Lake Superior, St. Ignace Island – Nirivia Invasion

I'm still getting caught up posting for past kayak trips. This post from our trip to Rossport Ontario and the St. Ignace archipelago from back in Sept, 2005. Sad to say, but I have not dipped the paddle in the water yet this year. I hope to get out for a paddle in the Bayfield area at the end of June.

2005 September 10 – September 14: Rossport Ontario to Armour Harbor on St. Ignace Island and return to Rossport.

Camp I: Simpson Island
Camp II and III: Nirivian Dome Cabin in Armour Harbor.
Camp IV: South East beach on Simpson Island in the Simpson Channel.
Expedition Team: Tom Lynch, Scott Laven, Kenji Ogura, Tom Bray

Sunday September 11

We broke camp early and had a nice easy paced paddle southward up the channel between Simpson and St. Ignace Islands. After lunch we encountered what can be described as typical weather for September on Lake Superior – moderate to strong SW winds and mostly sunny. As we neared the SE corner of St. Island, the combination of large waves, dangerours shoals, cliffs and rebound waves had turned our easy going morning paddle into an extreme Sea kayak outing. Lake Superior was the boss on this day, so to be on the safe side, we spent 3 hours wind bound on the South Eastern shore of St. Ignace Island. Once the seas calmed a bit, we launched and we finally made our way around the point and into Armour harbor at 6:30 pm.

For this expedition, we had the pleasure of being joined by Kenji Ogura of Duluth, MN. Kenji’s expertise in geology was a plus in explaining the interesting geological features of the St. Ignace archipelago. Kenji also takes great photo’s and you check them out here:

Our two night stay at the Nirivian embasy base camp afforded us an off day in which a planned hike up to the summit of Mount St. Ignace was in order. Mount St. Ignace is the high point of St. Ignace Island, the third highest point in Ontario Canada and is also the highest elevation of all the Lake Superior Islands. This hike proved to be very challenging as the trail from the Nirvian Embassy was difficult to follow. The trail was flagged but it was obvious that it had not seen much traffic in the last several years; thus, after a difficult 4 hour hike of bushwhacking at times and only half way to the summit, we turned back for base camp at the Nirivian Embassy. We were not prepared for an overnight hike and we did not want miss out on our comfy cabin, sauna and cold beer back at Nirivia. We were informed later from Jim Stevens, the Earl of Nirivia that an easier and shorter route to the summit exists from a bay on the South East side of the Island. We’ll have to wait for our next visit to bag the summit of St. Ignace.

We stayed two nights at the Nirivian Embassy Geo dome cabins which include a very nice sauna.


More photos from this trip: click here.
Scott Laven's photo's: Click here

For more information on Nirivia, check out this article from Minnepolis Star/Tribune click here.

Ice Road to Devils Island

A group of guys from Madeline Island went for a joy ride out to Devils Island on the ice for a picnic. Sounds like a blast, I wish I could have joined them! I cannot take any credit for these excellent images. My brother Jim forwarded these pixs to me.

Below is a description by Tibbs of his and Bob Teisberg’s jaunt out to Devils Is. last Sat. on an ice road which was plowed by believe Arnie and Wayne.


"Long Ice Road to Devil's Island yesterday! In fact it was 21 miles from the Red cliff marina to the cliffs at the base of the lighthouse on Devil's. It was a surreal drive, the road just kept going and going and going. It swung right up to the shore of Manitou,we got out and checked out the park service's fish camp and then drove on. As we passed Rocky on our left there was absolutely nothing ahead

but ice to the horizon. Once past Rocky we turned left and you could finally see Devil's but it seemed really far away. As we closed in on the island we also closed
in on the edge of the open water. There were probably fifty people out there grilling brats and wondering around looking at the ice caves and the incredible jumble of shove ice that had ground against the island."

Here is really cool Satellite photo of ice on Lake Superior:
More photos here:

Lake Superior South Shore Mileages

Playing with google earth this morning I plotted out using most likely kayak path and came up with approx distances from Lower Entry to Agawa Bay (distances are in miles, even when in Canada)

Route Leg, Cumulative
Lower Entry to Baraga: 15, 15
to Point Abbaye 23, 38
to Big Bay 34, 72
to Marquette Light 29, 101
to Grand Island 42, 143
around Grand Island 19, 162
to Grand Marias (MI.) 36, 198
to Whitefish Point 50, 248
to Sault Ste Marie 50, 298
to Batchawana Island 50, 348
to Agawa Bay 40, 388



388 miles/20 miles a day = ~19 days = 2 long trips to 4 short trips

Scott Laven.