Two dead bodies, one remote island and a whisper network: What happened on Isle Royale?

ISLE ROYALE, MICH. – The Voyageur II ferry arrived on a foggy morning at this remote and rugged national park after a two-hour trip across the frigid waters of Lake Superior.

A few dozen passengers who sailed from Grand Portage, Minn., spilled onto the wooden dock below the Windigo Visitor Center. The smaller of two enclaves on this nearly 50-mile-long island, the outpost includes a handful of park buildings and a harbor dotted with small boats and ringed by evergreen trees.

Before visitors grabbed their heavy backpacks and trekking poles, park employees cheerfully gave answers to frequently asked questions about island life. That includes how to greet locals — such as a 1,000-pound moose or one of the island’s signature wolf packs.

Each subject started with a call-and-response:

“Isle Royale is so wild …,” said the green-and-beige-clad staff.

“How wild is it?” The visitors replied in unison.

First-time backpacker Jill Stoutzenberger of Oklahoma had a follow-up question about something she had read in the news and that was on the minds of many: What happened with the two bodies found at a campground?

For two weeks, authorities had been investigating those deaths, but they had also divulged almost nothing, creating an unusual swirl of unease in a place where visitors seek solitude and scenery. It also served as an uncomfortable reminder that what may be least predictable in a wild environment are the humans alongside you.

Park staff gave a rote answer to Stoutzenberger, repeating what had already been released. Campers were not in danger, and wildlife wasn’t responsible for killing the park visitors.

But most every hiker and surely the roughly 25 seasonal residents at Windigo knew about the mystery that has drawn national attention and widespread news coverage.

Isle Royale is among the least-visited national parks in the country, with about 20,000 travelers a year. Without a private boat, the island can only be reached by plane or an hourslong ferry ride, and it can take months of planning to get a coveted seat.

And while people die at the park, it’s usually because of medical emergencies like a heart attack or in an accident during an outdoor activity like scuba diving.

“I’ve been doing this here 12 years and to my knowledge we’ve never had a law enforcement incident at the island that involved a death or even a serious injury,” said Jonathan Rector, who runs a seaplane company that flies visitors to Isle Royale from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.

“Yellowstone with thousands and thousands of people, something is bound to happen,” he said. “But not here.”

From the beginning, details about the deaths were murky.

On June 8, rangers at Isle Royale got two reports of dead bodies at the South Lake Desor Campground, on the island’s interior, a news release said. Two rangers hiked 11 miles there overnight, finding the bodies the next morning. A plane and a helicopter responded, too.

Days later, the National Park Service said that the people had been identified and their families notified, but did not reveal the names. There was “no known threat to the public at this time,” the release said. Authorities have disclosed, through official channels, almost nothing else.

The campground on Lake Desor — a lake on an island in a lake — is just off the 40-mile Greenstone Ridge Trail that runs through the heart of the park and connects Windigo and Isle Royale’s other small settlement, Rock Harbor.

From Windigo, the trail to Lake Desor starts by cutting through open, airy forests primarily of skinny maple trees. “Sugar maple fairy land” is emblazoned in bright blue inside a wooden outhouse at a midway campground.

As the trail climbs up and past Mount Desor, it becomes more dense with brush and difficult to hike. Slippery rocks, sloppy mud and snarled tree roots threaten to snag tired feet or twist ankles. Early-summer mosquitoes swarm.

In favorable conditions, people can hike the distance in six hours or less. Cell service is spotty on the island. A park ranger pointedly warned that it could take a half-day for rangers to reach someone that deep in the wilderness.

The South Lake Desor Campground has 10 sites, with space for small parties on one end and bigger groups on the other. A narrow, overgrown trail leads in and out of the campsites.

The smaller sites sit above a short but steep and rocky embankment next to the lake, while gentler slopes and inviting sandy beaches at the group sites call hikers to swim on a hot day.

On a weekend in late June, four men in their 20s from Illinois pitched tents, filtered water and swatted bugs under a setting sun at South Lake Desor. The longtime friends came for a wilderness experience available at so few places in the Midwest, Alok Kamatar said.

One of the draws: “I think the remoteness,” added John Diffor.

Diffor was one of several people who read about the deaths on the social media site Reddit, where one unnamed user claimed they fled the campground and called 911 on the night of June 6, amid screams and the slamming of an outhouse door.

At the campground, the only thing amiss was a plank on an outhouse door that had come off, exposing the sharp end of nails.

Diffor said his group was comforted that officials said there was no risk to the public. Even so, “not all of us told our moms about it,” he said.

When people arrive on Isle Royale, park staff warn them of the dangers of the wilderness. There are 30 wolves on the island and more than 800 moose, at last estimate.

Diffor recalled a park ranger telling them to “fight back with all the force you need” in the unlikely case of a wolf attack.

But later, Diffor raised a common refrain about weighing the risk and reward of travel in the backcountry: “The danger is from the people you go out here with.”

The lack of information on the small island created a nearly perfect environment for rumors.

Tim Ikeman, his brother, and their two daughters took the ferry from Grand Portage on June 9, the day park rangers found the bodies.

Word slowly spread during their trip, as passing hikers asked park workers and each other about the discovery.

“It felt like you were maybe putting something together, but really we knew everything we were hearing could have been B.S., too,” he said later. “But it definitely brought a level of intrigue and interest beyond the natural beauty of the place.”

Ikeman, executive director of advertising and marketing at the Minnesota Star Tribune, described it as a “whisper network.”

A few days into Ikeman’s vacation, he said a U.S. marshal and two park rangers with bulletproof vests raced up in a boat to their campsite on Lake Superior. The marshal, a Texan wearing cowboy boots, a pearl snap shirt and a big badge on his hip, assured the party they had nothing to worry about, but asked if they had seen someone who stayed at South Lake Desor the night of the deaths.

For those who rely on island tourism, the deaths — and the lack of news about them — has had consequences.

Standing in the shadow of his seaplane hangar in Hubbell, Mich., Rector said his company had received lots of calls and emails about the deaths. A few people considering reservations opted against a trip.

“There are things [authorities] can say; there are things we know but they haven’t said,” he said.

“There’s not some killer left on the island, roaming around,” Rector said. “They say ‘Oh, there’s no danger at this time.’ Well, that’s about as squishy as you can get.

“It makes people scared, but also rumor runs rampant because there’s not actual information,” he said.

Rector was questioned by the FBI about passengers, and authorities looked at names on manifests to see if they came through his service. He declined to say if the two people flew to Isle Royale on one of his de Havilland Beaver planes.

But then, on Wednesday, 17 days after the deaths, a few new details trickled out.

The medical examiner in tiny Keweenaw County, population 2,000, told a reporter at the Michigan news outlet MLive that the suspected cause of death for the two campers was murder-suicide. He said the people were a father and son, and that it’s not clear who died first.

Examiner Michael McAllister, chief of staff and trauma director at a local hospital, said he completed the death certificates, according to MLive, but autopsies were done in Dane County, Wis.

Dane County officials did not respond to the Minnesota Star Tribune or other news outlets. Neither did McAllister.

At first, Keweenaw County officials refused to disclose death records, saying federal investigators asked them to withhold the names because releasing them could hamper the investigation “by undermining efforts to assess the accuracy of information obtained through the investigation.”

At a meeting Monday morning, the county decided to release the names and ages of the dead under public records laws once the clerk receives the death certificates.

However, Keweenaw County prosecutor Chuck Miller said the medical examiner has indicated it could be weeks or months before other critical information like toxicology and autopsy reports arrive, and that Park Service investigators said they don’t plan to release any new information in the near future.

“We don’t know that it was just a murder-suicide, without any third people involved,” Miller told the County Board on Monday morning. “All we know is that apparently ... the federal government said that to the medical examiner at a certain point in time.”

Back in Windigo, the small cadre of Park Service employees would not talk about the deaths, or even about life on the island after such a shocking incident. They directed all questions to Park Service media officials.

Lloyd Hunt of Georgia is one of five people working for the company Aramark in Windigo, running the small general store, renting boats, cleaning bathrooms and the few cabins, as well as mowing grass.

Hunt said authorities haven’t told him any additional information about the deaths, but he noticed an uptick in Park Service law enforcement. He said he’s worked at national parks since 2003, with stops in Texas, Arizona, Washington, Montana, California, Alaska and Utah.

“Nobody really knows anything,” Hunt said. “I thought it would be all over the place, like in Big Bend [National Park] when something happens it don’t take long; everybody knows everything.”

As hikers arrived back in Windigo, they traded pictures and videos of moose and other wildlife. Some rented boats to explore the harbor. One couple on the porch of the general store, visiting for only a day, waited for a seaplane back to the Upper Peninsula.

Visitors were disappointed that one of two power generators was out at the general store. That meant no hot pizza.

A mechanic was supposedly inbound from a nearby island, but things take time on Isle Royale. Hunt said they have to order personal groceries online, sometimes weeks in advance, for shipment by boat.

One afternoon, the Voyageur II ferry came to pick up outbound visitors. The hikers grabbed their packs and shuffled onto the boat. In a scene out of the HBO show “The White Lotus” — famous for chronicling violent deaths at exotic island resorts — two park workers stood on the dock and waved as the ferry shuttled out of the harbor onto the open waves of Lake Superior.