Surviving Thunderstorms & Bears at Remote Island on Lake Superior

There are places in this world where time seems to stand still, away from the noise and chaos of modern living. And that's exactly what we found here on Grand Island. We're spending a couple days trekking across this remote island, camping out on the coastline, fishing small inland lakes, and riding out a thunderstorm in an off-grid cabin perched up on the cliffside. So join us for a wild adventure on the world's largest freshwater lake. This is Tiny Cabin Life. We're on Lake Superior, just off of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, and we're headed off on a pretty incredible adventure. We're headed to Grand Island, a rugged wilderness island located just offshore. Now originally, the plan was to take our own boat, which I drove all the way out here. But unfortunately, I discovered a few issues right at the last minute, which stopped us from being able to take it across to the island. And so Ellie and I hopped on a ferry, and we're on our way nonetheless. Well, we are here on Grand Island, and this is pretty wild. It's so cool that we're going to be spending the next two days here, camping, staying in a cabin, and hopefully doing some paddling and even fishing. Today, we have a three-mile hike to get to Trout Bay, where we'll be camped out right on the shore of Lake Superior. And then tomorrow, we'll cross over to the other side of the island, where our cabin will be waiting. I'm bummed that it didn't work out with our boat. Bringing the boat would have been cool because my plan was to go check out the Bermuda shipwreck, which is just a really impressive wreck right offshore here. Lake Superior has taken down many ships over the years, and sadly, the Bermuda was claimed as well. Loaded with 488 tons of iron ore, the ship left Marquette, Michigan, but was battered by a gale and took refuge in Munising Bay. But unfortunately, it was discovered that there was a leak in the ship, and it sank upright on the night of October 15, 1870. Oh wow. Now this is a beautiful cabin. Oh my gosh. So this is the Stone Quarry Cabin, which was built in 1845. It makes it one of the oldest structures on the Lake Superior shoreline. The cabin's gone through quite a bit of change through the span of its lifetime, being converted from one thing to the next. Most recently, when the Forest Service acquired it, they did a little bit of restoration, but it's really meant to be maintained in its original nature, and you can certainly see that when you look at it. Slowly but surely, we continued to make our way down the trail and closer to our destination of Trout Bay. But once again, we were ensnared by another look into this island's past. This cemetery right here is very, very old. It was established by Abraham Williams, who came to this area in 1840. So you have people who are buried here that date way back into the 1800s, and some of the people who were buried here were actually born in the 1700s. Which again, you know, for some of my friends across the world, that's not a very good way to describe it. It's not so old for your country, but for our country here, that's some very, very old history. Now there are shipwreck victims buried here, as well as a few unmarked graves where they buried the remains of unidentified bodies that washed ashore. After the cemetery, we passed by a group site on Murray Bay. It's in an exceptionally good area due to its proximity to the Bermuda shipwreck and offers drinking water to passerbys or people just using the beach. Now that we're away from the shoreline, the bugs are out. So I am putting on the head net. You not only have mosquitoes, but also the black flies and deer flies too. Those guys hurt. Eventually, we stumbled upon Duck Lake, which is a small inland lake here on the island. After getting my pack off, I put together my fishing pole to see if I would have any luck. Duck Lake here is known to have a variety of fish like bass, northern pike, and of course, panfish. So there's actually a chance that we might catch something here. Oh, I think I got one. Yup. All right. Got me a pike. Heck yeah. Oh man, not too shabby. This is the first real fish that I've caught in a long time and I am so happy. All right, we're going to get him back in the water. See you later, bud. Another northern. This guy's a little bit smaller than the first one we hauled in, but he is still beautiful. Wow. So much fun. Oh yeah. Swing them in. Another northern, another beauty. And man, I feel good. This has been great. After wrapping up fishing, we made our way towards camp, which thankfully was just around the corner. We made it. Wow, is this nice. We've got our own private beach here. Crystal clear blue water. And man, it feels like the ocean too. Our camp here has everything that we need. You've got a fire ring, some benches for hanging out. Oh yeah, and let's not forget the bear locker for storing your food away from the black bears, which are on the island. This water filter is so awesome. Makes getting clean drinking water incredibly simple. After a long day on the trail, I made sure to hydrate by drinking down a full bottle. You have to keep constantly moving. Otherwise the bugs just destroy you. I also did this so I could refill my bottle and refill the water reservoir so that I wouldn't have to take my boots off again out here and have a bunch of mosquitoes biting my ankles. Dear God, thank you for this beautiful campsite. Good food to eat. Keep us safe tonight. Amen. This pasta here looks incredible. I've got macaroni, pesto, sun-dried tomatoes, some pasta sauce, and I did throw in the summer sausage for a little bit of protein. There's just so much flavor in there. And honestly, that summer sausage always puts it over the top. Makes it perfect for being out in the woods. After dinner, I figured I'd light a little fire to try to scare away some of these mosquitoes. Well, it feels pretty good sitting by the fire here. I knew we had to have a campfire because it might be our only chance on this trip. Tomorrow, we're supposed to get a lot of rain starting around midday. And I think it's going to go almost until it gets dark. So had to take this opportunity while we had it. Well, we're all cozied up here in the tent. Today was incredible. So awesome being here just right on the shore. And just thinking we're out on this island is just kind of blowing my mind. But the icing on the cake is going to be staying in the cabin. It'll be really nice. So really looking forward to that. I'll see you guys in the morning. Good night. Well, I have to go get the coffee from the bear can. Which is not ideal because there's so many mosquitoes out there. So I'm going to try to do that real fast. And then come back in here and make the coffee in here. Wow. Man, after seeing how nice it is out on the beach. Might have to do the coffee out there. Hey, girl. Pretty nice, huh? All right, we're going to take a quick pause in the adventure here. So I can tell you about Anchor, the sponsor of this week's video. But more specifically, I want to show you how Anchor Prime products help me to do my job out here on the road. So what I love about this device is it allows me to charge everything, everywhere and all at once. The reality is when I'm out here on the road, there are many times where I have to send out videos. I have to do so right there in my truck. You can utilize three-in-one charging with two USB-C ports and one USB-A. And there's a pogo pin at the bottom allowing you to wirelessly recharge the power bank. And doing so is extremely easy as it comes with this charging base where all you have to do is set the power bank on top of it and it starts filling it up immediately. And this thing stores a lot of energy as well. On one full charge, it'll charge up my iPhone almost five times. And it'll charge my laptop up almost one and a half times on a single charge. But the way that I use this power bank the most is to recharge my cameras and drone when I'm out in the field. All I have to do is plug my camera into the Prime power bank, put it back in my backpack, and just like that, it's charging up as I make my way further down the trail or out on the water. And so if you're looking for a powerful yet compact power bank to take with you on the go, I think you should check it out. I've got the link in the description below, so you can head over there and check it out. After coffee, I thought it would be wise to pack up our gear and start heading towards the west side of the island before the bad weather arrives. We are on a new trail now. Just past the junction that would have taken us back the way we came. And now we're headed to the west side of the island. The bugs are still out just in full force. However, there is a nice little breeze. But when you're in the woods like this, it doesn't really do much for us. But I have to imagine once we get back to the shoreline, things will improve in that category. We hiked for about two and a half miles through straight forest. But finally, Lake Superior once again came into view. All right, we are approaching the area where the cabin is. And we're definitely too early to check in. So I think what we should do is head down to this little group campsite and just take the pack off, take a little breather. We've just hiked about three miles and come up with a little bit of a plan. Doesn't look like anybody is here. So I think we can just kind of hang out here for a minute and regroup a bit. Well, I can definitely tell already that today is not the day to paddle over to those cliffs. It's just too windy and choppy, especially for my little packraft. It just would not be smart. So that's definitely a shame. But you know what? It's okay, too. We'll head over to Echo Lake, which is the bigger inland lake. And we'll do some fishing over there. After hanging out on the shoreline there for a bit, I figured we might as well head to the cabin and see if anyone is there. Home sweet home. Welcome to the cabin, you guys. I can already see it's very, very dark in here because we're in the woods. I do have a lantern. It looks like they have one back there, too. We'll see if they last us all day and night. But either way, this is a great spot. We've got two sets of bunk beds so you could sleep four comfortably in here. There's a picnic table for hanging out, cooking meals, stuff like that. There is a propane furnace here if you need it. I don't think we will, but it's good to know it's here. The rest of the camp has everything that you would expect. There's a fire ring out back with a picnic table. And of course, there is an outhouse tucked away in the woods. All in all, it's a great cabin and super cool to be perched up here on the cliffside. especially one that's tucked away in the woods. You get to hear the sounds of the raindrops falling on the leaves, hitting the ground. Just like a multi-layered experience. After I noticed the storm becoming just some steady rain, I felt that it was safe to get out and hike to Echo Lake, another inland lake here on the island. I don't know why I'm doing this. It's about 1.3 miles to get to the lake. And so, you know, got to do that and then do the same thing coming back all in the rain. But you know what? We got to do something today and fishing sounds awesome, especially after all the northerns I caught yesterday. Wow. After checking out the beach, I passed by Mather Lodge, which was built in the late 1800s by William Mather, who owned the island at the time and used it as a hunting retreat. The lodge certainly has a rich history. In fact, it's said that this island and the lodge itself were used as a drop point for illegal alcohol during prohibition times. And so once again, it's just a very unique place to be able to see here on our adventure. Eventually, I made it to Echo Lake, which is Grand Island's largest. I tried fishing here for about 30 to 45 minutes and I never even got a single bite. And so humbled once again, I made my way back towards the cabin. Now with the pause in the weather, we can really see some of the beautiful cliffs on this side of Grand Island. They were formed not only by glaciers, but also just an ongoing erosion from the relentless force of Lake Superior's waves. Once I made it back to the cabin, it was time to make dinner. Dear God, thank you for an awesome day and an amazing cabin here. Keep us safe tonight and help us to get off the island tomorrow safely as well. Amen. Well, I've been hanging out in the cabin for the last couple hours and it's felt really, really good. I'm really, really beat from today and yesterday just hiking all over this island. But man, it's just been a blast. This is our last night though. And tomorrow we're gonna have to get up pretty early because we got to hike all the way back to catch the ferry and then drive all the way home. So I'm definitely going to try to get some good sleep tonight. See you guys bright and early. Good night. Good morning. It's about 5 30 a.m. Very, very early. I easily could have kept sleeping, but we got to get moving. I'm going to try to catch the 9 a.m. ferry off the island. And there's actually one more hike that I want to check out. It's a short little one, but it's on the way back. So definitely got to get moving. This is Thunder Cove, a section of undercut sandstone cliffs along the western shoreline here. And just off in the distance there is Wood Island, which is a smaller, privately owned island nearby. We got a beautiful view here and a great final stop before heading back towards the ferry. And so we hiked three miles along the western side of the island all the way back to where our adventure began. Well, we made it. Now it's time for the moment of truth. Are we here in time for the 9 a.m. ferry? I haven't checked my clock since we left. Heck yeah. We'll just chill here for like 45 minutes. Then we'll be on the ferry and out of here. But it turned out I didn't even have to wait that long. I started talking to a gentleman who is one of the very few to have a cabin here. In fact, he's been coming to Grand Island since he was six years old. He was kind enough to offer me a lift across to the mainland and I was very grateful to get an early start. All right, guys, that's going to do it for this adventure. Thank you so much for coming along. This ended up being just like the adventure of a lifetime. It was so awesome being out on that island, being able to hike into that driftwood backpacking site right on the shore and then being able to cross over to the other side of the island and stay in that awesome cabin. It was just so unique and something that I will never forget. That's for sure. I want to give a special shout out to our patrons who generously donate to this channel. But to all of you who watch, subscribe, comment, all that good stuff. Thank you. You're the reason that we get to do this on a weekly basis and I am so incredibly grateful. And I hope you guys are enjoying these videos as much as we enjoy making them. But with that, it is time for me to drive all the way home to Minnesota and be with the girls. We'll see you next week. God bless.