Soo Locks Campground

Nice c/g on asphalt, tightly spaced sites all with water views right where ships enter and leave the world's busiest locks. A short walk or bike ride to center of tourist areas around the locks. Good food and shopping, a drive to city's edge for Walmart and groceries.

Lots of repeat visitors, reservations suggested. Lots of boat activity near the locks. A friendly c/g.

Tents or pushers u will love this quality camp ground. It’s city controlled n on the water way.
Ps. Cannot find the pics j

We were able to get a reservation her starting July 4 only 3 weeks ahead of time. This was a great place to watch the fireworks and freighters going to or from the locks. It is about a mile from a site near the river to the beginning of downtown and 1.5 miles to the Soo Locks Visitor Center. Restrooms were clean, but showers tiny. The spaces on the pavement are marked with yellow lines and just wide enough for our motorhome with slide out and our CR-V side by side. Backing in a large 5th wheel takes some skill. They do provide free coffee.
We drove through Aune Osborn about a mile further from town and it has significantly larger spaces and a much more open feeling. We would stay a Soo Locks again, but would probably try Aune Osborn. It is worth checking out the satellite view of both campgrounds.

We were in site 5 which is the closest to the road. Back of our rig was 10 ft from the road, and 5 ft from the sidewalk where there was plenty of foot traffic. These spots are the largest, likely as a consolation prize for the location. The road stayed fairly busy, but your rigs AC should cover most of the noise.

No dump at the sites, but water and electric, and a dump station at the front (with a threaded hose for washing out black tanks).

Lots of trees, lots of grass. Despite the road noise and the size of the campground, it stayed oddly quiet, and very busy. No down time here. People coming in every day during the week. Laundry on site.

It's right on the St Mary's River, and depending on how people are parked, we had a partial view of the river (and can see Canada!). We could also see (and FEEL) those huge freighters coming through towards the locks.

Speaking of, you're in great proximity to Soo Locks, like 1.2 miles away. Check out Boat Nerds (https://ais.boatnerd.com/passage/port/soo-locks) and Marine Traffic (https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/home/centerx:-84.2/centery:46.4/zoom:11) to see when the boats are coming through.

Lots of stuff to do here:
- Soo Locks (interactive hands on visitor center for the kids) FREE
- Soo Locks boat tour
- Sugar Daddy Bakery (mega huge deserts)
- Downtown shopping
- Tower of History (kinda smelly and janky but good views)
- Valley Camp - 20k sq ft museum in an old freighter (BEST THING HERE - amazing exhibits and one with Edmund Fitzgerald stuffs)
- Get burgers at Clyde's Drive-in a stable in the area since the 40's. From here you can get good views of the big ships coming through

Not sure we'd stay again, next time we'd try the campground just down the road. It looked more spread out with better water views.

A good place to stay - some sites have great views of the giant ships traveling on the St Mary River. Some have partial views. Bathrooms clean. We were on site 14 with electric but no water. Spaces are a little tight and sloping down towards the river. A little bit of a challenge to get level. Good location to investigate the sights in the area - fairly quiet at night - a little traffic noise during the day. I would stop here again.

Flat site, pull in, back out or back in. If you pull in there is a nice view from the windshield. No sewer, but nice double dump station. You can rent a dump cart so you don’t have to move to dump. Power and water are good. Better view from the waterside spots or up on “the bluff”. This is a bit higher set of spots that have a great view. Very nice office person. Great laundry. Nice camp store.

If you are out on the boat tour and do not want to roam international, turn your phone off. The boat tours get close to Canada cell sites.

While I rate this 5 stars, it always depends on what experience you’re looking for. We were at Site 93 for two weeks and loved it! No, we weren’t on the water. Yes, there was a lot of traffic during the day and we were close to the street. But we pretty much had this area to ourselves during the week. No one camped in site #92 or #94 while we were there. Site #91 on down only filled up on the weekends. We loved the shade from the big trees on #93 and #94. Used the showers and laundry ($2 for washer, $2 for dryer, 6 washers and 4 dryers), as well as the portable dump wagon ($5 rental), 6 lbs. of ice ($2.25) and firewood ($6.89 with tax). The small fire pits do not extend much above ground, but you do get to have fires! We would definitely stay here again!

What a gem of a park. Most sites have a view of the St. Mary River. You can watch the cargo ships coming up and down after going through the locks downtown. People gather in a grassy area at the river in the evening to watch the ships.

The office is dog friendly and offers treats to dogs who drop by. My dog was thrilled and made sure to make it a stop each day.

The park doesn’t have sewer connections but long term people use blue tanks to empty out. The showers were clean and hot.

Wifi was strong and while they do not offer cable there are a couple of channels that can be picked up on antenna.

This has been one of my favorite stops. If it had full hook ups and a dog run, it would be just about perfect.

The park was easy to find. It is located just off of Riverside Drive. There is pavement all the way including the interior roads. The interior roads are big rig friendly but be advised, they will not accept rigs longer than 40 feet. Signage is adequate. Check in was efficient and friendly. The rules are fairly basic. This park will allow motorhomes to nose into the riverfront sites. Services will be on the wrong side but one will have a ringside view of the river traffic.

Our site,47, was river front and was easily long enough for our Coach and Towed. Services (30 amp, and water only) were to the left side. Distancing is fair for an urban park. No site had a privacy barrier but shade trees were along the river. Each site has a table and most have a fire pit. Our site was flat and even. Overall the park was well maintained.

The park included wifi was the worst we have ever encountered. Even though the park was sparsely populated, the signal was lost so often it wasn’t worth trying to use. There is no cable but we did find some OTA TV. Satellite might be difficult because of the trees if you don’t have a portable dish. We did not use the washrooms or showers but we checked and found them clean.

The Antler restaurant is just down the street from the park. But we did not use it. Just a short drive away you can find food, shopping and convenience stores. We found this park to be an okay overnighter and a great place to watch the river traffic. We paid $40.00 per night and we feel we received fair value. We will be back if in the area again.

I booked our stay earlier in the year, sent in a $45 deposit and received a confirmation in the mail. We had heard through a YouTube video of locals coming into the campground and stealing things. We did not experience any of that, but the campground is located in a run down area of town. The street is in disrepair big time. When we got to our site, they were very small. Our neighbors, while they were very nice, were less than 15 feet away from us. We faced a canal and it was nice and quiet and we were able to see several barges after they passed through the locks! That was quite a sight! But for the money, this campground is a bit overpriced. We found another campground that we were much happier with, but we were forced to stay the one night or lose our $40 deposit.