This site is one of a couple camp sites in the Huntersville State Forest. It is an authorized 1855 Treaty Territory Educational Site, on the City and Horse Camp campgrounds.
Please conduct yourself accordingly.
You are invited to come visit and stay at the rough camp (bathrooms and water onsite - regular camp fees apply to non 1855 Treaty Card holders - but some are large paid-for group sites exist), on the Shell River, across from the Shell City Ghost Town, Minnesota for several 2-3 hour paddles from the Shell City Campground landings and/or Shell City bridge, to the Crow River Tree Farm public landing in Wadena County, Minnesota on Saturday afternoon July 3rd and 4th.
This site is an 1855 Treaty Authority sanctioned site (White Earth, Leech Lake, Sandy Lake, East Lake and Mille Lacs) for educational, cultural and harvesting activities by citizens of the Anishinaabe Nation and their helpers. This stretch of the Shell River, along with the Crow Wing River are sites of 10,000 years of continuous activity by Indigenous peoples with burial grounds, numerous mound sites and archaeological historic significance trails and village sites.
The Shell City rough campgrounds sits on the site of a historic contemporary Woodland village site, across from a European, mixed blood village that most recently used the clam shell for producing buttons -- not exactly a new idea for the clams, but done after removal from the village site of Ojibwe people after the Treaty of 1855.
1855 Treaty Food vendors (1855 Treaty Citizens are exempt from civil regulatory issues for vendors, but are still subject to IHS/Pow Wow vendor standards (no electricity but your own on site) and Indigenous drum and hand drum music (other musicians are welcome to join us over the course of both days) on site along with many other odds and ends to still be put into place.
No specific contacts for anything -- be self-sufficient, this is a public park, you are welcome to come.
Shell City Ghost Town Campgrounds, Shell River, Huntersville State Forest, 1855 Treaty Territory.
(About 15 minutes south of Park Rapids, MN).
We also have room for more campers at the adjacent Shell River horse camp.
1855 Treaty Food and Native Artists Vendors welcome.
Photos by Keri Pickett
