Keweenaw Adventure Day One

June 22, 2025

Author: Phyllis Root
Photographer: Kelly Povo

It’s been a while since we’ve gone on a flower-chasing adventure, and we’re excited to be heading out for one this week in Copper Harbor, Michigan. Two years ago, I took an incredible wildflower class with the same instructor on Isle Royale, and we’re excited now to learn more about the flora of the Keweenaw peninsula. Flowers don’t stop at borders, and neither do we.

Our class starts on Tuesday, but we’ve left on Sunday for some pre-game wildflower chasing. First stop: Falls Creek Scientific and Natural Area (SNA) where we do a quick search for two orchids we’ve seen there in the past. Just off the trail we find lily-leaved twayblade in fresh bloom, and a little farther along we come across the distinctive patterned leaves of downy rattlesnake plantain, a native orchid that blooms later in the season. Two orchids before nine-thirty in the morning–we are off to a good start.

Our planned route takes us past Kissick Swamp Wildlife Area near Hayward, Wisconsin, a State Natural Area with over one hundred native plants, including fourteen species of orchid. (On previous visits we managed, with help from a knowledgeable friend, to see thirteen of them.) The heart of the swamp for us is a ten-acre lake with a bog mat around the edges. We are barely down the hill into the swamp when we come across a friendly fellow swamp explorer and decide to trek along together beside the lake.

The bog holds the usual boggish suspects: pitcher plant, tufted loosestrife, bog rosemary, small cranberry, round-leaved sundew, three-leaf false Solomon’s-seal, bog buckbean, and mosses in reds and greens that squish soggily underfoot.

What we’ve come for, though, are the orchids, and we find them–scatterings of rose pogonia, dragon’s mouth, and tuberous grass-pink. Stemless lady’s-slipper seems to be everywhere, from fresh blooms to flowers fading away, and at least one showy lady’s slipper is in delicate pale pink bud. While I’m trying to hold the sunshade for Kelly to photograph a rose pogonia alongside the water, the edge of the bog mat gives way under my foot, plunging my leg into the lake up to my hip. In the 91-degree Fahrenheit heat, it’s possible my fellow flower chasers are slightly envious of my sudden refreshment.

Along the trail we come across the carcass of a turtle, mostly shell now, where red-spotted admiral and northern crescent butterflies are puddling. We’ve seen butterflies puddle before in mud, sipping up the salts and minerals that the males need to help with reproductive success. According to an internet search they also sip from decaying animals for the same reason–which reminds us of how everything is connected, even if we don’t always know how.

Almost at the end of the small lake we come upon the grand finale of orchids–a mossy and watery bit of habitat where, among many rose pogonia, tuberous grass-pink, and dragon’s mouth orchids, tall white bog orchid spires make an elegant and regal appearance.

It would have been easy for us to decide to bypass Kissick Swamp in the fairly ferocious heat and drive on in air-conditioned comfort, but we are so glad we didn’t (although next time we’ll work even harder to stay hydrated). Even in places we’ve visited before we never know who we’ll meet or what we’ll find among familiar flower faces.

Our goal for the night is a motel in Silver City, Michigan, and after miles of driving along forested roads and through small towns we come suddenly to Lake Superior in all its waving wonder. Lakeside, the temperature is seventy-one degrees, and from our room we can see and hear the waves rolling in.

A splendid end to a splendid day. And a sweet way to fall asleep to the sound of Lake Superior.

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