Isle Royale Forums

Hi all,
My wife and I are planning our second kayak trip to Isle Royale this summer. We visited the island in 2010 and I used Jim DuFresne's Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails & Water Routes, 3rd Edition to plan out the trip.

It was a great resource for our 2010 trip, but today I noticed on Amazon that there is now a 4th edition of this book. Does anyone know what the changes are and would they warrant picking up the 4th edition, or is my 3rd edition essentially the same with just a different cover photo?

IMHO, and anyone can feel free to correct me if I am wrong, I own the 3rd edition and I compared it next to a 4th edition at the store without noticing any huge differences besides many extra pictures that were not in the 3rd edition. Now keep in mind, I did not scan through each and ever page religiously. I simply flipped through it quickly and noticed the picture additions. Then I went through a couple of chapters' begining and endings and noticed the exact same wording and paragraphs, at least in the hiking section parts of the book. I cannot vow on knowing anything for certain with regards to whether or not the author went into greater specifics of details in the water route parts of the book. I also cannot guarantee that that there were not any additional chapters that were added, because stupid me did not compare the table of contents of both books. However, with what I quickly noticed and with what I heard other people say, if you have the 3rd edition, I don't believe the 4th edition is a worthy buy. Perhaps there is someone here that has looked over the book more thoroughly than I did though. Futhermore, I have not seen the 1st or 2nd edition, so if someone else in the future reads this post, I cannot make a determination over whether or not the 4th edition blows these two older additions out of the water. I honest did not compare the 3rd edition to any of the earlier ones when I got mine, because I got it at such a bargain of price.

I can't imagine that there's significant substantive changes. Isle Royale just doesn't change that much

A refresh of the pictures, a little clean up here and there, and that's about it. I have editions 2-4. I picked up 4 last spring. The Greenstone gets it's own chapter, but as Ingo says, the Island hasn't changed much... The rest of the Table of Contents is nearly identical between editions. The index on edition 4 has a few more page references, but the topics are again, the same.

So... bottom line, if you have the 3rd edition, you'll be fine.

If you're looking for another perspective to provide insight, MikeT on the forum has his latest copy out:
http://www.isleroyaleforums.com/viewtop ... =10&t=1752