Ojibway Tower

The Daisy Farm Triangle covers about 5.1 miles over Daisy Farm Trail, Mount Ojibway Trail, and a stretch of Greenstone Ridge Trail, passing the tower on the ridge. The Mount Ojibway climb is steep, so budget real day-hiking effort. You can reach Daisy Farm Dock by boat, but the rest of the way is on foot. Carry day-hiking essentials and leave enough energy for the return.

Climb as far as visitors are allowed and look across the interior lakes and bays; clear weather helps the view open up. The steel stairways and framework make a strong foreground from the clearing, while the landing gives you the island’s water and forest from above.

The Civilian Conservation Corps built the first tower in 1939, after a 1936 fire. That timber structure fell into disrepair and was replaced on the same spot in 1964. Isle Royale’s towers were no longer staffed by fire lookouts by 1980; rangers and trail crews used them as temporary shelters for a few more years. Ojibway Tower now serves park communications and joined the National Register of Historic Places in 2021 with the island’s two other fire towers.

Greenstone Ridge is formed by the Greenstone Flow, a unit of ancient Portage Lake Volcanics nearly 790 feet thick. Glaciers later scoured the island into long ridges and drowned valleys, the landscape spread out below the tower. The same volcanic and sedimentary rocks hold native copper, which shaped human presence on Isle Royale for thousands of years.