Heart of Turtle Island Tour

Come learn how our three unique cultures — Anishinabe, Cree, and Métis– came together in the Turtle Mountains. You will learn about this rich history through guided tours of our most treasured institutions – our Heritage Center and Tribal College. A visit to the Turtle Mountains wouldn’t be complete without meeting a few of our talented artists and makers. Roll up your sleeves and join them in painting buffalo hide, one of our traditional arts, and making gullet bread, a local recipe you can take home to remember your time here.

This tour starts off with a morning visit to the Turtle Mountain Sacred Buffalo who are cared for by our Natural Resource Department. Here you will learn about how the Ojibwe/Cree and Metis came together and formed a band using our different styles to hunt the buffalo in the 1800s and why we came to stay in the Turtle Mountains.

Following a visit to the buffalo pasture, we will visit Don and Julie Cain at their residence. Don works with animal hides in their backyard, cleaning them through a time-consuming process that has remained the same for hundreds of years and using them for traditional arts. Following a hide work demonstration, the group will head back to Sky Dancer Casino and Resort for lunch at Fire’s Edge Restaurant.

In the afternoon, take a guided tour of the Heritage Center, which houses a collection of paintings, drawings, and sculptures representing a large number of different tribal traditions. An expert basketmaker from the community will meet the group for a hands-on basket-making demonstration to end the day.

The following morning, the group will head over to the Turtle Mountain Community College (TMCC) for a gullet bread-making lesson. Our people have been making Le Gulette (bread) since the 18th and 19th centuries, most likely after the encounters of the Scottish and French fur traders. Ojibwe (Indian) and Metis (mixed blood) families have eaten this bread on a daily basis, it is a very old bread that has been handed down through the families here on the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Reservation for years.

While the loaves bake, we will take a guided nature walk around the Anishinaabe campus to learn about the local flora and their practical uses in the past and present. Next, it’s time for lunch on campus, when we can enjoy our fresh baked bread. After lunch, the last activity is a campus tour provided by Dr. Carol Davis, one of the Founders of TMCC. Her in-depth explanation of tribal history, from migration to treaties, is the perfect end to this rich educational experience.

The Turtle Mountains are within the traditional territory of the Plains Ojibwe, as well as part of the Métis homeland. Rapid colonization and settlement in the 19th century, and the establishment of the “Medicine Line” border between Canada and the United States, displaced many Indigenous peoples to and from the region. Those who remained on the US side of the border were identified as the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa.

The Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indian Reservation is located on a six-mile by twelve-mile land base and is considered one of the most densely populated Reservations, per square mile, in the United States. If the Turtle Mountain Reservation was listed as a city, it would be the 5th largest city in North Dakota. The Reservation is near the geographical center of North America in north-central North Dakota, ten miles south of the Canadian Border.

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Native American Cultural Tours provides tribe-specific visitor guidelines prior to each tour to ensure guests are well-informed about appropriate protocols prior to their arrival. You can find answers to general questions about our tours and Native Americans on our FAQ page.