Clubhouse Lake
- Right now
- Nobody has saidNo season, no closure, no bookings to read
- A night
- $16From, per site
- Sites
- 4729 on recreation.gov
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 7 notices
In the agency’s own words
Clubhouse Lake Campground is located on its peaceful namesake in the beautiful Chippewa National Forest. Visitors enjoy the area for its fishing and canoeing opportunities in a scenic natural setting. Clubhouse Lake has limited cell phone service, giving it a remote feeling and offering a tranquil retreat from a connected world. The campground lies off 31 miles north of Grand Rapids, MN and just over 8 miles east of Marcell, MN off of MN State Highway 38 - the nation's first National Scenic Byway, known as "The Edge of the Wilderness. Keep reading
" Recreation Clubhouse Lake has excellent water quality and is about 90 feet deep, providing great fishing opportunities for northern pike, bass and panfish. Swimming, canoeing and kayaking are very popular activities on the lake. The Rice River Canoe Route starts its journey to the Big Fork River from waters that flow into Clubhouse Lake. A sandy swimming beach, an accessible fishing pier, and a day use area with horshoe pits are located within the campground at the water's edge.
Facilities
The campground offers 28 reservable sites and 19 first-come, first-served, single-unit campsites. Each site is equipped with a picnic table and campfire ring. Two vault toilets and two hand pumps for drinking water are provided. The campground is patrolled regularly by Forest Service personnel and Itasca County law enforcement officers.
Natural Features
A beautiful stand of 200-year-old red and white pine trees cover the campground on the western shore of Clubhouse Lake.
Nearby Attractions
The Edge of the Wilderness Discovery Center is located a half-mile north of Marcell. It is a must-see for anyone camping in the area. The brand new facility offers many excellent displays, a gift shop, and several weekly naturalist programs.
What the agency tells you
Fee includes one camping unit (camper, RV, pop-up, tent) per site. Double occupancy is not permitted on single unit sites; on large sites double occupancy is permitted. The second occupant must pay the full nightly amount for each night of stay by using a fee envelope at the entrance kiosk. Please read the fee board upon entering the campground to see what qualifies for single and double occupancy.
Northern Minnesota is home to black bears. Several bear disturbances were reported in 2024. Campers must keep coolers and other bear attractants locked inside hard-sided campers or in vehicles when not attended, including overnight. Black bears are present and active within the campground area. Feeding any wildlife, including hanging bird feeders, is strictly prohibited. NEW FOR 2025: Chippewa National Forest Campground Food Storage Order
Some important campground rules: - Quiet hours are from 10pm – 6am. Generators cannot be run during this time. If you have a medical condition that requires powered equipment, please plan accordingly with battery backup. - Pets are welcome but must remain on a leash 6' or shorter in length at all times. Pets are not allowed in beach areas. - Campfires cannot be left unattended. They must be extinguished before the campsite is vacated. - Fireworks, including sparklers, are not allowed. - Cutting/damaging live vegetation is not allowed. You may gather dead and downed wood for campfires if it fits within the fire ring. - The use of power saws, including electric chainsaws, is strictly prohibited. All regulations are found under 36 CFR 261 and are punishable by fines.
Everything else this campground posts · 4
Off-highway vehicle use is permitted only to enter and exit the campground and must adhere to the speed limit of 5 mph. Operators must adhere to state OHV laws.
Bundled firewood is no longer available in Chippewa National Forest campgrounds. Firewood may be available for sale at local vendors, or may be brought from home if within 50 miles of the campground. You may also cut dead and downed wood in the forest without a permit as long as it will be used in the campground. Chainsaw use (gas and electric) is not permitted in the campground.
Reservations must be made at least 4 days in advance. After this window, sites are considered first-come first-serve. Customers with reservations may change to an open non-reservable site after arrival - please see the campground host as well as a sign at the entrance kiosk for more information. If you would like more site-specific information, call the Deer River Ranger District at 218-246-2123 before making a reservation. First-come, first-serve sites may be available after the reservation season.
Click here for more information on the Chippewa National Forest.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 47
- Hookups
- None
- Accessible sites
- 8
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- “…a picnic table and campfire ring. Two vault toilets and two hand pumps for drinking water are provided.…”
- Drinking water
- Yes
- “…campfire ring. Two vault toilets and two hand pumps for drinking water are provided. The campground is…”
- Camp host
- On site
- recreation.gov lists “Host”
Around the campground
- On the water
- Lake, River, Beach
- Berry Picking
- Biking
- Birding
- Boating
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Kayaking
- Mushroom Picking
- Paddling
- Picnicking
- Scenic drives
- Stargazing
- Swimming
- Water access
- Night sky · 45th darkest of 77 in MN
- Bortle 2
- Cell signal · Cell signal · Forest Service says
- Spotty
- Fall color · reported 11 days ago, 13 km away
- Past peak
Nothing on the booking system for the next 30 nightsread 16:08 UTC
recreation.gov lists 29 of the 47 campsites the agency files here. The rest aren’t on its booking system, so a reservation won’t get you one.
Every one of the next thirty nights is in recreation.gov’s record and not one site is being offered on any of them. That’s a campground closed or not yet released for booking, not a sold-out one.
Watch for a cancellation
Full? Watch it.
One email when a night opens, plus More Than Just Parks dispatches. Unsubscribe any time.
We read recreation.gov once an hour, at 40 minutes past, and write the first time a site in your window is free for the nights you asked for.
Scanners that check every few minutes exist, and most of them charge. This one is free, it reads the same calendar, and it won’t always be first.
Tell me when the season opens
Watch for the season to open
One email when the season goes on sale, plus More Than Just Parks dispatches. Unsubscribe any time.
We check once an hour, at 40 minutes past, and write the first time the agency has that season on sale.
Scanners that check every few minutes exist, and most of them charge. This one is free, it reads the same calendar, and it won’t always be first.
We make nothing when you book. The link goes straight to the government.
Every line of the receipt · 13
What you actually pay
Derived by CAMPANAC: the agency’s published rate for this season, $16 a night, plus one $8 recreation.gov reservation fee for the booking. A weekend here means Friday and Saturday night, booked once. Optional charges (an extra vehicle, a second tent, a dump-station fee) are listed separately and aren’t in this total.
Who keeps the booking fee
The agency’s own policy text says the reservation fee and the cancellation processing fee are “retained by the reservation service contractor”, and that a campground concessionaire will decline to refund them because “they did not receive these fees”. Recreation.gov is run under contract by Booz Allen Hamilton. What share of your booking fee the contractor keeps isn’t published in any federal dataset we can read, so we print no number for it. Our reporting on the contract →
How we know this receipt · 5
recreation.gov availability, read 16:08 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
48 records · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 29 mapped sitesAll 48 records
The price is derived by CAMPANAC, not published per site: the per-night rate this campground publishes for each site’s own site type. 47 of the 48 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
Measured shade is NLCD Tree Canopy Cover 2024 (USDA Forest Service / MRLC) read at the site’s own coordinate, 27% canopy or more, and only for the sites the agency gave no Shade value. It never changes the agency’s own shaded count beside it.
| MANAGEMENT SITES | 021 | type not stated | 380 ft | $16 | |||
| MANAGEMENT SITES | 022 | type not stated | 415 ft | $16 | |||
| MANAGEMENT SITES | 023 | type not stated | 439 ft | $16 | |||
| MANAGEMENT SITES | 024 | type not stated | 466 ft | $16 | |||
| MANAGEMENT SITES | 025 | type not stated | 466 ft | $16 | |||
| MANAGEMENT SITES | 026 | type not stated | 474 ft | $16 | |||
| MANAGEMENT SITES | 027 | type not stated | 358 ft | $16 | |||
| MANAGEMENT SITES | 028 | type not stated | 455 ft | $16 | |||
| MANAGEMENT SITES | 029 | type not stated | 372 ft | $16 | |||
| MANAGEMENT SITES | 030 | type not stated | 451 ft | $16 | |||
| MANAGEMENT SITES | 040 | type not stated | 219 ft | $16 | |||
| MANAGEMENT SITES | 041 | type not stated | 126 ft | $16 | |||
| MANAGEMENT SITES | 042 | type not stated | 225 ft | $16 | |||
| MANAGEMENT SITES | 043 | type not stated | 137 ft | $16 | |||
| MANAGEMENT SITES | 044 | type not stated | 226 ft | $16 | |||
| MANAGEMENT SITES | 045 | type not stated | 133 ft | $16 | |||
| MANAGEMENT SITES | 046 | type not stated | 227 ft | $16 | |||
| MANAGEMENT SITES | 047 | type not stated | 125 ft | $16 | |||
| MANAGEMENT SITES | 048 | type not stated | 218 ft | $16 | |||
| MANAGEMENT SITES | XXX | unnamed record | 45 ft | yes | 231 ft | 317 ft | $16 |
| NORT | 001 | standard nonelectric | 87 ft | 224 ft | $16 | ||
| NORT | 002 | standard nonelectric | 87 ft | 138 ft | $16 | ||
| NORT | 003 | standard nonelectric | 99 ft | 225 ft | $16 | ||
| NORT | 004 | standard nonelectric | 99 ft | 205 ft | $16 | ||
| NORT | 005 | standard nonelectric | yes | 164 ft | 147 ft | $16 | |
| NORT | 006 | standard nonelectric | 117 ft | 310 ft | $16 | ||
| NORT | 007 | standard nonelectric | 95 ft | 367 ft | $16 | ||
| NORT | 008 | standard nonelectric | 84 ft | 399 ft | $16 | ||
| NORT | 009 | standard nonelectric | yes | 84 ft | 324 ft | $16 | |
| NORT | 010 | standard nonelectric | 85 ft | 429 ft | $16 | ||
| NORT | 011 | standard nonelectric | 85 ft | 354 ft | $16 | ||
| NORT | 012 | standard nonelectric | 90 ft | 454 ft | $16 | ||
| NORT | 013 | standard nonelectric | 76 ft | 366 ft | $16 | ||
| NORT | 014 | standard nonelectric | 91 ft | 452 ft | $16 | ||
| NORT | 015 | standard nonelectric | 68 ft | 370 ft | $16 | ||
| NORT | 016 | standard nonelectric | 72 ft | 455 ft | $16 | ||
| NORT | 017 | standard nonelectric | yes | 68 ft | 360 ft | $16 | |
| NORT | 018 | standard nonelectric | 67 ft | 467 ft | $16 | ||
| NORT | 019 | standard nonelectric | 67 ft | 466 ft | $16 | ||
| SOUT | 031 | standard nonelectric | 113 ft | 346 ft | $16 | ||
| SOUT | 032 | standard nonelectric | 113 ft | 435 ft | $16 | ||
| SOUT | 033 | standard nonelectric | 92 ft | 242 ft | $16 | ||
| SOUT | 034 | standard nonelectric | 116 ft | 351 ft | $16 | ||
| SOUT | 035 | standard nonelectric | yes | 99 ft | 241 ft | $16 | |
| SOUT | 036 | standard nonelectric | yes | 92 ft | 207 ft | $16 | |
| SOUT | 037 | standard nonelectric | yes | 109 ft | 117 ft | $16 | |
| SOUT | 038 | standard nonelectric | yes | 99 ft | 210 ft | $16 | |
| SOUT | 039 | standard nonelectric | yes | 99 ft | 115 ft | $16 |
The agency files 1 more record here that isn’t a site for the night. It filed it without a site name, and nothing in its own record decides what it is. It’s in the table above, marked for what it is, and it isn’t counted as a site.
OpenStreetMap has no toilet mapped within 1 km of this campground, so no site here carries a toilet distance. That’s a gap in the map, not a finding about the campground.
25 of 48 listed
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
OnegumeChippewa National Forest · 23 miOnegume (ah-ni-gah-mig[k])CampgroundChippewa National Forest · 23 mi
Mosomo PointChippewa National Forest · 23 mi
Cut Foot Horse CampgroundChippewa National Forest · 23 miFrom the south, travel on Minnesota State Highway 38 from Grand Rapids to Marcell. Turn right on County Road 45, just north of Marcell, and continue five miles east. Then travel three miles north on Forest Road 2181 to the campground.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Bigfork, MN
Typical weather
Typical October night 35°F, day 51°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical January night -5°F, below freezing. Bring a bag rated colder than that, and expect ice in the water bottle.
Daily high and lowDays with 0.10 in or more
A normal is the 1991-2020 average for the month, not a forecast: about half of all Julys are colder than the July line. The seven-day forecast above answers the other question.
The land, and who answers for it
what threatens it · who answers for it
Roadless country, and what’s coming for it
You’re camping on ground somebody wants. We track the threats and the comment deadlines.
Who answers for this land
Clubhouse Lake is in Minnesota’s 8th congressional district. Its representative, Pete Stauber (R), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: F. See every public-lands vote →
How we know
every fact on this page, and where it came from
“…in a scenic natural setting. Clubhouse Lake has limited cell phone service, giving it a remote feeling and offering a tranquil retreat…”