Planning Your Camping Trip
Camping
Camping is available on 18 of the lakeshore’s 21 islands and at one campsite on the mainland. Permits are required for all camping in the national lakeshore. The permit system allows campers to reserve campsites in advance (see camping fees). Individual campsites (for one to seven campers) can be reserved beginning one month before the start of a trip. Individual campsites are reserved at $10 per night. Group campsites (for eight to 20 campers) can be reserved beginning the second week in January. The fee for group campsites is $20 per night. Camping zones have also been established on 15 islands in the national lakeshore for visitors seeking a remote backcountry experience. See the brochure “Camping in the Apostle Islands” for more information. Pictures and descriptions of Apostle Islands campsites are available on-line on our camping page
Camping in the Apostle Islands offers visitors a unique opportunity to experience a landscape that is wild, yet rich in human heritage.
On the thickly wooded islands, the shoreline clearings that appeal to modern campers are often the same spots that provided convenient stopping places for prehistoric Indians in their bark canoes and fur traders in their sturdy bateaux. Later on, many of these sites became homes and workplaces for pioneer farmers, fishermen, and lumberjacks.
As night falls upon your campsite, you will surely hear the voice of Lake Superior... sometimes a gentle murmur, sometimes a fearsome roar.
If you listen closely, though, and use your imagination, you may hear other voices as well. Perhaps they will be speaking Ojibwe, or French, or Norwegian; but whatever the language, you will begin to learn the stories they tell you.
