Visit Wilderness

Search for a wilderness as the destination for your next outdoor adventure.

Bob Marshall Wilderness Area, Minnesota

Why Visit Wilderness?

While wilderness can be appreciated from afar—through online content, television, or books—nothing compares to experiencing it firsthand. Activities like camping, hiking, or hunting allow you to fully enjoy the recreational, ecological, spiritual, and health benefits that wilderness areas offer. These areas provide “outstanding opportunities for solitude or a primitive and unconfined type of recreation,” chances to observe wildlife, moments to renew and refresh, and the physical benefits of outdoor exercise. In many wilderness areas, you can even bring your well-behaved dog.

Learn more about the diverse ways in which we benefit from wilderness and threats wilderness areas face today.

The Ojibwe who have visited the island for more than 4,500 years called Isle Royale "Minong", the good place. French trappers gave the 45-mile-long, nine-mile-wide Isle Royale its regal name. Located in the northern, surging waters of Lake Superior, 99% of Isle Royale National Park has been designated Wilderness. The largest island in the largest freshwater lake in North America, it is also by far the state's largest Wilderness area.

Created by flowing lava, flattened and smoothed by glaciation and subsequent erosion, the island contains more than 100 lakes and small ponds; in fact, water covers more of the surface than dry land when you include the waters of Lake Superior where the park boundary extends 4.5 miles out. In the lakes, you may catch northern pike, trout, walleye, and perch without a permit. (Fishing in Lake Superior, however, requires a Michigan license.) Around the lakes and along the island's shore grows a forest of mixed evergreens and hardwoods. Isle Royale is home to a famously secretive population of timber wolves, which you may hear howling at the moon. Other wildlife includes moose, beavers, red foxes, marten, red squirrels, and snowshoe hares. Approximately 150 bird species have been spotted.

Visitors come to hike, camp, fish, and watch wildlife. With miles of splendid coastline indented by numerous protected bays and sheltered coves, this is considered a marvelous destination for sea kayakers. There are 36 established primitive campgrounds (available on a first-come, first-served basis) set along about 170 miles of trail and endless shorelines.

Leave No Trace

How to follow the seven standard Leave No Trace principles differs in different parts of the country (desert vs. Rocky Mountains). Click on any of the principles listed below to learn more about how they apply in the Isle Royale Wilderness.

Plan Ahead and Prepare
Travel and Camp on Durable Surfaces
Dispose of Waste Properly
Leave What You Find
Minimize Campfire Impacts
Respect Wildlife
Be Considerate of Other Visitors

For more information on Leave No Trace, Visit the Leave No Trace, Inc. website.

Location

Maps

Digital and paper maps are critical tools for wilderness visitors. Online maps can help you plan and prepare for your visit ahead of time. You can also carry digital maps with you on your GPS unit or other handheld GPS device. Having a paper map with you in the backcountry, as well as solid orienteering skills, however, ensures that you can still route-find in the event that your electronic device fails.

Online Maps

Interactive Map of the Isle Royale Wilderness
Google Earth

Michigan Wildernesses

Printed Maps

Fetching MyTopo from Database

USGS Store

Rules & Regulations

Motorized equipment and equipment used for mechanical transport is generally prohibited in all wilderness areas. This includes the use of motor vehicles, motorboats, motorized equipment, bicycles, hang gliders, wagons, carts, portage wheels, and the landing of aircraft including helicopters.

Wilderness-Specific Regulations

Learn more about why regulations may be necessary in wilderness.

Contacts

Applicable Wilderness Law(s)

Public Law 94-567

Date: October 20, 1976
Acreage: 131,880 acres

(No official title, designates National Park Service wildernesses) - Public Law 94-567 (10/20/1976) To designate certain lands within units of the National Park System as wilderness; to revise the boundaries of certain of these units; and for other purposes.

For more information (To download or see all affected Wilderness areas) visit our law library for 94-567 or special provisions for 94-567 or legislative history for 94-567.

General Trip Planning Information

Download "The Greenstone", the park's informational newspaper and go-to source for all your trip planning needs.

Want to Volunteer for Wilderness?

People who volunteer their time to steward our wilderness areas are an essential part of wilderness management. Contact the following groups to inquire about volunteer opportunities. Groups are listed alphabetically by the state(s) in which the wilderness is located.