ABOUT MARBLE RIVER RECREATION SITE: Between Port Alice & Port McNeill BC off Highway 30, lies the Marble River Recreation Site, adjacent to Marble River Provincial Park.It is a beautiful area, very scenic and very quiet. Marble River runs through both parks. There is a nice kayak and canoe launch across the street from the entrance to the rest area. You drive through the rest area on a decent gravel road and enter the park’s area. A sign takes you left to the Provincial Park or right through the Recreation Site.
The Provincial Park is mostly for hiking and there are several back country camping sites. The Recreation Site is a wonderful place to camp and we stumbled upon it when just driving around. We liked it so much that we canceled reservations at campgrounds that we’d made previously in order to stay at Marble River.
The Recreation Site has two small campgrounds: the upper level and the lower level. None of the campsites are numbered. The sites are first-come, first-served and reservations are not accepted. They offer no amenities except for a few pit/vault toilets here and there, and a picnic table & firepit at each campsite. No trash dumpsters, no showers, no playground, no campground host, no hook-ups of any kind, no water spigots, and no dump station. The result is a boondocking experience, totally free of charge, in a campground that rarely fills up, with campsites that are well-maintained and totally private, each a distance from its neighboring site. What more could we want?
Most campsites were large enough for us with long, relatively narrow & level driveways leading to an opening large enough for vehicles with slide-outs and to the picnic table & firepit, with room also for a screened tent. The sites are heavily wooded, yet we had enough sunlight over the driveway to get some solar power for part of the day. We did not hear the highway from our campsite.
We were in the lower level part of the campground. Some of these campsites had a partial River view. From our campsite we could clearly hear the River rushing by. The upper level campsites had views from above but were still heavily wooded. There was no check-in time and no check-out time – come and go as you like. There was no fee to camp. We loved it and would absolutely stay here again. There was a 14-day camping limit.
Marble River Recreation Site, near Marble River Provincial Park: There was no information posted with phone numbers or campground information. We would assume you could get information from the internet. The Recreation site was between Port McNeill and Port Alice off Highway 30, Vancouver Island, British Columbia Canada.
- 2022 – 08/02-08/08