[3] After the island was made a national park, some existing residents were allowed to stay,[4] and a few leases are still in effect.

Also, the National Park Service employs tractors and utility terrain vehicles to move items around the developed areas at Windigo, Rock Harbor, and Mott Island.

[7] Coastal areas were once submerged beneath prehistoric lake waters, and contain many tumbled boulders and other large rocks.

In prehistoric times, large quantities of copper were mined on Isle Royale and the nearby Keweenaw Peninsula.

However, David Johnson and Susan Martin contend that their estimate was based on exaggerated and inaccurate assumptions.

[10][11] In 1670, a Jesuit missionary named Dablon published an account of "an island called Menong, celebrated for its copper."

Isle Royale was given to the United States by the 1783 treaty with Great Britain, but the British remained in control until after the War of 1812, and the Ojibwa peoples considered the island to be their territory.

The Ojibwas ceded the island to the U.S. in the 1842 Treaty of La Pointe, with the Grand Portage Band unaware that neither they nor Isle Royale were in British territory.

[10] The remoteness of the island, combined with the small veins of copper, caused most of the 19th-century mines to fail quickly.

[4] The western tip of the island is home to several shipwrecks that are very popular with scuba divers, including the SS America.

In 1845, an Ojibwe woman named Angelique and her voyageur husband Charlie Mott were left on Isle Royale, as hires for Cyrus Mendenhall[15] and the Lake Superior Copper Company.

Angelique found a large mass of copper ore, upon which she and her husband were hired to stay and guard until a barge could come to retrieve it, promised in no more than 3 months' time.

She survived by eating poplar bark, bitter berries, and by pulling out her own hair, plaiting the strands, and creating snares with it, by which she caught rabbits on rare occasions.

[18] Recreational activity on Isle Royale includes hiking, backpacking, fishing, boating, canoeing, kayaking, and observing nature.

Wheeled vehicles are not permitted on Isle Royale, such as bicycles or canoe portage devices; however, wheelchairs are allowed.

"The most popular, best marked and longest single route ...is the 40-mile Greenstone Ridge Trail that extends down the island's backbone.

"[20] The trail leads to the peak of Mount Desor, at 1,394 feet (425 m), the highest point on the island, and passes through northwoods wilderness, and by inland glacial lakes, swamps, bogs and scenic shorelines.

A number of habitats exist on the island, the primary being boreal forest, similar to neighboring Ontario and Minnesota.

Upland areas along some of the ridges are effectively "balds" with exposed bedrock and a few scrubby trees, blueberry bushes, and hardy grasses.

The island is well known among ecologists as the site of a long-term study of a predator-prey system, between moose and eastern timber wolves.

Just prior to becoming a national park the largest mammals on Isle Royale were Canadian Lynx and the Boreal woodland caribou.

Though Canadian Lynx were removed by the 1930s some have periodically crossed the ice bridge from neighboring Ontario, Canada, the most recent being an individual sighting in 1980.

Some foxes are quite used to human contact, and can be seen prowling the campgrounds at dawn, looking for stray scraps left by unwary campers.