Isle Royale is simply where you go to return the wilderness to your soul. Loon and owl, moose and wolf, “The Lady,” who is Lake Superior, and the island, itself, containing more than 50 inland lakes. Here, what is not lake is the hush of magnificent boreal forest on bedrock. Trails await your feet.

As well as being home to moose and wolves, the Park also houses the world’s longest running large-mammal predator-prey study on the planet; the island has been the site of a wolf-and-moose-monitoring project since 1958. Isle Royale was designated as a National Wilderness Area in 1976 and as an International Biosphere Reserve in 1980.

For hikers and recreational boaters, the Park Service provides 36 campgrounds dotted throughout the main island’s forty-five-by-nine-miles sprawl. However, you can enjoy the “wildest” wilderness accessible by bridge or ferry on a Great Lakes island—even if you are not a backpacker or a camper, even if you have young children or are a senior citizen—by making reservations to stay at the Rock Harbor Lakeside Lodge, in one of 20 Rock Harbor housekeeping cottages (duplexes with kitchenettes) in the woods between Rock Harbor Marina and Tobin Harbor, or in one of the one-room rustic Windigo Camper Cabins on the western end of the island.