Wanaki Loop
- Right now
- Nobody has saidNo season, no closure, no bookings to read
- A night
- $21From, per site
- Sites
- 4225 on recreation.gov
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 5 notices
In the agency’s own words
Wanaki Loop is part of the Norway Beach Recreation Area, at the southern shores of beautiful Cass Lake in north central Minnesota. The campground is a perfect location for family camping, with 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 located within the campground. 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 enrollees. Programs and displays depict Dakota and Ojibwe heritage and the area's flora and fauna. A variety of special events are held at the center throughout the year. A kid's fishing day is held in June, Bald Eagle Day is sometime in July, and Smokey Bear's birthday party is held in August. Interpretive programs are offered every Wednesday, Friday and Saturday, from Memorial Day through Labor Day.
Facilities
The campground offers single-family sites. Flush and vault toilets, showers and drinking water are provided.
Natural Features
The campground is situated on the banks of Cass Lake, in a forest of mature red and white pine trees. Some sites have lake views and are near the loop's sandy beach. 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 is located four 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 (camper, RV, pop-up, family tent) per site; additional units will be charged an additional fee
First-come, first-served sites may be available after the reservation season
Click here for more information on the Chippewa National Forest
Everything else this campground posts · 2
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.
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
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 42
- Hookups
- None
- Longest rig
- 70 ft
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Allowed
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- “…offers single-family sites. Flush and vault toilets, showers and drinking water are provided. Natural…”
- Drinking water
- Yes
- “…Flush and vault toilets, showers and drinking water are provided. Natural Features The campground is…”
- Boat ramp
- Yes
- Camp host
- On site
- recreation.gov lists “Host”
Around the campground
- On the water
- Lake, Beach
- Biking
- Boating
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Historic site
- Ranger programs
- Swimming
- Wildlife viewing
- Night sky · 68th darkest of 77 in MN
- Bortle 3
No reading yet, book on recreation.gov
recreation.gov lists 25 of the 42 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.
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.
Tell me when the season opens
Watch for the season to open
One email when the season goes on sale, plus More Than Just Parks dispatches. Unsubscribe any time.
We check once an hour, at 40 minutes past, and write the first time the agency has that season on sale.
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, $21 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
42 sites · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 25 mapped sitesAll 42 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. 42 of the 42 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
| S&P | Standard S&P | type not stated | 60 ft | $21 | ||
| Wanaki | 150 | standard nonelectric | 127 ft | 181 ft | $21 | |
| Wanaki | 151 | standard nonelectric | 93 ft | 313 ft | $21 | |
| Wanaki | 152 | standard nonelectric | 108 ft | 200 ft | $21 | |
| Wanaki | 153 | standard nonelectric | 91 ft | 317 ft | $21 | |
| Wanaki | 154 | standard nonelectric | 102 ft | 210 ft | $21 | |
| Wanaki | 155 | standard nonelectric | 91 ft | 328 ft | $21 | |
| Wanaki | 156 | standard nonelectric | 74 ft | 232 ft | $21 | |
| Wanaki | 157 | standard nonelectric | 76 ft | 363 ft | $21 | |
| Wanaki | 159 | standard nonelectric | 65 ft | 240 ft | $21 | |
| Wanaki | 160 | standard nonelectric | 76 ft | 378 ft | $21 | |
| Wanaki | 161 | standard nonelectric | 76 ft | 392 ft | $21 | |
| Wanaki | 162 | standard nonelectric | 65 ft | 246 ft | $21 | |
| Wanaki | 163 | standard nonelectric | 73 ft | 272 ft | $21 | |
| Wanaki | 164 | standard nonelectric | 190 ft | 470 ft | $21 | |
| WANAKI LOOP | 125 | type not stated | 60 ft | 787 ft | $21 | |
| WANAKI LOOP | 126 | type not stated | 60 ft | 711 ft | $21 | |
| WANAKI LOOP | 127 | type not stated | 60 ft | 783 ft | $21 | |
| WANAKI LOOP | 129 | type not stated | 60 ft | 772 ft | $21 | |
| WANAKI LOOP | 130 | type not stated | 70 ft | 686 ft | $21 | |
| WANAKI LOOP | 131 | type not stated | 60 ft | 782 ft | $21 | |
| WANAKI LOOP | 131A | type not stated | 70 ft | 759 ft | $21 | |
| WANAKI LOOP | 132 | type not stated | 60 ft | 683 ft | $21 | |
| WANAKI LOOP | 133 | type not stated | 60 ft | 727 ft | $21 | |
| WANAKI LOOP | 134 | type not stated | 60 ft | 698 ft | $21 | |
| WANAKI LOOP | 135 | type not stated | 60 ft | 656 ft | $21 | |
| WANAKI LOOP | 136 | type not stated | 60 ft | 618 ft | $21 | |
| WANAKI LOOP | 137 | type not stated | 60 ft | 625 ft | $21 | |
| WANAKI LOOP | 138 | type not stated | 60 ft | 574 ft | $21 | |
| WANAKI LOOP | 139 | type not stated | 60 ft | 552 ft | $21 | |
| WANAKI LOOP | 140 | standard nonelectric | 60 ft | 71 ft | 333 ft | $21 |
| WANAKI LOOP | 141 | type not stated | 50 ft | 336 ft | $21 | |
| WANAKI LOOP | 142 | standard nonelectric | 60 ft | 71 ft | 266 ft | $21 |
| WANAKI LOOP | 143 | standard nonelectric | 60 ft | 87 ft | 216 ft | $21 |
| WANAKI LOOP | 144 | standard nonelectric | 60 ft | 87 ft | 155 ft | $21 |
| WANAKI LOOP | 145 | standard nonelectric | 60 ft | 75 ft | 208 ft | $21 |
| WANAKI LOOP | 146 | standard nonelectric | 55 ft | 95 ft | 107 ft | $21 |
| WANAKI LOOP | 147 | standard nonelectric | 60 ft | 114 ft | 96 ft | $21 |
| WANAKI LOOP | 148 | standard nonelectric | 114 ft | 142 ft | $21 | |
| WANAKI LOOP | 165 | standard nonelectric | 131 ft | 652 ft | $21 | |
| WANAKI LOOP | 166 | standard nonelectric | 125 ft | 680 ft | $21 | |
| WANAKI LOOP | 167 | standard nonelectric | 125 ft | 651 ft | $21 |
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.
25 of 42 listed
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Norway Beach LoopChippewa National Forest · 0.0 miCass Lake Campground LoopChippewa National Forest · 0.4 mi
Chippewa LoopChippewa National Forest · 0.7 miWanaki Campground LoopChippewa National Forest · 0.7 mi
Cass Lake Loop3.8 mi
South Pike BayChippewa National Forest · 4.4 miFrom Cass Lake, Minn., take U.S. Highway 2 east for 4 miles, to the Norway Beach Recreation Area. Turn left and follow the campground road until the signs indicate the Wanaki Campground.
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
Wanaki 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 →