Pokegama Dam Campground
- Right now
- Nobody has saidNo season, no closure, no bookings to read
- A night
- $14–$26Across the site types the agency prices
- Sites
- 21All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 7 notices
In the agency’s own words
Pokegama Dam Campground (USACE) is situated in the heart of northern Minnesota's lake country next to the Mississippi River. Popular activities include boating, fishing, picnicking and wildlife viewing. Keep reading
Recreation
The Mississippi River offers great opportunities for boating and fishing. Anglers will find Walleye, Northern Pike, Blue gills, sunfish, Large and Small mouth Bass among other species. Birders enjoy viewing Bald eagles, loons, ducks, geese and many other species from the banks of the park.
Facilities
The campground, pronounced "po-KEG-uh-muh," offers 19 electric back in sites, two primitive tent-only sites (non-electric) and one day-use picnic shealter with electric. Amenities include flush toilets, showers, drinking water, a dump station, boat ramp, playground and a fish cleaning station.
Natural Features
A forest of mixed hardwoods and towering red pines cover the area, housing an abundance of wildlife including bald eagles, porcupines, black bears chipmunks and many others. Wild blackberries, raspberries, and blueberries grow seasonally on the forest floor.
Nearby Attractions
Judy Garland Museum, Forest History Center, Itasca County historical Society, Childerns Discovery Museum, Tioga Beach, Mesabi Bike Trail
What the agency tells you
Don't Move Firewood: Protect your forests from tree-killing pests by buying your firewood locally and burning it on-site. Visit Dontmovefirewood.org for further information.
Firewood is not provided onsite.
All camping equimpent must be on the camp pad or site driveway.
Everything else this campground posts · 4
No fireworks are allowed.
No cars, trucks, trailers, boats, tents or campers are allowed on the grass.
No camping will take place on non permitted sites.
Quite hours are from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m. All guest must leave at 10 p.m.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 21 · 2 tent-only
- Hookups
- 19 electric
- Longest rig
- 79 ft
- Paved pads
- 1 of 21
- Accessible sites
- 1
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Flush Toilets
- “…with electric. Amenities include flush toilets, showers, drinking water, a dump station, boat…”
- Showers
- Yes, the record doesn’t say what kind
- “Amenities include flush toilets, showers, drinking water, a dump station, boat ramp, playground and a fish cleaning station.”
- Drinking water
- Yes
- “…include flush toilets, showers, drinking water, a dump station, boat ramp, playground and a fish…”
- Dump station
- Yes
- recreation.gov lists “Dump Station”
- Boat ramp
- Yes
- Playground
- Yes
- Stay limit
- 14 nights
- recreation.gov facility rule maxStay
Around the campground
- On the water
- Lake, River, Beach
- Antiquing
- Berry Picking
- Biking
- Birding
- Boating
- Canoeing
- Cross Country Skiing
- Fishing
- Information Site
- Kayaking
- Motor Boat
- Mountain biking
- Visitor center
- Night sky · 74th darkest of 77 in MN
- Bortle 4
- Fall color · reported 4 days ago, 17 km away
- Peak color
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 · 15
What you actually pay
Derived by CAMPANAC: the agency’s published rates for this season, $14–$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 · 5
rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
22 records · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 22 mapped sitesAll 22 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. 21 of the 22 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
| POKEGAMA | 01 | standard electric | 52 ft | 30/50 amp | 51 ft | 146 ft | $26 | |
| POKEGAMA | 02 | standard electric | 50 ft | 30/50 amp | 51 ft | 136 ft | $26 | |
| POKEGAMA | 03 | standard electric | 56 ft | 30/50 amp | 56 ft | 172 ft | $26 | |
| POKEGAMA | 04 | standard electric | 53 ft | 30/50 amp | 56 ft | 158 ft | $26 | |
| POKEGAMA | 05 | standard electric | 54 ft | 50/30 amp | 63 ft | 115 ft | $26 | |
| POKEGAMA | 06 | standard electric | 50 ft | 50/30 amp | 82 ft | 103 ft | $26 | |
| POKEGAMA | 07 | standard electric | 50 ft | 50/30 amp | 61 ft | 123 ft | $26 | |
| POKEGAMA | 08 | standard electric | 59 ft | 30/50 amp | 61 ft | 102 ft | $26 | |
| POKEGAMA | 09 | standard electric | 79 ft | 50/30 amp | 52 ft | 103 ft | $26 | |
| POKEGAMA | 10 | standard electric | 49 ft | 50/30 amp | 52 ft | 112 ft | $26 | |
| POKEGAMA | 11 | standard electric | 49 ft | 50/30 amp | 63 ft | 143 ft | $26 | |
| POKEGAMA | 12 | standard electric | 69 ft | 50/30 amp | 63 ft | 132 ft | $26 | |
| POKEGAMA | 13 | standard electric | 49 ft | 50/30 amp | 63 ft | 94 ft | $26 | |
| POKEGAMA | 14 | standard electric | 70 ft | 50/30 amp | 85 ft | 188 ft | $26 | |
| POKEGAMA | 15 | standard electric | 58 ft | 50/30 amp | yes | 41 ft | 186 ft | $26 |
| POKEGAMA | 16 | standard electric | 65 ft | 50/30 amp | 41 ft | 211 ft | $26 | |
| POKEGAMA | 17 | standard electric | 47 ft | 50/30 amp | 73 ft | 257 ft | $26 | |
| POKEGAMA | 18 | standard electric | 46 ft | 50/30 amp | 73 ft | 262 ft | $26 | |
| POKEGAMA | 19 | standard electric | 71 ft | 50/30 amp | 78 ft | 254 ft | $26 | |
| POKEGAMA | 20 | tent only nonelectric | 57 ft | 20 ft | $14 | |||
| POKEGAMA | 21 | tent only nonelectric | 57 ft | 28 ft | $14 | |||
| POKEGAMA | PSHLTR | day use | 15 amp | yes | 141 ft | 132 ft | $35 |
The agency files 1 more record here that isn’t a site for the night. It files it as day use. 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.
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Clubhouse LakeChippewa National Forest · 25 mi
Winnie Dam Campground - USACEChippewa National Forest · 25 mi
Mabel LakeChippewa National Forest · 27 miOnegume (ah-ni-gah-mig[k])CampgroundChippewa National Forest · 28 mi
OnegumeChippewa National Forest · 28 miFrom Grand Rapids, Minnesota, take Highway 2 west for 2 miles, turn left at signs and follow to campground.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Cohasset, MN
Typical weather
Typical October night 34°F, day 52°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.
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
Pokegama Dam Campground 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 →