Flowing Well Campground
- Right now
- Nobody has saidNo season, no closure, no bookings to read
- A night
- $26From, per site
- Sites
- 6All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 11 notices
In the agency’s own words
Flowing Well Campground is situated along the western banks of the Sturgeon River, among large trees and a variety of wildflowers. Camping, fishing, picnicking and canoeing can be enjoyed in a serene setting. Keep reading
Recreation
The area is most popular for canoeing and other non-motorized boating, as the Sturgeon River Canoe Trail runs right through the campground. The trail weaves with the river through a 41-mile portion of the heavily wooded Hiawatha National Forest. There are various access points along the river. Fishing is also popular, with brook trout, steelhead and salmon found in the river.
Facilities
The campground offers less than a dozen spacious sites for tent and RV camping. Some sites are situated along the bank, overlooking the slow-moving river. Each site is equipped with tables and campfire rings, and most come equipped with grills as well. Accessible vault toilets and drinking water are provided. The water from the well has a heavy iron and sulfur content, which is an acquired taste, but is safe to consume. A group picnic area is also equipped with tables and campfire rings with grills. It is adjacent to a good-sized parking area. Vault toilets and drinking water are also available.
Natural Features
The campground is sandwiched between Forest Highway 13 and the Sturgeon River, in the lower portion of Michigan's Upper Peninsula. It is about 10 miles from the northern shores of Lake Michigan. The region is dotted with wildflowers and mature trees. Contact Info For facility specific information, please call (906) 767-1111.
What the agency tells you
Only one camp unit (RV, trailer, pop-up, tent) is allowed per campsite. An additonal fee will be collected at the campground for each additional unit per night.
Two pets per site
No switching sites upon arrival
Everything else this campground posts · 8
Please Note: One RV with tow vehicle per single site or one vehicle per tent site. Most sites can accommodate 1 extra vehicle that is not included with the reservation fee. Extra vehicle will be charged an $8 per night fee and collected at the campground if you did not pay for the Extra Vehicle Add On. Extra vehicles must fit on the parking spur at your site.
Reserved Sites will be held until checkout time (NOON) the day following your arrival date. Sites must be occupied by the checkout time of the second day to hold a reservation or the site will be forfeited and released to other guests.
Once your reservation start date has begun, neither the Recreation.gov Contact Center nor the campground manager will be able to modify your reservation.
Refunds: Refund requests made through www.recreation.gov will be charged a $10 processing fee. This fee is retained by the reservation service contractor along with the non-refundable reservation fee. All requests for the return of the non-refundable reservation fee and the cancellation fee will be declined by the campground concessionaire as they did not receive these fees (these are the fees retained by the reservation contractor, a different entity).
Don't move firewood: To limit the spread of invasive tree-killing pests, firewood from outside the area is not permitted. Some states have quarantines and may confiscate your firewood. Please help protect our forests from invasive species by obtaining your firewood at or near your camping destination and burning it on-site. Visit dontmovefirewood.org for more information.
Click here for more information on the Hiawatha National Forest
Hiawatha National Forest - West Day Use Fees: Day Use $8.00 Day Use Annual Pass $40.00
Check OUT is at 12:00 PM Check IN is at 2:00 PM
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 6
- Hookups
- None
- Longest rig
- 25 ft
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- “…equipped with grills as well. Accessible vault toilets and drinking water are provided. The water from the…”
- Drinking water
- Yes
- “…as well. Accessible vault toilets and drinking water are provided. The water from the well has a heavy…”
Around the campground
- On the water
- Lake, River
- Boating
- Fishing
- Night sky · 112th darkest of 192 in MI
- Bortle 2
No reading yet, book on recreation.gov
Every site here is reservable, and the record lists none held back for anyone who drives up.
No availability snapshot inside the last 36 hours, so this page draws nothing rather than ageing a reading into fiction.
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
“Extra vehicle will be charged an $8 per night fee and collected at the campground if you did not pay for the Extra Vehicle Add On.” · the U.S. Forest Service’s own agency notice
Derived by CAMPANAC: the agency’s published rate for this season, $26 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 · 6
rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Oct 1, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
6 sites · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 6 mapped sitesAll 6 sites
The price is derived by CAMPANAC, not published per site: the per-night rate this campground publishes for each site’s own site type. 6 of the 6 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.
| FLOW | 001 | standard nonelectric | 25 ft | 103 ft | 101 ft | $26 |
| FLOW | 002 | standard nonelectric | 25 ft | 103 ft | 140 ft | $26 |
| FLOW | 003 | standard nonelectric | 25 ft | 103 ft | 124 ft | $26 |
| FLOW | 004 | standard nonelectric | 25 ft | 103 ft | 97 ft | $26 |
| FLOW | 005 | standard nonelectric | 25 ft | 106 ft | 73 ft | $26 |
| FLOW | 006 | standard nonelectric | 25 ft | 108 ft | 77 ft | $26 |
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.
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions
Where it is
Chicago Lake CampsitesHiawatha National Forest · 8.8 mi
Camp Cook CampsiteHiawatha National Forest · 9.3 mi
Camp Seven Lake CampgroundHiawatha National Forest · 11 mi
Gooseneck Lake CampsitesHiawatha National Forest · 12 mi
Lyman Lake CampsitesHiawatha National Forest · 13 mi
Jackpine Lake CampsitesHiawatha National Forest · 13 miFrom Rapid River, Michigan, take U.S. 2/Lakeshore Drive east for 16 miles, then continue north on Forest Highway 13 for 2 miles.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Rapid River, MI
Typical weather
Typical October night 35°F, day 55°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical February night 7°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
who answers for it
Who answers for this land
Flowing Well Campground is in Michigan’s 1st congressional district. Its representative, Jack Bergman (R), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: F. See every public-lands vote →