- Coming up on Great Lakes Now exploring the least visited U.S. National Park.

- You can see the moose right through this brush right here.

It has two babies, so we're being careful to not get too close because Moose will charge if they feel like their babies are threatened.

- Taking the helm with a Great Lakes freighter pilot.

- We actually are in the public interest.

We protect the environment and we promote the smooth flow of commerce.

- And news from around the lakes.

- [Narrator] This program is brought to you by the Fred A. and Barbara M. Erb Family Foundation, the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, Richard C. Devereaux Foundation for Energy and Environmental Programs at DPTV, Polk Family Fund, DTE Foundation, and contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you.

Thank you.

- Hi, I'm Anna Sysling.

Welcome to Great Lakes Now.

For more than 60 years, a team of researchers has kept a close eye on a remote island in Lake Superior, studying the moose and wolves who live there.

Great Lakes Now correspondent Ian Solomon traveled to Isle Royale National Park to experience it firsthand.

- Let me tell you guys I am up super early to catch the Isle Royale Queen IV.

The ferry will be departing at 8:00 AM sharp to carry us out to the island.

First, I load my massive backpack onto the boat and then I make a beeline for the cafe.

Thank you, you too.

Got it.

I need to fuel up with a breakfast sandwich and of course coffee for the long journey.

We leave the dock in Copper Harbor, Michigan at the northernmost tip of the Keweenaw Peninsula which juts way out into Lake Superior.

It takes almost four hours by boat to get to Isle Royale, the country's at least visited National Park because of its remote location.

The island is actually surrounded by 450 smaller islands with a total area of 850 square miles.

During the ferry ride to the island I can't stop taking photos and videos.

All around me is this amazing natural beauty.

The boat pulls up to the dock and I immediately get to work setting up my tent.

I'm here at Isle Royale, just got off a nearly four hour ferry ride.

But guys, I am so excited to be here.

I mean, we got my tent set up here with a nice water view over this ridge and honestly, I just can't get over how ancient this place feels.

I mean, the trees are huge.

You have berries everywhere.

There are wild flowers just springing up from every point they can.

It feels incredibly untouched and I just cannot wait to explore.

I've reviewed my maps and it's time to finally hit the trail.

Isle Royale is known for its population of moose and wolves.

I don't know if I want to come face to face with a wolf but I definitely want to see a moose.

I stop several times to take photos of all the plants and trees and just soak it all up.

I've come here to learn everything I can about the unique ecosystem.

Isle Royale received an International Biosphere Reserve designation in 1980 and I can see why.

- Did you see the moose droppings, Aaron?

Normally droppings aren't really my thing, but that's how bad I want to see a moose.

And then not too far into our hike, it happens.

So you can see the moose right through this brush right here.

It has two babies, so we're being careful to not get too close because moose will charge if they feel like their babies are threatened.

But I'm amazed right now, like I'm losing my ...ish!

So far I can say this.

Isle Royale does not disappoint.

(bright music) It's day two.

After spending the night in my cozy little tent I head over to a place called Bangsund Cabin.

I've come here to meet Rolf Peterson and his wife Candy.

For more than 50 years they've spent their summers here studying wolves and moose.

- Looks like a different kind of device.

What's that?

- Polaroid?

Yeah, threw it all the way back, right?

- That's way back.

- So you need a place, a dry place to put something down?

- Rolf is a research professor at Michigan Tech University.

He's the lead researcher on the long running Wolf-Moose Project which is studying the predator prey interaction between moose and wolves.

So I just wanted to, you know get an understanding of where did this study begin and why.

- Oh it began in the mid 20th century, the darkest period for wolves in North America, worldwide actually.

After several years of lead up to try to figure out in a place where people weren't killing wolves what do wolves really do in nature?

That's the simple start and that's still what we're doing.

- And so what are some of the methods of data collection?

What is the process like?

- Well, our main objectives for science each year are how many wolves are there, how many moose are there and how many moose are the wolves killing?

So what's their predatory effect?

And that's done primarily from aircraft in the winter, light aircraft.

- New scientific tools have been game changers.

GPS allows Rolf's team to pinpoint the exact locations of moose and wolves.

And a DNA analysis revealed serious inbreeding in the island's wolf population.

- And there were some serious problems in their spine.

Every wolf had spinal defects, extra vertebrae, asymmetrical vertebrae, things that would cause problems if it was your dog, pain, inability to move appropriately.

- The population needed new blood literally.

But the park service had a dilemma.

Should they bring in new wolves to help the wolf population recover?

Or should they let nature take its course and keep the research pure?

Eventually in 2018, the decision was made and 19 wolves were brought in from the mainland and released on Isle Royale.

I was snooping around a little bit, sorry.

And I noticed this.

Another amazing array of bones and more specifically bones with these huge antlers on them.

- Oh yeah.

- Near Rolf's cabin is an amazing collection of moose bones.

For him, it's a treasure trove of information.

In collecting these skulls and moose, you know, what are you looking for?

What is, where's the information points coming from?

- Oh, well, we get basic demographics, age and sex of each moose.

The sex comes from, you know the bulls have antler pedestals, bases.

The age comes from pulling a tooth and counting cementum lines, cementum annulations in the teeth, in the roots.

And then beyond that we're looking for any indicator of health.

- Could you show me if there are any like health indications on any of these skulls?

- Oh, you bet.

There's three big pathologies that we see in moose.

One is osteoporosis, which is indicated by these lesions, these thinning areas.

- Moose also develop periodontal disease, that's gum disease.

- Just like we do in people, gum disease, not because they don't brush their teeth 'cause they never brush their teeth.

- Finally also like humans, moose can develop arthritis but for a moose on Isle Royale, that's a major problem.

- This is a death sentence if you're living with wolves.

Wolves can detect any kind of an abnormality in moose and they're looking for abnormalities which make them more vulnerable to predation.

- The average lifespan of a moose on Isle Royale is about 10 years.

And for wolves it's only about four and a half years.

- (whispers) Unreal.

- I want people who come to Isle Royale to leave with their faith in humanity restored.

- Rolf's wife Candy has also been studying wolves and moose for decades, but with a more philosophical viewpoint about nature and the role that humans play.

- What I hope people realize is when you hear that phrase let nature take its course.

Don't write people out of nature.

We are needed as never before.

- Candy says humans need to learn from their mistakes and then get to work fixing the problems we've created.

- We are a caring animal.

We care about other species.

We are amazing.

We just haven't lived up to our potential because we've bought into the part of us that's also greedy and selfish and frightened.

So we have to overcome that.

The healing nature of nature, it's in us all and we need to trust it and work with it and bring it out of one another.

- They're not suffering too long though.

Thank you.

We say our goodbyes to Candy and Rolf and then hop on our little boat to explore some of the other surrounding islands.

(bright music) Oh my God, there's a lighthouse.

This is crazy!

And as we're headed back to Rock Harbor to catch the ferry to the mainland, we see this.

That's an actual moose in the water.

I mean, this is our now third moose sighting.

I'm speechless like, and it's a moose swimming.

I've never, I didn't even know moose could swim before coming here, so I'm just so grateful.

This has been amazing.

It has been a Moose-full trip!

From its incredible wildlife to its incredibly knowledgeable and passionate people, I understand why they say Isle Royale is the least visited, most revisited National Park.

- For more about parks and wildlife in the Great Lakes region, visit GreatLakesNow.org.

Freighters from around the world come to the Great Lakes and to navigate these waters safely, they hire a local expert.

- When the St. Lawrence Seaway opened in 1959, it meant that ocean-going vessels with captains unfamiliar with the Great Lakes, would be sailing into these freshwater seas.

The Great Lakes Pilotage Act of 1960 required all foreign flagged vessels entering the Great Lakes use pilot services.

Captain George Haynes has been piloting ships on the Great Lakes for 27 years.

- To have a expert get these big ships in and out of the Great Lakes through all the different ports and waterways safely.

That's how all piloted authorities around the world pretty much work.

You become an expert in one geographic location.

It's a great job.

- It's a time-honored nautical tradition dating back to the ancient mariners to hire someone familiar with the local currents, shoals, tides and other hazards to ensure the safe passage of ships.

Bill Wager retired in 2021 after 44 and a half years as a dispatcher with the Lake Pilots Association.

It was his job to make sure that there was a pilot ready for every ship that needed one.

- Pilots were probably the second oldest occupation, you know 'cause somewhere somebody knew about tides and waters and oceans and currents.

And this is just a modern version of what's been going on for centuries in other parts of the world.

- Foreign vessels engaging in international trade on the Great Lakes must use the services of a Canadian or American pilot.

But any vessel can choose to hire a pilot.

- It's required by law, but it's also a good practice in that there's shallow waterways, narrow waterways, traffic situations that the crew may have never experienced before.

We can get quite a variety of different kinds of ships here too.

Most of the times we get bulk carriers that have these cranes in the middle.

But you get different lengths, different widths, different propulsion systems, different rudders, different propellers.

They can be loaded or unloaded.

- We used to do some cruise ships, but now it's an expanding industry.

We get yachts as well every summer.

They come up to the Great Lakes and spend several weeks and sometimes a couple, three months.

It's one of the favorite places for yachts to come.

- We pilot anything.

I've had some really cool tall ships over the years and even a Viking ship.

- The wide variety of vessels means Great Lakes pilots have to be ready and able to captain pretty much anything that floats.

The job starts as soon as they're assigned a vessel.

- I don't just wait before I get on board this ship to start thinking about the trip.

I'm researching the weather, the traffic, the conditions, everything.

Hours before, the night before even.

Coming out on the pilot boat, I observe the ship, I look at her drafts, I'm looking at crane configurations.

I'm looking at anything unusual that might affect the job.

Constantly absorbing information and calculating and figuring that into my transit.

- The freighters don't stop for the pilots.

Instead, a rope ladder is thrown over the side of the ship for them to board and disembark.

- When I get on board, I relieve another pilot.

He also tells me some things to look out for things that I need to know.

And then we're constantly gathering information as well.

Looking at the radars, radios, the electronic navigation, depth sounders, things like that.

Constantly gathering information and monitoring.

I talk to the captain, he tells me about the ship and what I need to expect.

- The pilot needs to know their current draft, if there are any equipment issues, and how fast they can drop an anchor.

While the ship's captain may ask for specifics about the passage or the time to the next pilot transfer.

- The captains are always in charge of their vessel, always.

But they also heavily listen to the pilot and and allow the pilot to navigate the vessel.

- Piloting services in the Great Lakes are divided into three districts.

The first starts at Montreal, and runs through Lake Ontario to the Welland Canal.

Bill Wager was a dispatcher with the second district which includes all of Lake Erie, and extends upstream to lower Lake Huron.

- We start tracking the ships at Montreal.

It's basically a day to get to Lake Ontario and then 10 hours across Lake Ontario and another 10 hours through the Welland Canal.

So somewhere between 42 and 48 hours would be the standard transit time to get from Montreal to where we become responsible for the ships.

- The third district is the largest covering all of Lakes Huron, Michigan, and Superior.

Freighters moving from one district to another, have to change pilots.

- We go out to the change point and our pilot goes up a rope ladder and then district three pilot will disembark and get his hotel room or get transferred to Chicago or Milwaukee or wherever he might be needed next.

- District two pilots like Captain Haynes board down bound vessels in Lower Lake Huron and navigate them to Detroit.

- Under the Blue Water Bridge is probably one of the most difficult spots of the St. Clair River.

- A team of dispatchers monitors vessel passages throughout the Great Lakes to ensure pilot services are available when needed.

But it's a fluid puzzle with dozens of moving pieces.

- If they don't get out of Toronto or Hamilton on time, and then there's heavy traffic in the canal.

If they had traffic at the Soo Locks.

A crane breaks down in Cleveland, it snows in Buffalo.

The puzzle gets rearranged a lot.

It's a challenge to keep the industry going and the pilots safe and in the right position for their next assignments.

You do everything you can think of, but when we're really busy, some ships have to go to anchor.

- Dispatchers arrange for car shuttles to transport the pilots to their next assignment or take them back home.

Other times they just book the pilots a hotel room.

- You'd like to see that pilot come home, have dinner with the wife and family, but the chances are maybe you're gonna use them in Cleveland tomorrow.

So maybe you put them in a hotel someplace.

We have people that are based in Cleveland, Detroit, and Port Huron.

It cuts down on travel.

If you're needed anywhere in our district that's where you go.

You happen to live in Port Huron and there's not a Cleveland man available for that ship out of Cleveland at night, okay, you're going to Cleveland, it's as simple as that.

- The Great Lakes are an important part of the global trade route, and pilots play a key role by helping to keep trade moving, whether it's grain bound for Europe and Africa, or potash headed to South America.

But the pilots' primary responsibility is the safety of the public and the Great Lakes' waterways.

- You got a lot of people waiting for these ships, they're waiting weeks or months for a cargo to come in.

And unfortunately it's my job many times to say no it's too unsafe to go.

And that it doesn't go over well with people on shore.

'Cause there's a lot of money riding on these.

We understand that.

We feel that pressure, we know that, but we also don't want to have an accident.

We actually are in the public interest.

We protect the environment, we protect system infrastructure, and we promote the smooth flow of commerce.

That's what pilots do.

We're keeping the waterways safe and other boaters too.

- For more about Great Lakes freighters and the people who work on them visit GreatLakesNow.org.

And now it's time for The Catch, where we bring you news, stories and events from around the Great Lakes.

In the waters of Lake Superior, just north of Duluth, Minnesota, a group of six swimmers participated in a relay covering 48 miles, and they did it without wetsuits.

Minnesota Public Radio's Dan Kraker reported on the story.

- They really said it was an amazing experience, but also a little disconcerting because the big part of the reason why they did this swim was to raise awareness about just how fast the water temperatures are rising in Lake Superior.

20, 50 years ago, it would've been a lot tougher to find a day when the weather would've accommodated a swim like this.

- Since 1998, the water temperature of Lake Superior has risen by five degrees.

That makes Lake Superior the fastest warming lake on planet Earth.

- It only takes a couple degrees of warmer surface air temperature in the winter to really have a big impact on less ice cover.

So let's say it's four or five degrees warmer in the winter that can result in a really sharp reduction in ice cover which in turn can really lead to markedly warmer water temperature in the summer.

- Those warming waters can and will have an impact on the Great Lakes ecosystem.

- You know, Lake Superior is famously cold and clear but over the last decade or so, there have been several instances where toxic algae blooms have been cited on the south shore of Lake Superior.

That's really been associated with these warmer surface water temperatures that we've seen that obviously can have human health impacts.

A lot of the fish in Lake Superior obviously adapted to cold water.

Lake Herring is one and there have been studies that have shown that as the water has warmed and especially as ice cover has decreased, that has had impacts on the reproduction rates of Lake Herring.

- As years go by and water temperatures continue to rise we can expect more changes to come.

- Trends clearly indicate that water is gonna continue to get warmer in Lake Superior but I do wanna stress that just because in general the water is getting warmer, swims like this without wetsuits are gonna be more and more feasible.

That doesn't mean there aren't gonna still be very cold days in the lake and very cold years in the lake when you know there's a lot of ice cover in the winter and subsequently colder water in the summer.

There's also a phenomenon called upwelling where the warm surface water gets pushed out by winds and the cold water underneath comes up to the top.

So that's these days where suddenly the light can shift from being in the sixties to being in the forties.

And those are days you don't wanna be swimming without a wetsuit.

I think events like this can really raise awareness about how quickly things are changing, how just the impact that humans are having on these fragile ecosystems and the real impacts that they can have on fish, on the water quality, and those things that are really important to folks who live around the Great Lakes.

- In Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary near Alpena, Michigan researchers are testing a method for finding sailors lost at sea using environmental DNA, genetic material that's detectable in the environment around a living or deceased organism.

Great Lakes Now contributor Lisa John Rogers brings us the story.

- And so scientists are then able to capture that genetic material through the soil, water, snow, and air to then kind of trace what living organisms have been there, when were they there.

Archeologists can test their dig sites to test for human DNA, and that's a way to sort of track human movement through different periods of time.

- In this case, the humans being tracked are sailors who perished when their ships sank in Lake Huron many years ago.

- What was really fascinating to me was learning just how long genetic material exists in the environment.

It's pretty much always there.

It's just to a varying degree of strength.

So over time it's just not as strong.

- Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary holds almost 100 known shipwrecks.

Near three of them samples were taken from the water and sediment to test for environmental DNA.

- They chose three different ships.

One that had no life loss, one that had some life loss, and one that had like a tremendous amount of life loss.

And that was just to again, test out the methodology.

- If the samples contain genetic material that's connected to nearby wrecks, then such sampling could provide a way to locate unknown wrecks in the future.

The cold, fresh waters of Lake Huron provided researchers with optimal conditions.

- The temperature kind of acts as like a preservative for these sites.

The more warmth in an environment, the quicker the decay in whatever organic material has been left over.

- The research is being conducted for the U.S. Department of Defense's Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency which aims to account for missing military personnel.

More than 81,000 remain missing from conflicts of the last hundred years.

- The goal is that eventually the Department of Defense will be able to use environmental DNA to give some closure to families who have maybe lost, you know, a loved one.

They would be able to sort of take the remains from the site and bring it back to those families to then give them closure.

- And now an excerpt from our new digital series called Waves of Change where we spotlight the diverse faces and perspectives shaping the environmental justice movement throughout the Great Lakes.

This time we talk with Monica Cady a member of the Sault Tribe of Chippewa who is a forager and herbalist living in Hessel, Michigan, a place that is part of her tribe's ancestral homelands and what is now known as Michigan's Upper Peninsula.

- You have told me that you view your work as decolonizing yourself and the land where you reside through plants, through herbalism.

Can you talk a little bit more about that?

- As I'm learning about culturally significant plants, it's a way for me to learn about my culture.

One of my relatives lived to be 113.

She's Mackinaw Band, Ojibwe, and I believe that she lived to be that old from drinking Tamarack Bark tea and Bear Berry tea.

So by protecting the plants and learning about them, it is my way to decolonize and reclaim and rewild the land and learn what my ancestors ate.

As far as environmental justice and herbalism I forage sustainably, completely sustainably.

And I aim to be very low impact and do everything in season.

And basically when I'm forging, I'm just kind of pruning going and pruning you can't even tell that I've been there.

- Thanks for watching.

For the full interview with Monica Cady, or for more about any of our stories, visit GreatLakesNow.org.

When you get there, you can follow us on social media or subscribe to our newsletter to get updates about our work.

See you out on the lakes.

(lively music) - [Narrator] This program is brought to you by the Fred A. and Barbara M. Erb Family Foundation, The Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, Richard C. Devereaux Foundation for Energy and Environmental Programs at DPTV, Polk Family Fund, DTE Foundation, and contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you.

Thank you.