CAMPANAC.Powered by public lands intelligenceMore Than Just Parks
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National Park Service · MN

Lower St. Croix District

5Heads up2 park alerts · 3 fires, nearest 24 mi
Wildfire
Bean fire · 24 mi away · 0 acres · updated Oct 15, 2026
Wildfire
Nelson Rd fire · 37 mi away · 0 acres · updated Oct 16, 2026
Wildfire
Sundown fire · 37 mi away · 0 acres · updated Oct 16, 2026
Information
Increased Bear Activity in the Riverway Bears have been seen approaching campsites in the Riverway in search of food. Store all food, garbage, and scented items in bear‑resistant containers, locked vehicles, or properly hung bags. Food should never be stored in tents. Stay alert…
Park Closure
North Parking Lot at Osceola Landing to Close for Bridge Construction The northernmost parking lot and co-located boat ramps at Osceola Landing will close week of 9/14 as part of the Hwy 243 Osceola Bridge replacement project. The parking lot and boat ramps will be used as a staging area and river access…
Fires: NIFC/IRWIN via MTJP wildfire tracker · Oct 16, 2026
Alerts: National Park Service alerts API · Oct 16, 2026
First come, first servedNo reservation, and none to be had: all 19 sites go to whoever pulls in first.

This is how it should work.

Get directions
Right now
Nobody has saidNo season, no closure, no bookings to read
Sites
1919 of them walk-up
Photos · NPS Photo
690 ftElevation
under 10 ftWater · Saint Croix River
In townScandia, MN
19Walk-up sites
n/aTree cover · water-masked cell

The place

the agency’s own description · what’s there

In the agency’s own words

19, primitive, Leave No Trace campsites are located on this reach from below Highway 8 down to the Boom Site Landing near Stillwater, Minnesota. An annual camping permit is required to camp. The District also consists of Minnesota and Wisconsin state park properties with campgrounds.

Source: Recreation.gov data (RIDB), full extract · Aug 23, 2026

Facilities

Toilets
None. Pack out what you bring in
Drinking water
None, bring your own
Source: National Park Service and agency records

Around the campground

Night sky · 77th darkest of 77 in MN
Bortle 4
Fall color · reported 8 days ago, 36 km away
No change
Source: VIIRS Day/Night Band annual cloud-free composite, VNL V2 2024 (Earth Observation Group, Colorado School of Mines), read at the published coordinate · Sep 8, 2026
Fall color: More Than Just Parks foliage tracker, joined to this campground by distance (36 km) · Oct 8, 2026
Official page →

Nothing to book, just show up

One of 1,623 federal campgrounds where the site still goes to whoever pulls in first. Get there before noon on a summer weekend.

recreation.gov publishes no availability for a campground you can’t reserve, so there’s no thirty-night reading to draw here. The season bar above is what the agency does publish.

BookingNo reservationsNothing to book, and no release date to wait forthe agency’s record
Runs itNational Park Servicethe agency’s record
Directions
Every line of the receipt · 3

What you actually pay

The sign priceNational Park Service
The National Park Service publishes no per-night rate for this campground that we can read, so there’s no sign price to print. That’s a gap in the record, not a free campground.
The booking feerecreation.gov
Nothing. This campground takes no bookings, so there’s no reservation fee to pay.
What a stay costs
The agency publishes no nightly rate for this campground, so there’s no total to show.
How we know this receipt · 4
Booking fee, change fee, cancellation fee, no-show: Rules and Reservation Policies, Recreation.gov, the published fee schedule, curated by hand into lib/reservation-fee-schedule.json (9 rows, each carrying its own verbatim sentence). The publisher states these policies were last updated September 2019. · Sep 9, 2026
The two totals: Derived by CAMPANAC by adding the agency’s own published nightly rate to recreation.gov’s own published reservation fee. Both components are cited above; the addition is ours and is shown only where every component is known. · Sep 9, 2026
Who keeps the booking fee: Recreation.gov facility policy text, Dead Swede Campground (facility 234221) · Not on the national policy page. This is agency policy text recreation.gov publishes on individual campground pages; this site holds it verbatim on 45 active campgrounds (campground_rules.cancellation_description, scripts/load-facility-rules.mjs). · Sep 9, 2026
The contract: Reservation Gods: Who Stole Our Campsites and Sold Them Back to Us, More Than Just Parks, April 2025 · Apr 1, 2025
Source: Recreation.gov data (RIDB), full extract · Aug 23, 2026

rules read Sep 7, 2026 · record Aug 23, 2026 · How we know all this

Seen something wrong here? Tell us.

Getting there

the map and the coordinate · the phone number
Coordinate45.25328, -92.76033
The agency’s pageOfficial page ↗

Where it is

Source: Recreation.gov data (RIDB), full extract · Aug 23, 2026

The weather

the next four days · the thirty-year normal

Next four days, and the thirty-year normal

Forecast

This Afternoon49°Sunny1% rain
Tonight30°Widespread Frost
Saturday58°Widespread Frost then Sunny
Saturday Night41°Clear

NWS forecast for Scandia, MN

Source: National Weather Service, MPX forecast office · Oct 16, 2026

Typical weather

Typical October night 37°F, day 60°F.

Coldest month of the year: typical January night 3°F, below freezing. Bring a bag rated colder than that, and expect ice in the water bottle.

90°32°-10°

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.

Measured at: FOREST LAKE 5NE, MN (USC00212881), 9 miles away and 215 ft higher
Source: NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, U.S. Climate Normals 1991-2020, monthly normals · Sep 8, 2026

The land, and who answers for it

who answers for it

Who answers for this land

Pete Stauber, official portrait

Lower St. Croix District 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 →

Seen something wrong here? Tell us.

Source: U.S. Census district boundaries and the MTJP Congressional Public Lands Score

How we know

every fact on this page, and where it came from
Right now: National Park Service publishes no season and no closure for this campground, and it takes no bookings we can read. That’s a gap in the record and not a locked gate: the number below is the only way to be sure.
Elevation: USGS 3DEP elevation point query at this campground’s coordinate · Sep 7, 2026
Night sky: VIIRS Day/Night Band annual cloud-free composite, VNL V2 2024 (Earth Observation Group, Colorado School of Mines), read at the published coordinate: 1.3 mcd/m² of artificial all-sky glow, ranked against the 77 rated federal campgrounds in Minnesota · Sep 8, 2026
Sky-glow model: Duriscoe, Anderson, Luginbuhl and Baugh (2018), a simplified model of all-sky artificial sky glow derived from VIIRS Day/Night band data, the National Park Service sky-glow model
Fall color: More Than Just Parks foliage tracker, joined to this campground by distance (36 km) · Oct 8, 2026
Reported by: USA National Phenology Network (Nature's Notebook), reported no change · Oct 8, 2026
Cell signal: the Park Service’s own campground description, read as text by CAMPANAC. None of this is a measurement. It’s what the land manager published about the place, and phones, carriers and weather all disagree with each other; treat it as a warning, not a promise.
Nearest town: U.S. Census Bureau TIGER/Line 2024 places, measured by CAMPANAC to the town boundary; population is the ACS 2020-2024 5-year estimate · Sep 9, 2026