Keweenaw Adventure Day Four

June 25, 2025

Author: Phyllis Root
Photographer: Kelly Povo

The second day of our plant class on the Keweenaw begins with a hike down through boreal forest past familiar inhabitants–bunchberry, twinflower, starflower, Canada mayflower–along with a new-to-us flower, barren strawberry, a plant of special concern in Minnesota.  Here its distinctive leaves and yellow flowers spread across the forest floor with nary a berry in sight.  The trail ends at a wide rock beach cradled by rock ridges that form Horseshoe Harbor.

On one side of the beach common butterwort, an arctic disjunct, covers a rock wall.  Arctic disjuncts are plants separated by hundreds of miles from their habitat farther north. Butterwort is rare in Minnesota and Michigan, but here the rocks are dotted with the plant’s pristine purple flowers and sticky, star-shaped yellow leaves that trap and devour small insects. Another arctic disjunct, bird’s-eye primrose, grows nearby, its small pink flowers almost done except for two that we find in cheery bloom.  Dwarf raspberry bushes have found rootholds in the rock and are developing berries, and three-toothed cinquefoil with its bright white flowers is scattered along rock cracks and fractures. This is a place that makes our flower-chasing hearts beat with joy. What’s not to love about a Lake Superior beach, and this one is, well, superior.

Over lunch we learn about the geology of this area, how Isle Royale and the Keweenaw peninsula were once connected and share the same geology.  We learn, too, how veins of calcium in the rocks around us help create a habitat for calcium-loving plants, which are often arctic disjuncts. 

On the other side of the beach we climb onto a high rock ridge with a vast view of Lake Superior and wander past microhabitats of three-toothed cinquefoil,  sedges, creeping juniper, and the occasional frog. 

Safely down from the ridge, we learn more about how the layers of rock tell a geologic tale of sediment and stromatolites, which are earth’s oldest fossils. Rocks have stories, if we only know how to read them.

Today’s after-class flower chasing takes us, thanks to some shared coordinates, to a place where at least twenty-five ram’s-head lady’s-slippers grow. Most of the flowers are past their prime, but it’s still a thrill to see these delicate orchids in a new location. 

We end the day with a hike near Copper Harbor where three years earlier I came across giant rattlesnake plantain for the first time.  We don’t find the plants I saw then,  but we do find an abundance  of pink shinleaf almost ready to bloom and another population of giant rattlesnake plantain leaves nestled in the moss.

A spectacular day, and one that brings our trip total of orchids seen so far to thirteen. 

What will tomorrow bring?  We can hardly wait to find out.