeper.

Blueberries are found on nearly every
open ledge throughout the region.

Fire on Pic Island

The picture at the beginning of the blog shows our two boats anchored in Neys Provincial Park off Alouez Island with Pic Island in the background.  The left face of the first peak on Pic Island burned in a 2023 fire, likely caused by lightning.  Ron and I bushwhacked to the top through burnt trees, blooming wildflowers and the largest lowbush blueberries we had ever seen.

We also anchored in and cruised through the Slate Islands but were disappointed not to see any of the declining caribou herd that is still on the island.  Even in the National Park, where we saw scat and footprint evidence of beaver, moose, black bear and otter, our wildlife viewing was limited to a few loons, ducks and fish.

100-yr remnants of the Abitibi Lumber
Camp, now in the National Park.

The Slate Islands and much of what is now the national park were heavily logged in the late 1800s and the first half of the 20th century.  In time, lumbering operations migrated further west in search of more and larger trees.

A movement began to protect forests and natural habitat from development on Lake Superior’s shores and islands.  That effort led to the creation of Lake Superior Provincial Park (our first week of cruising on the Lake), the more remote Pukaskwa National Park (roughly 60 quare miles) and island provincial parks, Neys and Slate Islands.  Amazingly, the trees have grown back, and there is little evidence of any of the prior logging activity.

One thing that all these parks have in common is a lack of visitors.  In more than the 150 miles of combined shoreline and during our almost daily hikes we have seen one wilderness kayak party of 5, two campers and two backpackers. In theory the completion of the TransCanada Highway in 1960 opened these parks for exploration, but they are really only accessible to those with time, means and interest in wilderness experiences.

Our travel route is always available at 
https://share.garmin.com/CruisingonSaltyPaws

Now we are in Rossport beginning to reacclimate to civilization.  The town has a nice wharf and a population that just went from 85 to 86 with the birth of a new baby.  Cathy came up and gave us the keys to her car so we could eat at a restaurant only 15 miles down the road!

NOTE TO FUTURE CRUISERS

For the few of you that may be interested in doing at least some of our travels, I want to caution about inaccuracies that are in gold standard cruising guide, Bonnie Dahl's Superior Way.  The book was updated in 2025, but many of its entries are outdated and likely just carried over from its prior update, way back in 2008.  The book is still a great resource, but be cautious.  Here are three examples -

• there are no hiking trails, caribou pens or caribou on Pic Island;
• the lumbering camp display at the old Abitibi Lumber Camp was taken down years ago.
• there is no trail on one side of the White River gorge