Union Bay to Upper Entry Keeweenaw Water Way

2007 May 25 – May 29: Porcupine Mountain State Park Union Bay MI to Upper Entry of the Keeweenaw Waterway FJ McLain State Park MI.

Expedition Team: Tom Lynch, John Lynch, Scott Laven, Tom Bray

Camp I – Ontonagon Township Park Just east of the breakwall.
Camp II (Two Nights May 26,27)– Stanton Park at Agate Beach in Misery Bay
Camp III FJ McLain State Park

May 24, 2007
After a long road trip to the Upper Pennisula of MI, we stayed at the Americ Inn in Silver Bay MI which is on the south shore a few miles East of Porcupine Mountains State Park. on

May 25, 2007

A small craft advisory was in effect until 2:00 pm; therefore, we took our time to getting started and decided to do the first day as a day paddle type of outing. We dropped off kayaks at Union Bay, drove East back to Ontonagon to set up camp and leave a vehicle at the end point. We enjoyed moderate SW winds to start and then a fairly calm day for the rest of the late afternoon. We arrived to our previously set up campsite at 7:00 pm after 17.5 miles of paddling. As this was our first paddle of the season, the entire team was very tired as packed and Loaded up all the gear for our early departure on Saturday.

May 26, 2007



We made a quick stop at 14 mile point to view the abandoned and burned out light house. This was viewed and enjoyed in the company of ten or so ATV’s running up and down the beach. This day was a long day of paddling that kept getting longer. As they are numerous private cabins and homes on this section of south shore, we had great difficulty finding a suitable place to camp. Finally, we found a private camp ground, Stanton Park at Agate Beach in Misery Bay which ended up working out quite well for us.


May 27, 2007 - Wind bound

As forecasted, it really started blow out of the SW shortly after midnight. Throughout the night we could hear the waves crashing the beach at Misery Bay. With the howling wind and with little sleep, I lay awake contemplating whether or not we would be able to leave Misery Bay on Sunday. It was Just as I was thinking, as there would be no way we would get through the breaking surf at the beach and even if we did, paddling in a 5 – 7 foots waves with winds 25 – 30 knots would be uncomfortable and risky. Scott completed some minor kayak and gear repair, Tom Bray read and took a nap and John and Tom went for a run.

May 28, 2007

We paddling 20 miles on this last day and were treated to a scenic set of sandstone cliffs which were quite prevalent on this section of the south shore all the way to the Upper Entry. We took a break and stopped at an old mining site and observed a group of juveniles playing a game a splat ball. After another 20 mile day, we finally made the Upper entry and stopped at the North break wall beach to check out McClain state park and to determine where the camp ground is located. To our dismay, we figured that it would take a couple of more miles of paddling to the camping area. We rented one of McCLain’s primitive Cabin Sites for the night.

To view Scott's photos from this trip: click here.