Walpole Island First Nation

Squirrel Island

06/11/3

A few years back, my friend Chris and I decided to have a Saturday afternoon epic adventure and circle Lake St. Clair in his Toyota pickup truck. We quickly passed through the urban stuff, bopped around Harsen's Island - did a bit of not-terribly-appealing hiking there. Then we took the ferry across the St. Clair River at Algonac. This was a pretty cool thing made even more so by the "Walpole Island First Nation - unceded territory" signs put up by the aboriginal peoples who retained control of the area. Now, the good stuff. While we were bumbling around this first nation, we ended up on Squirrel Island. This place had a bunch of very bad two tracks along the very narrow shipping channel. Of course we got stuck. This led to the very surreal experience of being stuck in the mud miles from anyone who could help as thousand foot freighters passed by just yards offshore. We got into the habit of moving our truck a few feet and then stopping to wave madly at the crewmembers on deck. Anyway, we finally threw enough stray material into the muckholes to get the truck moving and off the island. Ever since, however, I've wondered about the hikeability of this place. It seems to have lots of two-tracks that might make for a very interesting lakeshore/shipping channel/first nation hike. Does anyone have experience that might be helpful in this regard? Also, if anyone knows how to access the Lake Ste. Claire National Wildlife Refuge on the Ontario side, I'd appreciate it. We were never able to find this place.