Please join us for a free, public educational program during Iowa Project Aware at Lake Darling State Park. We are welcoming Bill Quackenbush, Tribal Historic Preservation Officer for the Ho-Chunk Nation, to tell us about recent discoveries of dugout canoes and show us his dugout replica.
About the talk:
This presentation provides an overview of the past, present, and future of the Ho-Chunk Nation and their connection to some of the oldest known watercrafts in the Great Lakes region. Since 2021, archaeologists have recovered two dugout canoes (1,200 and 3,000 years old!) from the bottom of Lake Mendota in Madison, Wisconsin. Since then, Bill Quackenbush and the Ho-Chunk Nation have created their own replica canoe to take on journeys down rivers that are ancestrally significant, including waterways in Iowa. Learn about the extraction of the dugouts from Lake Mendota and the importance of the recent regional canoe journeys.
About the speaker:
William “Nąąwącekǧize” Quackenbush, Ho-Chunk Deer Clan Member, is the Tribal Historic Preservation Officer and Cultural Resources Division Manager for the Ho-Chunk Nation in Wisconsin. Bill educates his Tribe, Wisconsin, and regional communities about preservation, environmental, and cultural issues that affect the Ho-Chunk Nation.
