Paula Porter/For the Gazette McLain State Park is open for the season, although, due to construction, only about three dozen campsites are available. The cabins and tiny house are not yet available either. Because of construction, Twin Lakes State Park remains closed until August.

TOIVOLA — The summer is (un)officially here and soon our local state parks will be bustling. But not all of them. Twin Lakes State Park off of M-26 in Toivola will be closed through July to address maintenance issues and to upgrade its facilities. Twin Lakes is one of the local state parks under some construction during the busiest time of the year for tourism in the area.

Some state parks, including Twin Lakes and Fort Wilkins, are using funding allocated by the State of Michigan through the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), signed into law in 2021. According to the Michigan Department of Natural Resources website, $273 million was allocated for the state’s park and recreation system.

Unit Supervisor for Twin Lakes and McClain State Parks, John Codere, said there were various quality-of-life upgrades Twin Lakes needed. “The park needed significant upgrades. The project includes a new toilet and shower building for the campground, a new wastewater disposal system,” he said. “It also includes upgrades too all the pavings in the park.”

Twin Lakes temporarily closed in 2025 and has not been open since. According to its DNR webpage, the park is eyeing a tentative reopening on August 1. Codere said the inconvenience of the construction during the busy parts of the tourist season is an issue, but it will be worth the wait.

“Unfortunately, with the weather up in the Keweenaw, construction season is short and it’s during the use-season,” he said. “A lot of time they overlap and cause less than desirable situations for users, but all the upgrades are necessary and they are all enhancements to the recreation opportunities.

Camping is very popular in the Copper Country. With the closure of Twin Lakes, including its campground, there are less options for outdoor enthusiasts to spend time in their favorite wooded-areas. Codere said he is hoping campers will use other state parks in the area, but some of them are dealing with construction as well.

“During the closure, we’re hoping that other parks in the area could absorb the people that were not able to use Twin Lakes,” he said. “Unfortunately, McClain State Park — where I’m at — is also under construction at this time.”

According to Codere, McClain State Park in Hancock, is not using ARPA funding for its campgrounds and lodging upgrades. He said it still has 36 campsites open, but its cabins and tiny house are closed until mid-summer.

Father north, Fort Wilkins State Park in Copper Harbor has undergone campground renovations of its own. According to its website, the park’s campground is upgrading its electrical system and anticipates finishing the project around July 4 — though no concrete date is currently set.

Park Supervisor Bob Wild said finishing construction in the campground has been difficult due to the late spring arrival and the snow accumulation over winter.

“It [the snow] really kind of set a lot of the stuff back, time when we would usually have a little more opportunity to complete some of this work,” he said. “The amount of snow and how long it took to melt off, so that’s been a little bit challenging with some of these projects.”

Wild said the project aims to upgrade the electrical facilities in the east campground and enhance the experience for campers.

“There were things like multiple campsites using the same pedestal, or there was a really long electrical run from a campsite to an electrical pedestal,” he said. “The system that we had… was just getting very dated. So, the big push behind doing the project was to upgrade the electrical.”

According to Wild, the rest of the state park — the historical site, picnic area, west campground, boat launch — has not been affected by the construction and is open.

Another state park in the Keweenaw, Baraga State Park, is fully operational and is not undergoing any upgrades at this time. In 2019, Baraga State Park underwent electrical upgrades and improvements to its campground. According to the DNR APRA progress webpage, its trail system also saw an upgrade and is considered complete.