Red Cliff Reservation for First-Time Visitors

Highway 13 runs north out of Bayfield, and within three miles you are on Band land. The Red Cliff Reservation is home to the Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, an Ojibwe nation with its own government, police, courts and businesses, and visitors are welcome at a good number of places along the shore. Coming here as a guest is easy. Coming here as a good guest takes a little reading beforehand.

This covers what the reservation is, what is open to visitors and when, how to behave at a pow wow, and where your money stays in the community.

What is the Red Cliff Reservation?

The Red Cliff Reservation is the homeland of the Red Cliff Band, set aside under the 1854 Treaty of La Pointe, with the reservation lands confirmed after the US Senate amended that treaty in 1863. It stretches along 22 miles of Lake Superior shoreline at the tip of the Bayfield Peninsula, a narrow band about a mile wide covering roughly 14,000 acres within its outer boundaries, according to the Band.

In Ojibwe the community is Gaa-Miskwaabikaang, and the Band is one of the bands of the Lake Superior Ojibwe whose history centers on Madeline Island and Chequamegon Bay. For the history in the Band's own words, the Red Cliff Band's website has a Miskwaabekong History page, and it is a better starting point than any summary here.

A nine-member tribal council governs the Band. The reservation has its own police department, tribal court and conservation wardens, and Band rules apply on Band land alongside the ones you already know.

Getting oriented in Red Cliff

Highway 13 is the spine of the reservation. The resort, campground, marina, distillery and kayak outfitter all sit within half a mile of each other around Buffalo Bay, with the fish market just south on Dock Road and the tribal offices on Pike Road.

Red Cliff also has the first dual-language road sign in Wisconsin, in Ojibwe and English. North of the bay the road runs through forest toward Frog Bay and Point Detour, with gravel side roads to the shore.

Ojibwe language and treaty rights

Ojibwe is a living language here. The Band runs an Ojibwemowin program, a summer language camp and an Ojibwe immersion program for young children, and the trail signs at Frog Bay name plants and animals in Ojibwe alongside English.

Fishing is at the center of the Band's story. In 1972, in the case of Gurnoe versus Wisconsin, the Wisconsin Supreme Court sided with a Red Cliff tribal member and upheld the Band's treaty right to fish. The smoked whitefish at the fish market comes out of that history.

What's open to visitors on the reservation

Visitors are welcome at Frog Bay Tribal National Park, Legendary Waters and its two campgrounds, the Band's fish market, the fish hatchery, the farm stand and the pow wows. Those are the places set up for the public, and they make a full day or a long weekend.

Out on the land, Frog Bay Tribal National Park is the first tribal national park in the United States, with forest trails to a sand beach 3.6 miles north of the casino. For a night or two, Buffalo Bay Campground sits beside the resort on the bay.

Further out, Point Detour Campground offers rustic tent sites 8.2 miles north. The Band's fish hatchery, which raises trout and stocks walleye, offers public tours, and the Mino Bimaadiziiwin Farm, meaning return to the good life, runs a seasonal farm stand. The full day in Red Cliff strings these together.

See the history wall at Legendary Waters

You do not need to gamble or stay the night to look at it. The resort is also the front desk for the Band's campgrounds and marina, and the place to ask about anything happening on the reservation that week.

The Band also publishes a visitor guide and a business directory on its tourism page, and its tourism office answers questions by email, which is the surest way to check an event or opening before you travel.

The Red Cliff Pow Wow

The annual Red Cliff Pow Wow is held the first weekend of July on the grounds at Highway 13 and Aiken Road, and it is open to the public. It has run for close to fifty years, with the 48th held in July 2026.

Expect an admission fee, a Grand Entry each day, contest categories for drum groups and dancers, a feast on Saturday, and food and craft vendors around the arena. The grounds are ADA accessible. The Band also hosts a Winter Pow Wow at Legendary Waters each January.

The Band describes its pow wow as a way of passing Anishinaabe and Ojibwe traditions on to the next generation, which is the spirit to arrive in. July is also the warmest month here, so plan around July weather on the peninsula: hot sun in the arena, cool evenings by the lake.

How to be a good guest at a pow wow

Listen to the emcee, stand when asked for Grand Entry and honor songs, stay out of the arena until the emcee invites visitors in for an intertribal, and ask before you photograph or record anyone. These are general pow wow manners, and the emcee announces any rules particular to Red Cliff.

Dress modestly, and leave alcohol, drugs and firearms at home; they are not allowed on pow wow grounds. Do not sit on the benches around the arena, which are kept for dancers and their families, and bring your own chair.

Regalia is not a costume. Do not touch it, and if a dancer drops a feather or another piece, do not pick it up; tell a member of the pow wow staff. Buying lunch and a craft from the vendors is a good way to take part.

Red Cliff Cultural Days in September

Red Cliff Cultural Days, which the Band also calls Red Cliff Days, is the Band's late-summer celebration in September. The schedule changes from year to year, so check the Band's events calendar or the Events tab here before you plan a trip around it.

Respect boundaries on Band land

Stay on public trails and roads, and turn back at boundary signs. The 300-acre Frog Creek Conservation Management Area around Frog Bay, created by the tribal council in 2017, is open only to tribal members, and only the national park area within it is open to the public.

Tribal police enforce park hours at the park’s public trails, which open at sunrise and close at sunset. Hunting, fishing and gathering on Band land need the right permits from the Band's Treaty Natural Resources Division, so check before you cast a line.

Some places on the reservation are cultural or ceremonial sites rather than attractions, so if something is not signed as open to visitors, treat it as closed. Ordinary courtesy covers the rest. Homes along the highway are private, so do not wander onto driveways for a lake view, and leave no trace on trails and beaches.

Buy from Native-owned businesses

Spending money where it stays in the community is the simplest way to be a good visitor. The Band owns the fish company, the resort, the campgrounds, the marina and the Buffalo Bay Store, and several Band members run their own businesses.

On the water, Rustic Makwa Den’s kayak trips come from a Native-owned outfitter running guided trips along the Red Cliff shoreline, a good way to see the red sandstone that gave the place its name. And if you need a doctor while visiting, the Red Cliff Community Health Center is open to the public.