Jeanette Lake
- Right now
- Nobody has saidNo season, no closure, no bookings to read
- A night
- $18From, per site
- Sites
- 1412 on recreation.gov
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 7 notices
In the agency’s own words
Jeanette Lake Campground is a small, single-loop campground on a peninsula reaching out onto the glacier-carved Lake Jeanette in Superior National Forest. Originally built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s, this sweet, picturesque campground is well worth the drive. The facility provides sites that are usually accessible to RVs and tent trailers along with tent-only and hike-in sites. Superior National Forest, located in northeastern Minnesota's arrowhead region, is comprised of three million acres. The forest spans 150 miles along the United States-Canada border. Visitors can find recreation opportunities year-round, including travel in the famous Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. Keep reading
Recreation
The winding shoreline and islands make the 638-acre Lake Jeanette a great place to explore in a canoe or kayak. Fishing opportunities include walleye, northern pike and perch. The campground provides access to the Astrid Lake Hiking Trail for those who want to stretch their legs. The surrounding national forest offers a wide variety of recreational opportunities, including hiking in secluded woodlands and canoeing in pristine lakes and rivers. View recreation guides and maps of hiking trails and canoe routes in the national forest.
Facilities
There are 12 sites total with six reservable standard sites, 4 First Come First Serve standard sites, and two First Come First Serve tent-only sites. Most sites have a view of the lake and some are located on the lakeshore. The campsites are close together providing fair privacy, except for walk-in sites which enjoy excellent privacy. The walk-in tent sites have an additional backcountry latrine nearby (campers may want to bring toilet paper). Lake Jeanette also has six dispersed backcountry sites that are first-come, first-served and accessible only by boat.
Natural Features
Lake Jeanette is not the largest or most isolated lake in the national forest, but it feels like it is both. Created long ago by a massive glacier, this lake is considered by many to be a special location. The campground is wooded with a pleasant mix of hardwoods, pine and spruce providing shade for most sites. The understory of fern, wildflowers and grass is kept under control by mowing, giving the campground a manicured appearance. Glacial "erratics" (massive boulders) left behind by the receding glacier give the campground character and a place for moss to grow.
Nearby Attractions
Possible day trips from the campground include Voyageurs National Park, Crane Lake and Vermillion Falls. Numerous outdoor recreation opportunities lie within Superior National Forest's 77 lake accesses, 13 fishing piers, 10 swimming beaches and 22 picnic areas. The forest is also home to three scenic byways and the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. Additional sites of interest
What the agency tells you
Campground will be closed and gates typically locked November 1st through May 1st.
Months of October and November drinking water is turned off, there are no garbage services, and toilet cleaning services are limited.
No Fireworks
Everything else this campground posts · 4
Customer must occupy site on first night of reservation and may not leave equipment unattended for more than 24 hours
Click here for more information on Superior National Forest
Don't move firewood: To limit the spread of invasive tree-killing pests, firewood from outside the area is not permitted. 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.
Additional fee for second vehicle (non-towed) is $9.00/per day.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 14 · 3 tent-only
- Hookups
- None
- Longest rig
- 35 ft
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- Every site
Around the campground
- On the water
- Lake, River, Beach
- Boating
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Night sky · 34th darkest of 77 in MN
- Bortle 2
Nothing on the booking system for the next 30 nightsread 15:52 UTC
recreation.gov lists 12 of the 14 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 · 14
What you actually pay
“Additional fee for second vehicle (non-towed) is $9.00/per day.” · the U.S. Forest Service’s own agency notice
Derived by CAMPANAC: the agency’s published rate for this season, $18 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
recreation.gov availability, read 15:52 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
14 sites · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 9 mapped sitesAll 14 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. 14 of the 14 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.
| Jean | Standard S&P | type not stated | $18 | |||
| Jean | Tent S&P | type not stated | $18 | |||
| JEAN | 01 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 144 ft | 227 ft | $18 |
| JEAN | 02 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 100 ft | 146 ft | $18 |
| JEAN | 03 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 83 ft | 97 ft | $18 |
| JEAN | 04 | tent only nonelectric | 20 ft | 65 ft | 83 ft | $18 |
| JEAN | 05 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 48 ft | 120 ft | $18 |
| JEAN | 06 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 48 ft | 151 ft | $18 |
| JEAN | 07 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 68 ft | 110 ft | $18 |
| JEAN | 08 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 106 ft | 135 ft | $18 |
| JEAN | 09 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | $18 | ||
| JEAN | 10 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | $18 | ||
| JEAN | 11 | tent only nonelectric | 399 ft | 69 ft | $18 | |
| JEAN | 12 | tent only nonelectric | $18 |
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 · the phone number
Where it is
Lake Jeanette Campground & Backcountry Sites0.1 mi
Echo Lake Campground & Backcountry SitesSuperior National Forest · 9.4 mi
Echo Lake (Minn)Superior National Forest · 9.4 mi
Fenske Lake CampgroundSuperior National Forest · 20 mi
Pfeiffer LakeSuperior National Forest · 27 mi
Pfeiffer Lake Campground & Backcountry SitesSuperior National Forest · 28 miFrom Orr, Minnesota, take St. Louis County Road 23 for 16 miles to Buyck. At Buyck, County Road 23 turns into County Road 24. Continue on County Road 24 for 8 miles to the Echo Trail. Turn right onto the Echo Trail and continue 12 miles to Jeannette Lake Campground.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Tower, MN
Typical weather
Typical October night 34°F, day 50°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
Jeanette 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 →