Cass Lake Loop
- Right now
- Nobody has saidNo season, no closure, no bookings to read
- A night
- $14From, per site
- Sites
- 1312 on recreation.gov
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 3 notices
In the agency’s own words
Cass Lake Loop is part of the Norway Beach Recreation Area on beautiful Cass Lake in north central Minnesota. Visitors enjoy the area for its excellent boating and fishing opportunities. Keep reading
Recreation
Cass Lake offers many recreational activities, including boating, canoeing, water skiing and swimming. Anglers fish for walleye, Northern pike, perch and trophy muskie. A boat ramp is nearby. Star Island, in the middle of Cass Lake, is a unique feature of the Chippewa National Forest. Six miles of trails wind around the island, which is home to 199-acre Lake Windigo. Hiking and biking trails are available in the area, including the Migizi Bike Trail and the Norway Beach Trail. The Norway Beach Visitor Center is nearby. This building, with its magnificent fireplace, is a monument to the talents and craftsmanship of Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) enrollees. Programs and displays depict Dakota and Ojibway heritage and the area's flora and fauna. Special annual events are held at the center including a Kids Fishing Day in June, Bald Eagle Day in July and Smokey Bear's Birthday Party in August. Interpretive programs are offered Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays from Memorial Day through Labor Day.
Facilities
The campground offers several single-family sites, two of which are accessible. Accessible vault toilets and a hand pump for water are also available.
Natural Features
The campground is located on the banks of Cass Lake, among a scenic forest of mature red and white pine. Cass Lake is the largest of eight lakes that make up the Cass Lake Chain of Lakes. The lake covers nearly 16,000 acres and has 27 miles of forested shoreline and sandy beaches.
Nearby Attractions
The town of Cass Lake, Minnesota is 4 miles west of the campground, offering restaurants, a bank, grocery and hardware stores, a movie theater and museum.
What the agency tells you
Fee includes one camping unit (Tent) per site; additional units will be charged an additional fee. Walk-in only some sites can be accessed by boat.
Click here for more information on the Chippewa National Forest
Don't move firewood: To limit the spread of invasive tree-killing pests, firewood from outside the area is not permitted. Some states have quarantines and may confiscate your firewood. Please help protect our forests from invasive species by obtaining your firewood at or near your camping destination and burning it on-site. Visit dontmovefirewood.org for more information.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 13 · 12 tent-only
- Hookups
- None
- Accessible sites
- 3
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- ACCESSIBLE VAULT TOILETS on 9 of 13 campsite records
- Drinking water
- Yes
- DRINKING WATER (HAND PUMP) on 9 of 13 campsite records, ACCESSIBLE DRINKING WATER on 9 of 13 campsite records
- Boat ramp
- Yes
Around the campground
- On the water
- Lake, Beach
- Biking
- Boating
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Swimming
- Water sports
- Wildlife viewing
No reading yet, book on recreation.gov
recreation.gov lists 12 of the 13 campsites the agency files here. The rest aren’t on its booking system, so a reservation won’t get you one.
No availability snapshot inside the last 36 hours, so this page draws nothing rather than ageing a reading into fiction.
Watch for a cancellation
Full? Watch it.
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We read recreation.gov once an hour, at 40 minutes past, and write the first time a site in your window is free for the nights you asked for.
Scanners that check every few minutes exist, and most of them charge. This one is free, it reads the same calendar, and it won’t always be first.
We make nothing when you book. The link goes straight to the government.
Every line of the receipt · 13
What you actually pay
Derived by CAMPANAC: the agency’s published rate for this season, $14 a night, plus one $8 recreation.gov reservation fee for the booking. A weekend here means Friday and Saturday night, booked once. Optional charges (an extra vehicle, a second tent, a dump-station fee) are listed separately and aren’t in this total.
Who keeps the booking fee
The agency’s own policy text says the reservation fee and the cancellation processing fee are “retained by the reservation service contractor”, and that a campground concessionaire will decline to refund them because “they did not receive these fees”. Recreation.gov is run under contract by Booz Allen Hamilton. What share of your booking fee the contractor keeps isn’t published in any federal dataset we can read, so we print no number for it. Our reporting on the contract →
How we know this receipt · 5
rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
13 sites · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 11 mapped sitesAll 13 sites
The price is derived by CAMPANAC, not published per site: the per-night rate this campground publishes for each site’s own site type. 12 of the 13 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
| CASS LAKE LOOP | 001 | tent only nonelectric | 261 ft | 245 ftCass Lake | $14 | |
| CASS LAKE LOOP | 002 | tent only nonelectric | $14 | |||
| CASS LAKE LOOP | 003 | tent only nonelectric | 101 ft | 57 ftCass Lake | $14 | |
| CASS LAKE LOOP | 004 | tent only nonelectric | 81 ft | 143 ftCass Lake | $14 | |
| CASS LAKE LOOP | 005 | tent only nonelectric | 68 ft | 87 ftCass Lake | $14 | |
| CASS LAKE LOOP | 006 | tent only nonelectric | 68 ft | 153 ftCass Lake | $14 | |
| CASS LAKE LOOP | 007 | tent only nonelectric | 78 ft | 99 ftCass Lake | $14 | |
| CASS LAKE LOOP | 008 | tent only nonelectric | yes | 78 ft | 176 ftCass Lake | $14 |
| CASS LAKE LOOP | 009 | tent only nonelectric | 92 ft | 111 ftCass Lake | $14 | |
| CASS LAKE LOOP | 010 | tent only nonelectric | yes | 67 ft | 99 ftCass Lake | $14 |
| CASS LAKE LOOP | 011 | tent only nonelectric | yes | 61 ft | 105 ftCass Lake | $14 |
| CASS LAKE LOOP | 012 | tent only nonelectric | 61 ft | 127 ftCass Lake | $14 | |
| S&P | Standard S&P | type not stated |
OpenStreetMap has no toilet mapped within 1 km of this campground, so no site here carries a toilet distance. That’s a gap in the map, not a finding about the campground.
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Norway Beach LoopChippewa National Forest · 3.8 mi
Wanaki LoopChippewa National Forest · 3.8 mi
South Pike BayChippewa National Forest · 3.8 miWanaki Campground LoopChippewa National Forest · 4.3 mi
Chippewa LoopChippewa National Forest · 4.4 miFollow U.S. Highway 2 east of the city of Cass Lake for 4 miles to the entrance of Norway Beach Recreation Area.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Cass Lake, MN
Typical weather
Typical October night 34°F, day 52°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical January night -4°F, below freezing. Bring a bag rated colder than that, and expect ice in the water bottle.
Daily high and lowDays with 0.10 in or more
A normal is the 1991-2020 average for the month, not a forecast: about half of all Julys are colder than the July line. The seven-day forecast above answers the other question.
The land, and who answers for it
what threatens it · who answers for it
Roadless country, and what’s coming for it
You’re camping on ground somebody wants. We track the threats and the comment deadlines.
Who answers for this land
Cass Lake Loop is in Minnesota’s 8th congressional district. Its representative, Pete Stauber (R), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: F. See every public-lands vote →