Isle Royale National Park

No cars, no roads, few people. Not the usual description of a national park in the middle of summer. But try to imagine miles of empty trails through forest underbrush laden with wildflowers and ferns. Add more than occasional glimpses of moose, foxes and wolves. Then, surround the entire picture with clean, brisk air and crystal clear waters and you'll find yourself in Isle Royale National Park.

No cars, no roads, few people. Not the usual description of a national park in the middle of summer. But try to imagine miles of empty trails through forest underbrush laden with wildflowers and ferns. Add more than occasional glimpses of moose, foxes and wolves. Then, surround the entire picture with clean, brisk air and crystal clear waters and you'll find yourself in Isle Royale National Park.

What is killing the wild gray wolves of Isle Royale? No one knows for sure. But it seems certain that this is one of the rare ecological crises that can't really be blamed on man. Nor can he do much to stop it. Here, on perhaps the most remote patch of American soil anywhere east of the Mississippi River, a mysterious, evolutionary drama is unfolding.

What is killing the wild gray wolves of Isle Royale? No one knows for sure. But it seems certain that this is one of the rare ecological crises that can't really be blamed on man. Nor can he do much to stop it. Here, on perhaps the most remote patch of American soil anywhere east of the Mississippi River, a mysterious, evolutionary drama is unfolding.

Claremont Graduate University announced Monday that the winner of its 2013 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award is Marianne Boruch. Boruch will be awarded $100,000 for her collection "The Book of Hours," published by Copper Canyon Press. The prize, one of the largest American awards for poetry, is given to a mid-career poet. Boruch's work includes two collections of poetry: "Grace, Fallen From" (Wesleyan, 2008) and "Poems: New and Selected" (Oberlin, 2004). She is also the author of two books of essays about poetry -- "In the Blue Pharmacy" (Trinity, 2005)

Since Yellowstone National Park opened in 1872, the national park system has grown to a collection of scenic and historic areas that includes about 50 national parks and 156 national forests. The parks and forests peppered across the nation make excellent vacation destinations. Many of the parks have accommodations as varied as the parks themselves, from modest campsites to handsome hotels and lodges. Contact the individual parks for more information on peak times to visit, the need for reservations, and costs.

Despite a few flaws, our national parks remain incomparable--unencumbered by such staples of urban blight as billboards and mini-malls. With rare exception, they are the best that America has to offer. National parks belong to all of us. Even with various restrictions and restraints, they essentially are places to be free. The use of automobiles is gradually being curbed; so is helicopter touring.

First, there was acid rain. Now, according to a federal study to be released later this year, the newest environmental concern could be "pesticide rain." In the broadest study of its kind, the U.S. Geological Survey tested rainwater from 23 states during the height of the growing season last year and found detectable--although not necessarily harmful--levels of weedkillers in water from throughout the region.

If YOU THINK MOOSE have huge heads, try cutting one off. It didn't help that we'd left the ax and serrated knife behind. I had to saw away with a blade barely sharp enough for tomatoes. The truth is, I wasn't prepared for moose carving. I had come to Isle Royale National Park, floating off Michigan in the middle of Lake Superior, to study the interaction of wolves and moose. I expected they would be live ones.

It wasn't long ago that thousands of moose roamed northwest Minnesota. But in two decades, the number of antlered, bony-kneed beasts from the North Woods has plummeted from 4,000 to fewer than a hundred. They didn't move away. They just died. The primary culprit, scientists say, is climate change, which has systematically reduced the Midwest's already dwindling moose population and provoked alarm in Minnesota, where wildlife specialists gathered for a "moose summit" this month in Duluth.

This past winter, I focused on some of the bargains available in the great parks of America's West. Now, as the weather gets warmer in the East, there is something for every taste and budget in our national and state parks, from a wilderness island in Michigan to the lush shores of the Virgin Islands. * Alabama: Lake Guntersville State Park. In stone and timber, the fanciest of Alabama's park lodges sits atop a high, forested bluff overlooking a large lake formed by the Tennessee River.

Deep enough to hold the combined water of all the other Great Lakes and with a surface area as large as South Carolina, Lake Superior's size has lent it an aura of invulnerability. But the mighty Superior is losing water and getting warmer, worrying scientists, those who live near its shores and companies that rely on the lake. The changes to the lake could be signs of climate change, although scientists aren't sure.