From the Ashes

How will wildfire change Isle Royale's landscape?

NPS Photo

In late August of 2021, I stood on the Mott Dock, looking east down the Rock Harbor Channel, anxiously watching the horizon. Just a day prior, wildland firefighters were monitoring a small, smoldering fire near the Duncan Bay Portage Trail. Now fire raged up and over the Greenstone Ridge, with plumes of smoke visible from space.

By the end of October, the Horne Fire had burned over 300 acres of boreal forest on the northeast end of the island. Monument Rock, previously shrouded by dense vegetation, has reclaimed its position as an icon of the ridge and is now visible from Hidden Lake. Prior to the fire, moss-covered boulders and lichen extending from spruce and fir branches lined the trail to Lookout Louise. Now the trail is marked by burned snags, naked boulders, and a charred understory. This stark landscape inspires wonderings of what is to come.

How severe was the fire? Will the juniper bushes that lined the Greenstone Ridge trail return? Will the island's abundant moose population eat every shrub or sapling the emerge from the burn? How can park managers prevent invasive species from colonizing the burn?

In spring, I will be a regular visitor to this trail, searching for sprouting seeds and watching to see how the island answers these, and many more, questions.

Lynette Potvin
Ecologist, Isle Royale National Park