Grand Portage Band of Lake Superior Chippewa
A people
Background
The Band's people once inhabited a vast area around Gichigami and throughout what is today Ontario and Minnesota, and they live, hunt, fish and gather in the same territory as their ancestors. In 1854 the Grand Portage Anishinaabe leaders signed the Treaty of LaPointe, ceding the majority of their homelands to the United States. The Band is one of the six bands of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe, as established by constitution in 1934. Government is the Reservation Tribal Council: five elected members, three at-large committee persons, a Secretary and Treasurer, and a Chairperson, serving staggered four-year terms. The Grand Portage Natural Resources program began in the 1930s and expanded in 1992 into the Grand Portage Trust Lands Agency, which now runs five departments, Forestry, Biology, Environment, Conservation Enforcement, and Realty and Roads. That agency protects the natural resources of the reservation and the surrounding 1854 Ceded Territory for the tribe today and seven generations from now, which it calls the Ojibwe philosophy of seventh generation planning. The same thinking runs through its ecosystem health work, which treats humans, animals and their shared environment as interconnected. A 2026 news release on the Band's site records the return of historic tribal land through a partnership with the Lloyd K. Johnson Foundation, restoring ownership lost over the last 200 years.
Visit and learn
Grand Portage Band of Lake Superior Chippewa's own site
Tribal lands have their own laws. Check the nation's site before you visit.
Parks on its homelands
Isle Royale National ParkIn 2011 the Grand Portage Band signed a self-governance agreement with Isle Royale under which the Band funds National Park Service projects, and in 2019 NPS designated Minong, the island's Anishinaabe name, a traditional cultural property of the Band. The Band's flag first flew in Washington Harbor in 2021 and was raised in Rock Harbor on June 12, 2024. Source
Programs
Indigenous Coast Guard (Genawaaboonagak)
A marine rescue program the Band's site calls the first of its kind in the country. It grew out of testimony to the Minnesota Legislature after the regional boat station closed in 2022 and produced three million dollars in state bonding money. Four custom vessels were commissioned from a builder in Duluth, with the Band keeping two and gifting one each to Cook and Lake counties, and the agencies staffing them from May through November for patrols, safety checks and aquatic rescues. The first vessel, delivered in 2025, is a 34-foot rigid hull inflatable boat 39 feet overall, powered by twin 350-horsepower motors and carrying GPS, radar, sonar, thermal and video imaging, an autopilot, spotlights, sirens and a tow reel, and it can run past 50 miles per hour loaded. Less than 18 hours after delivery the crew towed a disabled 25-foot boat and four people 14 miles back to Grand Portage in heavy seas.
Anishinaabe Academic Center
Part of the Band's Education and Scholarship Department, whose stated mission is to help Grand Portage students reach secondary and postsecondary success through tutoring and financial aid. The Academic Center gives individual and small-group support to Native American students in grades K through 12 living in Grand Portage and across Cook County, and has a dedicated room inside the ISD166 schools. The Tribe's wider program list also includes Health Services, Human Services, a Community Center, Head Start, daycare, an Elderly Nutrition Program, Food Distribution and Community Services.
Sources
- https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2026-01-30/html/2026-01899.htm
- https://www.grandportageband.com/
- https://www.grandportageband.com/government
- https://www.grandportageband.com/tribal-land-resources/
- https://www.grandportageband.com/grand-portage-band-regains-historic-tribal-land/
Checked September 2026.