[AUTUMN 2023, Ontario] Rossport campground is located on the north shore of Lake Superior between Nipigon (50km) and Marathon (100km). Being right on the Trans-Canada/Hwy 17, it makes a convenient stop-along-the-way and is heavily used by the RV community for exactly that purpose. But even though this campground appears small and unassuming at first glance, there a few primo sites—especially well-suited to Teardrop trailers—that can make it a worthwhile multi-night base to explore the area.

I took a chance booking into Rossport. I had been staying at Neys Provincial Park (a large and stunning park, worthy of its own blog entry… watch this space!) for several nights and was looking for somewhere along the route to Sleeping Giant on my Sept/2023 Superior coastal tour. From the campground map and site descriptions on the Ontario Parks reservations site it was not super-clear what I would be getting, but did I ever luck out and I am ever glad I booked for more than one night!

Best (and worst) Camp Sites

Imagine parking your little Teardrop trailer pretty much right on the shore of Lake Superior, your own rocky point to walk out to, large smooth shore rock right out of a Group-of-Seven painting to set-up for sitting chair, and having an unobstructed water view from the trailer window for morning coffee!

Well, my Teardrop friends, if you book site #19 it will be so! I don’t feel like I’m outing a hidden gem here because this is a well-used campground but you can nevertheless count this as privileged info for teardroptrailertravels.ca blog readers LOL.

What about other sites which appear, on the campground map, to be near/on the shore? Sites 20, 21 & 25 actually have no water view, no direct shore access and zero privacy; there is little point other than maybe hearing waves. Site 24, like 19 which I was on, is also a primo waterfront site though both have just average privacy you forget all about being open to the campground road with the gorgeous view on the other side. If you want privacy, another primo site 23 has loads though will require some fiddly backing-up and while it has no water view from the trailer you do get your own private access trail to the shore.

Sites 18-25 are all unserviced. Sites 11, 12, 15, 16, 17 have electrical hookups and all have a water view though minimal privacy from other sites and the campground road. Sites 11 & 12 are probably the best for view; the campground map shows them abutting the Day Use Area but my experience of this park is that it was not much used.

A Friendly, Well-kept campground

As for the rest of the camp sites in the park, well, it has the general look of a private campground… which is to say closely spaced and (with a few exceptions like 32) poor privacy. BUT, being a Provincial Park, it is soooo much better maintained and patrolled than most private or municipal campgrounds. And perhaps the cleanest washrooms & showers I encountered during my 3 week outing . In addition to the awesome view, another bonus to the shoreline sites is that you are for more likely to fall asleep to the sound of waves than to traffic noise seeing as the main road is right at the park gate.

But, whichever site you set-up in, a nice feature to this park I found to be the friendliness of the campers. Being a stop-along-the-way for RVrs large and small, folks seem to enjoy chatting with each other about where they’re from, where they’ve been, where they’re going or maybe going. And of course tiny Teardrop trailers seem to invite questions from the curious!

Rossport is a satellite campground of Rainbow Falls Provincial Park, which is a few km to the east along Hwy 17. Whitesands Lake campground, in the main park, is pleasant though unremarkable and inland, not on the Superior shore. The park does however have some great hiking trails with awesome lookouts over Lake Superior and a spectacular set of waterfalls which give the park its name.