We recently watched the movie “Abandoned: Angelique’s Isle,” which is a based on a true story set on Isle Royale in Lake Superior. I’d heard of the movie before but never had an easy way to view it until it turned up for free in my Redbox feed. Can’t get much easier than that!

Longtime readers are probably well-aware of my love for this wilderness island. I had a chance to revisit this national park this summer and fulfill longtime dreams. As wonderful as the Isle Royale is in the summer, I can’t imagine spending a winter out there.

But that’s just what happened to a French voyageur and his Metis wife during 1845. Charlie Mott met 17-year-old Angelique and they lived at LaPointe on Madeline Island – although the movie makes it look like they were in Sault Ste Marie. Looking for work, Charlie is persuaded by some bigwigs from Detroit to visit Isle Royale on a mission to find copper.

Despite Angelique’s grandmother’s concerns, Angelique accompanies him and ends up being the one to discover copper – a huge mass. In the movie, the copper boulder is up on the shoreline but in reality, it was in the water. It’s summer and the Detroit men convince Charlie and Angelique to stay on the island for a few weeks so that the men have time to stake a claim. They said they’d send a supply boat and then they’d return for the copper and take them off the island before winter.

The couple agree and find shelter in an old fishing cabin on the island. They fix it up along with a birchbark canoe that’s there with it.

As you can guess from the movie title, the supply boat never comes, and the men don’t return before winter. What follows is a tale of perseverance, emotional strength, ingenuity and heartbreak. The themes revolve around being true to one’s roots and also (tongue in cheek), if your grandmother is having bad dreams about your impending trip, maybe you shouldn’t take it! I won’t give away any more of the plot in case you want to watch it.

Isle Royale is not the easiest location to film a movie, so the film was shot in Terrace Bay (near Rossport) and Fort William in Ontario, Canada. The sand beaches are a dead giveaway – I don’t know of any sand beaches on Isle Royale. It’s all rock and cobble. I also don’t know of any rivers with huge rapids on the island like are in the lead photo for this post, but the stunted trees and rocky shoreline found in Canada are quite similar.

In all my time on Isle Royale, I never knew that Mott Island was named in their honor. It’s a small island where the National Park’s island headquarters are located off the main island. I was excited to see Native actress Tantoo Cardinal in the movie. She plays Angelique’s grandmother. I was in a movie with Tantoo and actually got to touch her arm in a scene! So, it was like seeing an old acting buddy, ha ha.

According to Mikel B. Classen’s blog, Angelique’s story was first written down as a footnote in the book, “The Honorable Peter White: A Biographical Sketch of the Lake Superior Iron Country.” That, combined with original research, inspired the book, “Angelique Abandoned” by James R. Stevens. His book was turned into a screenplay by Michelle Desrosier, an Indigenous woman from Canada.

Although some of the storytelling could have been smoother, I found the movie a meaningful tale of the power of women, the power of love, and belief in the forces of the universe.