East Seelye Bay
- Right now
- Nobody has saidNo season, no closure, no bookings to read
- A night
- $16From, per site
- Sites
- 1413 on recreation.gov
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 5 notices
In the agency’s own words
East Seelye Bay Campground is located 20 Miles north of Deer River off Highway 46 and 4 miles west on Eagle Nest Road (FR 2198). East Seelye Bay has 13 first-come, first-served campsites, a picnic area, swimming beach, boat ramp, and parking area. The Chippewa National Forest and the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe work together to co-steward resources - making the Forest a great place to recreate as well as a special place where cultural and traditional resources are protected and preserved and the Band’s treaty rights are respected. Keep reading
Recreation
Opportunities for fishing, swimming and boating on Lake Winnibigoshish abound. The Cut Foot Sioux National Recreation Trail runs past the campground and along Seelye Point, it is an unpaved trail used for hiking and horseback riding. The East Seelye Point Trail also runs through the campground, and there is easy access down the road to the Simpson Creek Trail system. Facilities
What the agency tells you
Fee includes one camping unit per site. Double occupancy is not permitted on single unit sites; on large sites double occupancy is permitted. The second occupant must pay the full nightly amount for each night of stay by using a fee envelope at the entrance kiosk. Please read the fee board upon entering the campground to see what qualifies for single and double occupancy. Vehicles and/or trailers must not block any part of roadways or gates at any time.
Some important campground rules: - Quiet hours are from 10pm – 6am. Generators cannot be run during this time. If you have a medical condition that requires powered equipment, please plan accordingly with battery backup. - Pets are welcome but must remain on a leash 6' or shorter in length at all times. Pets are not allowed in beach areas. - Campfires cannot be left unattended. They must be extinguished before the campsite is vacated. - Fireworks, including sparklers, are not allowed. - Cutting/damaging live vegetation is not allowed. You may gather dead and downed wood for campfires if it fits within the fire ring. - The use of power saws, including electric chainsaws, is strictly prohibited. - Off-highway vehicles are not permitted on Eagle Nest Road. If desiring to use OHVs, vehicle must be trailered to a road where OHV use is permitted. All regulations are found under 36 CFR 261 and are punishable by fines.
Northern Minnesota is home to black bears. Campers must keep coolers and other bear attractants locked inside hard-sided campers or in vehicles when not attended, including overnight. Black bears are present and active within the campground area. Feeding any wildlife, including hanging bird feeders, is strictly prohibited. NEW FOR 2025: Chippewa National Forest Campground Food Storage Order
Everything else this campground posts · 2
Bundled firewood is no longer available in Chippewa National Forest campgrounds. Firewood may be available for sale at local vendors, or may be brought from home if within Itasca County. You may also cut dead and downed wood in the forest without a permit as long as it will be used in the campground. Chainsaw use (gas and electric) is not permitted in the campground. 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.
Click here for more information on the Chippewa National Forest. For more information on tribal camping, click here.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 14
- Hookups
- None
- Accessible sites
- None listed
Facilities
- Boat ramp
- Yes
- Camp host
- On site
- recreation.gov lists “Host”
Around the campground
- On the water
- Lake, River, Creek, Beach, Coast
- Berry Picking
- Biking
- Birding
- Boating
- Canoeing
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Horseback riding
- Kayaking
- Mushroom Picking
- Paddling
- Scenic drives
- Stargazing
- Swimming
Nothing on the booking system for the next 30 nightsread 15:33 UTC
recreation.gov lists 13 of the 14 campsites the agency files here. The rest aren’t on its booking system, so a reservation won’t get you one.
Every one of the next thirty nights is in recreation.gov’s record and not one site is being offered on any of them. That’s a campground closed or not yet released for booking, not a sold-out one.
Watch for a cancellation
Full? Watch it.
One email when a night opens, plus More Than Just Parks dispatches. Unsubscribe any time.
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 · 12
What you actually pay
Derived by CAMPANAC: the agency’s published rate for this season, $16 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
recreation.gov availability, read 15:33 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
14 sites · the site map
All 14 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. 13 of the 14 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
Measured shade is NLCD Tree Canopy Cover 2024 (USDA Forest Service / MRLC) read at the site’s own coordinate, 27% canopy or more, and only for the sites the agency gave no Shade value. It never changes the agency’s own shaded count beside it.
| East Seelye Bay | 01 | standard nonelectric | $16 | |
| East Seelye Bay | 02 | standard nonelectric | $16 | |
| East Seelye Bay | 03 | standard nonelectric | $16 | |
| East Seelye Bay | 04 | standard nonelectric | $16 | |
| East Seelye Bay | 05 | standard nonelectric | $16 | |
| East Seelye Bay | 06 | standard nonelectric | $16 | |
| East Seelye Bay | 07 | standard nonelectric | $16 | |
| East Seelye Bay | 08 | standard nonelectric | $16 | |
| East Seelye Bay | 09 | standard nonelectric | $16 | |
| East Seelye Bay | 10 | standard nonelectric | $16 | |
| East Seelye Bay | 11 | standard nonelectric | $16 | |
| East Seelye Bay | 12 | standard nonelectric | $16 | |
| East Seelye Bay | 13 | standard nonelectric | $16 | |
| Scan and Pay | Standard | type not stated | 175 ft |
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 phone number
Where it is
Deer LakeChippewa National Forest · 0.9 mi
Williams NarrowsChippewa National Forest · 2.1 mi
Mosomo PointChippewa National Forest · 2.3 mi
OnegumeChippewa National Forest · 2.6 miOnegume (ah-ni-gah-mig[k])CampgroundChippewa National Forest · 2.6 mi
Cut Foot Horse CampgroundChippewa National Forest · 2.7 miThe weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Inger, MN
Typical weather
Typical October night 35°F, day 54°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical January night -2°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
who answers for it
Who answers for this land
East Seelye Bay 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 →