(upbeat music) - [Narrator] On this awesome island episode of UTR, we drive, float, fly and hopefully say hi to a moose.

Then we conquer the Keweenaw looking for phenomenal food, a terrific tour, and the elusive Yooper stone.

Get ready to explore the cool people, places and ancient islands that make Michigan a great place to explore.

- [Announcer] Pure is what you make of it.

It's taking it all in and never taking anything for granted.

The sunsets, the moon rises, and you realize the end of one perfect summer day is the beginning of another.

Pursue your pure in Pure Michigan.

- [Announcer] A visit to the Stahls Auto collection will take you back to a time when cars were more than just a way to get around.

A fantastic assortment of gas pumps, neon signs, and automated music machines dating back 150 years that must be seen and heard.

Info at stahlsauto.com.

- [Tom] I've been around the world, but there's one place I keep coming back to.

And the more I explore, the more I realize it's the place to be.

I'm Tom Daldin, and this is "Under the Radar Michigan."

(upbeat music) - [Narrator] Well, if there's anyone with a Michigan bucket list that should be pretty much empty by now, it's me.

I mean, in the last 12 years, I've been almost everywhere, seen almost everything and eaten almost anything you can eat on both of our pleasant peninsulas.

- But believe it or not, I still got one big thing left in here and I'm gonna grab it by the antlers and yank it out.

Gee, I hope they don't bite.

- [Narrator] That's right, we're going to Isle Royale, the amazing national park that's parked way out in Northern Lake Superior and I'm gonna see me a moose 'cause I've lived in Michigan all of my life and I never dun saw one.

Now, if by chance, you're wondering exactly where Isle Royale is, it sits at the Western part of Lake Superior and is Michigan's Northern most outpost.

Yup, Isle Royale is an almost 900 square mile prehistoric place where moose run free and nature reign supreme.

It's true wilderness surrounded by water and there's only two ways to get there, oneth by plane and twoeth by boat.

Now for the journey out, we opted for the six-hour life aquatic adventure on the mighty Ranger III.

From late May through early September, it departs twice weekly out of the city of Houghton on the Keweenaw Peninsula.

So with more excitement that we could possibly push into our backpacks, we boarded said boat and commenced a floating forward up the Portage Canal and into the open waters of Lake Gitche Gumee, AKA Superior, off for a pure Michigan adventure.

Once I strapped on my sea legs, I made my way forward to the bridge to find out more about this trip and the ship from Captain Aaron Persenaire.

- You know, Aaron, the first thing that blows me away.

Oh, by the way, aye, aye, captain.

Oh, the first thing- - Thank you.

- The first thing that blows me away is the fact that we are out in the middle of Lake Superior, and you hear all these stories and tales about this mighty powerful lake and it's like glass out here.

- [Captain] Yeah, it's a beautiful day today.

- [Tom] How often is it like this?

- [Captain] You know, in the summertime we have a lot of weather like this.

Summer can be really, really beautiful.

Lake Superior, she's a lake that has, I think, a lot of different personalities through the year.

- This has been on our bucket list for, how long you guys?

For 12 years now.

And now the fact that we're finally doing this, I'm just over the moon, it's just so cool.

- Isle Royale is just such a neat place and we're able to bring people out there to experience it.

And I just love that.

- [Tom] Well, so we're not even to the island yet and I'm having so much fun on this ship just because it's, like I said, it's iconic, it's cool, you've got the little movie theater, it's got the restaurant.

Is this the main supply ship for the island?

- Yeah, the main logistics vessel for the whole island.

So we take just about everything that the island needs out there from food, for the restaurants and for employees out there, to dumpsters back and forth.

We take private boats on our deck out there so people don't have to run their small boats across the open water of Lake Superior.

- And I'm so blown away with how calm this mighty body is.

And this is the largest freshwater lake in the world.

And we've all heard the tales and we know what it could be like up here, and this is just, you could paddleboard across here.

- [Captain] I wouldn't recommend it.

Yeah, it's a great day.

We don't always have days like this.

In the summertime, there's a lot more nice weather, but when we get into the fall, things start to get a little dicier out here.

- I won't be on that trip.

- [Narrator] Well, before long, well, actually it was kinda long.

Anyway, we saw it.

- Land Ho.

Do they even say that anymore?

- [Narrator] Yep, there it was, the foreboding yet beautiful shores of Isle Royale.

As we made our final approach and navigated a nest of out islands, the parks grandeur made itself apparent.

And before we knew it, we were pulling up to the dock, grabbing our gear and heading down the gangplank.

Now, once you arrive, there are two distinctly different ways you can experience the majesty and mystery of this island.

You can hike into its rough and wild interior, carrying all the food and supplies you'll need for rustic and remote wilderness camping, or you can make reservations at the island's only full service resort, the Rock Harbor Lodge.

You'll never guess which one we picked.

Well, once I stowed my gear, AKA unpacked my toothbrush, I sat down with Marina Alexander.

She literally personifies the paradise known as the Rock Harbor Lodge.

And she made us feel, well, more than welcome.

- I have to be honest that when the ship pulls into the harbor here and then you see the Rock Harbor Lodge, it's like something from a dream, it's like from a fairytale.

This place is even so much cooler than I thought it would be.

- Yeah.

- I really thought this was gonna be more rustic.

I mean it's rustic in feel, but this is a really cool full service resort.

You've got an amazing restaurant.

And tell me a little bit about the accommodations.

- So we've got two types of accommodations here at Rock Harbor.

We've got the cabins you guys are staying in, right?

Housekeeping cottages, beautiful view of tour of Harbor, it's a little more in the forest.

But then our league site lodge rooms sit right on Lake Superior.

So you've got that million-dollar view and a beautiful room with a bed and a bathroom which is kinda all you need out here.

- And not only do you have an awesome restaurant here, but you do tours as well.

You do a tour out into the bay.

- We do, yeah, we offer quite a few tours on our site scene tour boat, the Sandy.

We do a couple lighthouse tours to various islands around and hiking tours and all sorts of good stuff, yeah.

- We've got, what's the main lighthouse out here that's been there since 1855 or something.

- Yeah, that's rock Harbor lighthouse.

The National Park service has done an amazing job at keeping up with it and actually also turning it into an Isle Royale Maritime Museum.

So you can walk in and see all kinds of shipwreck artifacts and island history and all sorts of cool stuff.

- And there's a short hike from there is the longest running moose.

- Predator-prey study in the world, yeah.

- What do you call it, a moose-eum.

A Moose-eum, yeah.

- Tell Me about that.

- [Marina] Yeah, so Rolf and Candy Peterson who have been kind of in charge of the moose and wolf research out here, they reside there in the summertime and they have this amazing collection of moose bones and antlers and skulls and all sorts of cool stuff over there.

And they welcome visitors to come up and they will explain all the science and history behind the moose and wolves.

And it's really special, that tour alone is my favorite one and I think any visitor outta Isle Royale should do that one tour.

- Well, we hope to see a moose.

- Already a saw squirrel, so I've seen moose and squirrel.

I wanna see moose and squirrel.

But you're too young to even know what that is.

Do you know who Bullwinkle is?

- I do, yeah.

Well, we've got a lot of moose references out here.

So Bullwinkle is definitely the top on the list of that.

- Well, thanks for having us at the lodge, I appreciate.

- Yeah, I'm glad you guys are out here.

- This is about as roughing and as we do, right fellas?

When we rough.

- [Narrator] Well, enough talking about this incredible island.

It was time to carve up at the lodge restaurant, hmm, food, and get a good night's sleep because tomorrow was our day to hike, explore, and hopefully eye a mighty moose.

And what a beautiful serene and pristine evening it was.

(upbeat music) The next morning I checked in with awesome park ranger, Katie Keller, you know, so that I knew what I was doing, did what I was supposed to, and hopefully learned something along the way.

- Katie, we've been waiting 12 years now, this has been our bucket list that long to come to Isle Royale.

I have a million questions for you, but I wanna start with this one.

Is this true that this island or this park is the most, or at least visited national park, but the most revisited park?

- It's the least visited national park in the Lower 48 and we believe it to be the most revisited.

I've never seen that statistic for myself.

And so, you know, somebody said it at one point and it might be mythology and it might be fact now, but either way people love this place and they come back again and again throughout their lives.

- Well, what can people expect when they come to the island?

I mean, obviously you see a lot of serious backpackers and hikers.

How many miles of trails are?

- 165 miles of trails, 36 campgrounds, one rock harborage along with Windigo camper cabins and lots of other stuff in between.

- Tell me about the moose, wolf population here, because there weren't wolves here for a while, right?

- Yeah, both moose and wolves are newcomers on the scene actually.

So moose arrived early 1900s.

Predominant thought is that they swam here.

Moose are like aquatic mammals.

They are super efficient swimmers, but water temperatures don't bother them.

Wolves came later in the 1940s thought to walk across an ice bridge that formed between here and Ontario.

You know, what's most notorious about Isle Royale, how most people initially find out about it is through the world's longest running single predator-prey study, which is the Moose-Wolf Study ran outta Michigan Technological University in Hilton, Michigan, as well as, you know, park staff and other partners, lots of folks are involved in that.

But with that study, you know, we've been studying their population fluctuations over the years, learning lots of things about moose and wolves in the process.

And most recently, what happened starting back in 2018 is that we did a reintroduction project of wolves.

There were two wolves left, they were very closely related.

It was decided after lots of discussions and planning that wolves needed to be here really to help with having so many moose and what's called moose browse.

So moose eat a lot every single day and they were more or less going to eat themselves out of house and home on this island if they went unchecked without a predator.

So we're still in the process of a five-year planning effort of bringing in 20 to 30 wolves.

And right now estimated to be about 25 to 30 in the park.

- Think I'll see a moose?

- Maybe.

- No, just say yes.

- I have known people that have come here on multiple trips and never seen a moose.

- Really?

- Yeah.

- That's not me.

I'm seeing me a moose, dang.

- [Narrator] Well after absorbing some absolutely awesome info from Ranger Katie for the next three days, we went out and actually did some pretty hefty and healthy hikes.

We hooked it with both Marina from the Rock Harbor Lodge and even our good friend, Jen Julian from the Vault Hotel in Houghton.

But alas, not even a mirage of a moose.

On our final day we went out for one last time to track the elusive moose and with quite a few hiking miles notched deep into our official UTR Naugahyde accessory belts, you can imagine my surprise and excitement when finally and suddenly we came upon a massive moose grazing on some greenery, mission accomplished.

Finally, I was face to face with the most majestic of mammals, a Michigan memory come true and finally banished from my bucket list.

Now, this is where I have to say that if you do encounter a moose in the wild, remember this is not Bullwinkle.

These are huge wild animals and you should respect their space and keep your distance.

So after a good long look and a few photos to help tell the tale, we headed back to the lodge and prepare to head back to civilization.

Since we took the boat out to the island, we thought we'd give you a taste of the aviation experience by heading back to Houghton, Hancock high in the sky.

That's right, we're taking the 30-minute flight back on Isle Royale Seaplanes with Pilot Tomas Sowles.

It's fast, fun, and affords you some absolutely spectacular views of both Isle Royale and the Keweenaw Peninsula.

So with memories of moose dancing in our heads, we climbed a board, buckled up and traded wild wilderness for the wild blue yonder.

So if you ever get the call of Michigan's wild wilderness and wanna spend some time on a prehistoric paradise, float or fly over to Isle Royale National Park on Lake Superior.

Like so many others who've been there, you'll be back.

Well with wheels, I mean pontoons down in Houghton, it was time to continue our never ending quest to conquer the Keweenaw.

So we jumped in Jim's righteous snack filled ride and headed north to the historic town of Calumet for some mouthwatering pasties and some hardy hamburgers harbored in a Hut.

- Actually, it's the Hut Inn, to be more precise.

And since 1952, it's been a casual culinary cornerstone up here in the Keweenaw.

- [Narrator] That's right.

For 70 UP years, the Hut Inn in Calumet has been feeding hardy Yoopers and vacationing nomads alike.

But before we dig into a UTR style dinner, I thought I'd get a heaping helping of their history from John Gervais.

- I have a theory about this place.

Frank Lloyd Wright had a nephew who was a, probably a hobbit and that's who designed this place.

- I think so.

- Okay, well, gimme the history, who built this place and why, like this is so wonderfully bizarre.

- It was a unique idea by a man named Paul Hendrickson back in 1950, probably 50 when he started.

And he was kind of an eccentric man and he had this vision of an upscale burger house.

And it was an upscale burger house and he wanted everything to be really unique where it had a sitting room and a elegant atmosphere.

And that's what he did, he grounded his own hamburger and he became a millionaire doing it.

- Seriously?

- Yes.

And he kept adding on, as you could see, he just kept adding on and adding on and adding on.

Then he put a couple rooms on the back that come off a corner, which used to be attached, but isn't anymore.

- Okay, okay.

- And that's where the Hut Inn comes in.

But once I got here, there was no inns so now I just named it The Hut Restaurant.

- Oh, I understand all your burgers are great.

All your food's great and your pasties.

- And that's a company that's called Pasty Central which is right next door to us.

So they're not made in our kitchen, but right next door.

- Right next door.

- And Charlie Hopper heads that up over there and they've been doing it for years and you know- - Then you serve those here?

- Yeah, we work together.

And so, yeah, he was the owner before me.

And so he wanted to keep the pasties in the building and I said, for sure.

- What do you think is special about the Keweenaw Peninsula?

- The people, for sure.

I mean, the people are resilient, they're tough.

We get, you know, 300 inches of snow a year, especially right here, that way.

This is just like a snowbelt up here in cure sarge.

You know, it's just, if you live here, you become a tough person.

You're resilient and, you know, you can get through anything.

And the people here are like that.

And not only are they tough, but they're kind.

And so you have both, that's a great thing to have when you have kindness with toughness, that makes a great person.

And so we have a lot of those in this area.

- The restaurant business is one of the toughest businesses in the world.

- Yes.

I bought my first restaurant when I was 19.

- So thanks for your service.

And speaking of service, I think it's time to get served.

- Yeah, there you go, this is a good venue.

- [Narrator] Well, since we were already seated and armed with utensils, we decided to put the Hut's helpings to an official UTR taste test.

And as you might imagine, they got an A.

A for awesome.

I telling you, the Hut Inn really is my kind of eatery.

It's a total throwback place where you could throw back some great food in cool, comfortable and friendly surroundings.

If your culinary encounters are stuck in a rut, get to Calumet and chow at The Hut.

Wow, sounds like Dr. Seuss eats there too, bonus.

Well, the next day we decided to catch a dragonfly and learn even more about the Houghton Hancock area.

So we called up Copper Country Boat Tours for an informative float down Portage Canal that would afford us some fantastic views of both cities.

And if you're paying attention, our captain and official tour guide for this trip should look pretty familiar.

- Dominic, why is it every time I get on a boat up here, you seem to be on it.

- Oh, it seems to be that way, right?

- I mean, well, you're on the crew of the Ranger III.

- Correct.

- You help maintain that massive, awesome iconic ship, but you also have the Dragonfly which is a tour boat, right?

- For sure, yeah.

- I've always said, every time I go up to Houghton and Hancock, I always say, this is such an iconic canal.

Somebody should be out here doing tours and doing talks and taking people out on this waterway.

What inspired you?

- Well, when I first moved back home, I realized what a gym we have here.

And I was doing tours like in Florida and Texas and I had the opportunity to move back.

And I figured, why not, this is such a beautiful place.

And, you know, a few people realized that Michigan's copper rush here had a greater economic impact than the California gold rush.

And the first mineral boom in the United States occurred in 1843, which was five years before the California gold rush.

which I found fascinating with all the history here.

- The chance to come out here and relax and chill on a little boat like this, it's almost like we're in The Bahamas, but on this beautiful canal.

And like the history of just to look at the town from this vantage point is so cool and there's the historic hockey rink which is called.

- The Dee Stadium, which was actually the Amphidrome.

- Right, isn't this the birth place- - Of professional hockey, correct.

- Yeah, I mean little things like that, where we're going by the Ranger right now, which is an iconic show.

- [Dominic] And the Quincy Smelter just ahead of us.

We got the Quincy Mine over there that's all around us, history is all around us.

- [Tom] And the bridge we just went under is iconic.

- [Dominic] Right, built in 1959, finished in 1959.

And there's three other bridges before that one.

- [Tom] What's the biggest surprise fact that you tell people when you bring 'em out here?

- Oh, which one to pick?

- I know so many.

- You know so much, I know.

- Yep, and I hate to give my secrets away.

- Well, then suffice it to say, you should come on this tour.

It's the Dragonfly, the name of the company is.

- Copper Country Boat Tours.

- Copper Country Boat Tours.

This little awesome little vessel is called the Dragonfly.

And this is captain Dominic, he'll take care of you like he's seeing care of us right now.

Now, where are those adult beverages?

- [Narrator] Well, once again, Dominic made our aquatic adventure one to remember.

We learned and saw so much cool stuff, all in a relaxing Dragonfly boat ride up and down the canal.

If you're looking for a fun and unique thing to do with your friends or family, next time you're in the Keweenaw, check out Captain Dominic and his Copper Country Boat Tours.

It's an informative float you'll boast about for years to come, or my name ain't maritime Tom, or something like that.

- Now, there's a recently discovered rock in the UP called Yooper stone that glow in the dark and we're gonna find us some.

But since I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing, I hired an expert.

I'm not dumb.

Oh, actually I am dumb, that's why I hired the expert.

Like a rock.

- [Narrator] that's right, we hired Steve Jurmu of Upper Peninsula Tours and he takes people on all kinds of awesome UP adventures from majestic mountain hikes and hidden waterfall tours.

He knows the UP like the back of his hand.

And if you want a genuine UP adventure, he's the guy to call.

Well, it just so happens he also takes folks on organized adventures to find the elusive Yooper stone.

And he was about to take us.

- I have to ask, what exactly is a Yooper stone?

- Just basically it's a syenite stone.

It's the host stone, and then there's what's called, a mineral called sodalite inside there.

And that's what gives you the like the glowing, reflecting rock of the UV light.

- That's what makes it glow.

- Helps it glow because of that sodalite in the stone.

- I mean, to find these, I mean, they're pretty much just found in the UP, correct?

- No, they're found through the great lakes region and some people claim that they've found them throughout the Midwest and stuff too, but they're more prevalent up here on the Lake Superior shorelines and maybe in the Northern parts of Lake Michigan shorelines.

But primarily along this Western coast of Lake Superior, really prevalent in the Whitefish Bay, Munising area, Grand Marais.

- Now, to go hunting, obviously it's probably better to do it at night, which is why we're here.

The sun just went down, so we got a hurry.

But what kind of special equipment do you need to find 'em?

- So in your bucket there and what I've got here- - I got my own bucket.

- You got your own bucket to find some stuff.

That's what we provide on the tours.

So something to carry your Yooper stones that you find.

I like to carry another big bucket with me as well so if we find any trash, we can pick it up and keep the beach clean as well.

And I usually provide a small light like this for pretty much everybody that's on the tours and it's gonna light up the rocks fairly nicely.

- Is it like a black light or?

- It's a UV light, not particularly the black lights that you find in Halloween stores and stuff like that.

It's got a different wavelength.

365 nanometers is the wavelength that you want to give the proper lighting of the rock so it really lights up.

- What do you think my chances are?

- I think they're gonna be a 100% tonight.

- Yeah, because we hired an expert.

That's why you're here.

'Cause if it was just me, I'd bring home, I don't know, chewing gum, a stick, a twig, you know, well, let's do it.

- [Narrator] So after some sound Yooper stone statistics and strategies, we grabbed our gear and commenced to stalking this storied stone.

- But this is what we wanna do, we just wanna walk the beach.

A lot of times they'll be right on the shore.

And a nice little thing to do too as you get a nice set of rocks here is just to kind of do a kick around.

You're gonna wanna give your light a little shine around you.

- Okay.

Now, we're looking for like an orangey, amber orangey glow.

- Yeah, kind of like a, if someone's smoking a cigarette.

- Oh, oh, my gosh, did you see that?

- As you can see, it's still light out, you can still find 'em if you have a good light.

- Holy cow.

- Yeah, look at that.

- Look at that.

Take your light off of it.

- And it's nothing.

- It looks like nothing.

(upbeat music) Oh my gosh.

- [Narrator] I gotta tell you, this was too cool for school.

And thanks to Steve, we found an actual bonafide Yooper stone, lit it up, and had a great story to tell our friends and family.

Oh, and did we find any more stones?

Well, you tell me, bonus.

You know, they say the older you get, the more often you should do something for the very first time.

Well, it's time for you to contact Steve at Upper Peninsula Tours and light up your own Yooper stones.

It's also time for you to get up to Isle Royale National Park and Michigan's amazing Keweenaw Peninsula, have your own awesome adventures and empty out some of the things on your bucket list.

- Well, I'd offer you the moose that I saw, but well, I already let him outta my bucket, oops.

- [Announcer] Pure is what you make of it.

It's taking it all in and never taking anything for granted.

The sunsets, the moon rises and you realize the end of one perfect summer day is the beginning of another.

Pursue your pure in Pure Michigan.

- [Announcer] A visit to the Stahls Auto collection will take you back to a time when cars were more than just a way to get around.

A fantastic assortment of gas pumps, neon signs and automated music machines dating back 150 years that must be seen and heard.

Info stahlsauto com.

(upbeat music)