Scoville Point

The Stoll Memorial Trail is a figure eight with three choices: 1.9, 3.2, or 4.2 miles. Two return loops let you choose how much hiking you want, and every route shares the final half-mile to the point. The Rock Harbor trailhead is just beyond the Recreation Hall and the Lodge’s Ojibway building. The other start is behind the Auditorium at Tobin Harbor, near the Smithwick Mine sign.

The Tobin Harbor side is mostly wooded and relatively smooth; the Rock Harbor side is more exposed, rocky and harder to keep your footing on. The routes come together for the last climb over the point’s bare rock. From there, Lake Superior opens around low islands, a distant lighthouse and passing boats. For a photo, keep some of the cracked shoreline rock in the foreground so the little pines and islands sit in the same frame.

Three small pits along the trail are traces of Indigenous copper mining. Copper work on Isle Royale goes back about 4,000 years, to around 2000 BCE. People used rounded beach cobbles as hammers to work copper from veins in the island’s rock. The pits make the island’s long human history visible on a walk that otherwise feels like wilderness.

A plaque at the point remembers Albert Stoll Jr., a Detroit News newspaperman who visited Isle Royale in 1920 and then wrote in support of making it a national park. The park was established in 1940 and dedicated in 1946. The point ties that conservation campaign to a much older history of people living and working on the island.

Reach Rock Harbor by boat or seaplane, then hike; transport to the island is seasonal, and the trail is listed as a summer walk. Rock Harbor has the visitor center, a trading post, restaurants and seasonal potable water, while no services are listed at the point. Take care on the rock steps and uneven shore, especially after rain when the trail can be slippery. There are cliff sections, and pets aren’t allowed on the trail.