Rock Harbor is the main access point for visitors landing on Isle Royale in northern Lake Superior. It sits at the northeastern end of the forty-five mile long island, the whole of which is protected as Isle Royale National Park. Two structures in Rock Harbor -- the Rock Harbor Light and the Edisen Fishery -- are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The Rock Harbor name is properly applied to the eleven-mile long inlet from Moskey Basin to Scoville Point along the southern shore of the easterly part of Isle Royale. This inlet is screened from the open waters of Lake Superior by a number of offshore islands, including Mott Island, the site of the Park headquarters.
Travel to Rock Harbor from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan is by the Ranger III park service ferry, operating from Houghton, Michigan, the Isle Royale Queen IV out of Copper Harbor, Michigan, and seaplane service. The Voyageur II operates out of Grand Portage, Minnesota; it circumnavigates the island with stops at Windigo Ranger Station in Washington Harbor on the west end of the island and other points along the shore.
The ferry boats land at Snug Harbor, which also has berths for private watercraft, a campground, the visitor center, and a lodge that predates the national park.
Rock Harbor is the eastern end and terminus of the Greenstone Ridge Trail.
Famous quotes containing the words rock and/or harbor:
“So there he is at last. Man on the moon. The poor magnificent bungler! He can’t even get to the office without undergoing the agonies of the damned, but give him a little metal, a few chemicals, some wire and twenty or thirty billion dollars and, vroom! there he is, up on a rock a quarter of a million miles up in the sky.”
—Russell Baker (b. 1925)
“What do we want with this vast and worthless area, of this region of savages and wild beasts, of deserts, of shifting sands and whirlwinds, of dust, of cactus and prairie dogs; to what use could we ever hope to put these great deserts, or those endless mountain ranges, impenetrable and covered to their very base with eternal snow? What can we ever hope to do with the western coast, a coast of 3,000 miles, rockbound, cheerless, uninviting and not a harbor in it?”
—For the State of Kansas, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)