Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
By RICHARD JENKINS
Hurley — The Iron County Forestry and Parks Committee approved new rates for some of the county’s campgrounds and the Saxon Harbor marina Tuesday, partially in recognition of the improvements made in recent years.
The county had been charging $22-a-night and $135-a-week for campsites at Lake of the Falls and Schomberg Park equipped with electricity.
Those booking sites online also currently pay a $10 fee.
“What we’re proposing is that we go up to $27-per-night at Lake of the Falls and Schomberg, but we don’t have a reservation fee anymore,” Peterson said.
He pointed out the elimination of the reservation fee offsets part of the increase.
“Most of the time, people are staying more than a couple of nights anyway, so it would be a small increase in the rate,” Peterson said.
Under the new price structure, the first day would be non-refundable.
The Weber Lake campground will remain $20-a-night for electric sites. The Saxon Harbor camping rate wasn’t addressed as Peterson said the department is waiting for it to be completed before listing it online.
The new camping rates would take effect in 2020, Peterson said, as the county’s online system allows people to make registrations up to one year out from the date they are camping.
Even with the increase, the new prices are still comparable to various other campgrounds in the region, according to information given to the committee.
The committee also approved several other fee changes; including making a single, $20-fee for annual daily-use stickers instead of having resident and non-resident prices, increasing the annual boat-launch fee from $30 to $40 and adding the option of renting the Saxon Harbor gazebo.
Along with changing the camping rate for 2020, the committee took action to increase the rates boaters will pay for slips at Saxon Harbor once the marina reopens sometime in the 2019 boating season.
Prior to the marina’s destruction in the July 2016 storm, boaters paid a minimum of $23 and $27 a foot depending if they were county residents or not.
Peterson said he looked at rates around the Lake Superior basin and Saxon Harbor was at the bottom of the rate scale.
“We were by far the cheapest at $23 and $27 per foot,” Peterson said, adding Black River Harbor’s rate may have been similar but he expects those to increase in the near future as well. He said the rates in Bayfield and Washburn were on the high end of the scale.
Once the marina reopens, boaters will pay $45-a-foot, with a minimum cost determined by the size of the boat slip.
“The engineers are telling us you can have a boat no bigger than (a certain size) in a certain size slip,” Peterson said.
