Brimley State Park

About this park

Brimley State Park, one of the older state parks in the Upper Peninsula, traces its origins to 1923, when the Village of Brimley donated an initial 38 acres to the Michigan Department of Natural Resources to help create it. The roughly 100-acre park sits on the shore of Lake Superior's Whitefish Bay, 11 miles southwest of Sault Ste. Marie, giving visitors a relatively accessible taste of Lake Superior shoreline without the longer drive required to reach the lake's more remote western stretches. A large, modern 237-site campground makes up the bulk of the park's developed area, with open sites buffered from the Lake Superior shoreline by a deliberately maintained vegetated windbreak, a practical response to the open, often windy conditions along Whitefish Bay. The park's southern and eastern boundaries remain heavily wooded, giving even the more open camping loops a sense of enclosure and shelter from the lake's more exposed edge. A rustic group-use area set apart in the woods accommodates up to 25 campers for organized groups, connected to the main day-use parking area by a narrow wooded pathway, and a large enclosed picnic shelter can be reserved for day events. Given its proximity to Sault Ste. Marie and the Soo Locks, Brimley State Park functions as a practical, well-located base for visitors exploring the easternmost reaches of Michigan's Upper Peninsula and the historic shipping channel connecting Lake Superior to the lower Great Lakes.