Dawson WMA (Kidder County)
Dawson Wildlife Management Area is 2,937 acres of state wildlife land in Kidder County, managed by the North Dakota Game and Fish Department, and you may camp on it free. That is not a rumour off a listing site -- it is how the state rule works: North Dakota Administrative Code 30-04-02-01 opens every WMA to 'public hunting, fishing, and trapping, or other compatible public use', and 30-04-02-11 sets the only real limit, 'camping for longer than ten consecutive days on any wildlife management area is prohibited'. There is no camping fee and, unlike South Dakota and Oklahoma, North Dakota does NOT make you buy a license or a conservation pass just to be on the land. Now the honest part: this is primitive dispersed camping on a wildlife area, not a campground. Assume NO toilets, NO drinking water, NO tables, NO fire rings and no marked sites unless you happen to find them. You may gather downed wood for a campfire, but you may not mow or cut vegetation to clear a campsite, you may not leave a trailer or tent set up unless you are actually sleeping in it, and you may not dump holding tanks on the area. Vehicles must stay on the constructed roads, established trails and parking areas that a passenger car would normally use -- do not drive out across the grass. Camping is also prohibited on any WMA where it is posted as such at the road entry, so READ THE SIGN at the entrance you use; the posted sign beats anything we can tell you here. These are working wildlife areas, so expect hunters in season and plan your visibility accordingly. The pin is a representative point inside the unit boundary, not a campsite -- you will need to find your own spot off an established access. Confirm current rules with ND Game and Fish at (701) 328-6300 before you go.
Everything you need — measured from Dawson WMA (Kidder County) · North Dakota Game & Fish · ND
- MMechanic6 mi
- @Mail9 mi
- FFuel9 mi
- GGrocery10 mi
- LLaundry22 mi
- RxPharmacy45 mi
- DDump47 mi
- EVEV fast charger48 mi
- HHardware48 mi
- +Urgent care49 mi
The read: fuel & food sit about 9 mi out, the nearest EV fast charger is a 48-mi run (and back).
Not within 60 mi: Water, Propane. Plan those before you head up.
One dot per need — the nearest of each kind, straight-line from camp. Places from OpenStreetMap (© OpenStreetMap contributors); the EV fast charger from the US DOE station locator. Open in Google Maps ↗
The site — Dawson WMA (Kidder County)
Nearby & resupply — around Dawson WMA (Kidder County) · North Dakota Game & Fish · ND (OpenStreetMap)
- Water featurenone named within 1 mi (USGS NHD)
- Nearest townDawson · ~7.2 mi
- Nearest rail line~7.2 mi · main line
- Nearest highway~7.8 mi · Interstate 94
- Drinking waternone within 10 mi
- FuelFarmers Union Oil Company · ~26.5 mi
- Propane / LPGnone within 31 mi
- GroceriesSupervalu Foods · ~10.4 mi
EV charging — from Dawson WMA (Kidder County) · North Dakota Game & Fish · ND — nearest public DC fast & Level 2 (US DOE station data)
- Nearest public DC fast charger48.3 mi straight-line W — AIRPORT BIS AIRPORT, Bismarck, ND · ChargePoint Network · CHAdeMO, CCS · 1 fast port listed · listed open, last confirmed by AFDC 2026-09-16 · hours: 24 hours daily · directions
- Public DC fast stations within reachnone within 25 mi · 7 within 50 · 19 within 100 · 45 within 150
- Nearest listing NACS (Tesla)48.8 mi — Jamestown, ND - Tesla Supercharger, Jamestown
- Nearest public Level 2 (J1772)48.8 mi — RM Stoudt, Jamestown, ND (at a car dealership) · Non-Networked · J1772 · 2 Level 2 ports listed · listed open, last confirmed by AFDC 2025-07-03 · hours: Dealership business hours
- Also listed, not counted aboveLevel 2, restricted access — Jamestown Regional Medical Center, Jamestown, 47.6 mi · J1772 · hours: 24 hours daily; for employee use only
- Pricing at the fast chargernot listed
- Power (kW)not listed by AFDC — “DC fast” spans roughly 24 to 350 kW, so ask the network.
- Read this honestlyStraight-line miles, like every distance on this site. Roads run longer than this, and you have to get back. We know where a charger is listed. We don’t know if it works today, how fast it is, or the road miles. Check the network before you commit.
Snapshot 2026-09-16 · AFDC record 193286 · US DOE Alternative Fuels Data Center
Nearby restrooms — around Dawson WMA (Kidder County) · North Dakota Game & Fish · ND — pit toilets, restrooms & rest areas (government data)
- RestroomFederal restroom · ~3.9 mi N · FWS
- Highway rest areaCrystal Springs EB · ~14.1 mi NE
- Highway rest areaMedina WB · ~16.0 mi NE
- RestroomFederal restroom · ~24.2 mi W · FWS
Coming out here — Dawson WMA (Kidder County) · North Dakota Game & Fish · ND
- No named surface water mapped within 1 mi of the pin in USGS's National Hydrography Dataset (data refreshed October 2022), and none within about a mile and a half in our OpenStreetMap pull — which is not proof there is none, only that neither map has one. Plan to carry washing water as well as drinking water.
- Ground slope around the pin: about 1.5% — flat. Measured on USGS's 3DEP elevation model (1 m data here), sampled every 10 metres around the point. That is the hillside, not the ground under your wheels — a graded pullout or a bench a few metres across is too small to show up at that spacing, and nobody has checked this one for you.
- Rail line mapped ~7.2 mi from the pin — the national rail atlas classes it as a main line. That is the FRA/BTS North American Rail Network (data updated Jul 21, 2026), which records that a line is there and what class of track it is. Whether anything runs on it, how often, and at what hour, it does not say, and nobody has checked this one for you.
- Interstate 94 is mapped ~7.8 mi from the pin. Straight-line, from the Census's TIGER/Line primary roads (TIGER/Line 2025, released Oct 2025) — the divided, limited-access highways, which is why a state expressway or a two-lane US route near this camp would not appear here.
- Assume no services at all. Most dispersed camping in a national forest has none: no tap, no power, no dump, often no toilet. Everything you need, you bring.
- Power: Dave carries his own — batteries or solar. A generator will run your rig and it is also the thing everybody camped near you can hear.
- Getting online: Dave recommends Starlink. He has had it since SpaceX introduced it, used it for four years living on the road, and it delivers as promised — several hundred nights out, and he can count on one hand the places he could not connect. The cable on his unit runs 150 feet, which is usually all it takes to find enough sky. Starlink → Referral link — Starlink pays Dave $100 in cash if you sign up through it, and that money funds this site and the next trip. It costs you nothing and does not change the recommendation.
Open Dawson WMA (Kidder County) elsewhere
Other camps near Dawson WMA (Kidder County)
If this one is full, gated or washed out.
Who holds the land at Dawson WMA (Kidder County)
USGS’s Protected Areas Database (PAD-US 4.1, queried 2026-09-23) lists the ground at this pin as Dawson, manager on record: a state fish and wildlife agency. That names who holds the land — it is not a statement that camping is permitted here.
How we know this — Dawson WMA (Kidder County)
What we don’t know about Dawson WMA (Kidder County)
A land record can put you within a few meters of a spot. It cannot tell you any of this — so check it yourself, and treat anything below as the open question it is.
- Road surface & last-mile access
- How many rigs actually fit
- Cell coverage by carrier
- Seasonal & winter access
- Current fire restrictions
- Whether any water here is drinkable
- Shade & wind exposure
- Noise and who else shows up
- Whether a listed EV charger works today, or the road miles to it