Knife Island Campground — Hotel in Thomson Township

We were looking to camp near Duluth this fall and required full hookups for our camper. Knife Island fit the bill; we stayed on site #4. This is a relatively small campground, owned and run by a very friendly couple. Overall grade is 4 stars. I would have rated 5 for everything within the owners control. They were both very friendly and accommodating. I had to adjust my travel dates, no problem. I needed to extend my checkout time a bit, again no problem. They always seemed to be busy doing maintenance, improvements, cleaning, firewood delivery, etc. They even fill propane tanks on site. A few small cabins are available as a non-camping option. Has very modern, clean restrooms and showers, even an on-site laundry. A huge shoutout to the owners. The only reason for docking by one star (and totally out of their control), is for the ambiance, especially for the full hookup sites 1-4. Proximity to multiple highways and interstate resulted a quite a bit of road noise. While it may well be viewed as white noise by some, it certainly detracted from the sense of being "up north". Also nearby train tracks, but only a couple trains/day. Lastly, while the site actually sits right on the St Louis river (and one of the reasons we originally selected this campground and site), the brush near the riverbanks was so tall that you really couldn't even see the river. That was probably done intentionally to block the view across the river of small businesses, power lines, roads, etc. Lastly, a piece of advice. Carefully review the site map and Google maps satellite view when selecting sites. The size and privacy varies quite a bit from site to site. Especially so for the 4 full hookup sites (1-4), with #4 by far being the best. And speaking of those full hookup sites, make sure that you have an adequate length sewer hose, as the waste receptacles seem to be non-optimally placed. We needed at least 20 ft. for site #4. Having said all of this, we will certainly return the next time we need to camp...

First of all let me say the owners were very friendly and the campground was very clean and well maintained. We stayed on site #3 with full hookup for 4 nights. The WiFi signal was excellent but there were very few campers so I don’t know how it would be if the campground was full. The bath house was very clean and this time of year it seemed like it was just for my use…lol. With only one bath house and two restrooms I wonder how different it would be if the campground were full. During the daylight hours it was very peaceful but situated between I-35 and Hwy 61 there was a lot of road noise at night. Also, you could hear trains in the distance at very irregular times. The campground is situated close to major outlet shopping in Duluth, local shopping for convenience items, Jay Cooke SP, Black Bear Casino and several golf courses. So that is all good. The one negative I have is I thought the campground is quite pricey for a full hookup site. The site is gravel, not level, there is no CATV and of course there is the road noise. OK, I know what some of you are thinking, but my wife and I are glampers and other than some campgrounds out west near Yellowstone this is the most we have ever paid. Repeat customers are the best thing for any business and tells you that you are doing something right. I wish you all the best going forward because you do have a nice little place. I just wish your pricing for full hookup sites was a little...

Knife Island Campground is such a hospitable place to stay right outside of Duluth. It’s probably about a mile 20 minute drive from Canal Park in Duluth. There is a Walmart 7 minutes away and there’s a Kwik Trip right down the street less than a 2 minute drive away. There’s so many amenities close by and my friends and I actually loved the whole setup. There were 4 couples and we all stayed in tent site 33 and 34 and we did book out both sites for our group. Renting both sites really gave us a lot of room for 8 people, a baby, and 2 dogs. 2 tents per site. There is no grate provided to cook over the fire and I remembered that from my stay last year so we bought a grate this year! We cooked some brats over the fire and some campfire queso! They also have firewood, grills, propane fill up, and charcoal on site if you need anything like that for your fires or for cooking! The shower house is my absolute favorite amenity at this campground. When I was here last year the campground only had 1 shower and now they built a new one next to it so now there are 2 shower room and they are both so big and so beautiful. There’s also a cute walking trail with a bunch of fishing hole signs so you can fish right off of the river when you’re on the trail. Also the owners are so nice and come and drop off your firewood right to your campsite on a golf cart. They were SUPER hospitable and just the nicest hosts I’ve had at...