Here & Now

The Epic History of Ancient Native Canoes in Lake Mendota

Frederica Freyberg:
In recent days, divers announced the discovery of a 150-year-old shipwreck in Lake Michigan. The Lac La Belle steamer ship sank in 1872. In Madison, historical underwater discoveries date much, much older. Of the 16 ancient canoes found in Lake Mendota, the oldest is 5200 years old, dating back to Indigenous water travel. “Here & Now” and ICT reporter Erica Ayisi tracks their discovery and preservation.

Tamara Thomsen:
Here you see how the contour lines are a little bit flatter. We made it to this turnaround and that’s where the canoe was. Lots of cool stuff you can find in the lake. Just got to go look.

Erica Ayisi:
Tamara Thomsen, maritime archeologist for the Wisconsin Historical Society, went on a recreational dive to the bottom of Lake Mendota in 2021 to collect fishermen debris and told a colleague she saw a long slope exposed through 24ft of water.

Tamara Thomsen:
You know, I really think that was a dugout canoe. I don’t think that that was, that was just a random piece of wood on the bottom but we should get another tank and we should go out. And I think I can find it again.

Erica Ayisi:
And she did.

Tamara Thomsen:
But only the top portion was exposed. So the bottom was still covered with silt and it was just pristine. And it was so nice that I thought, well, it can’t be old.

Erica Ayisi:
Thomsen and a team of archeologists pulled the canoe from the lake and through radiocarbon data analysis, found it to be 1200 years old or young. Two more very, very ancient canoes were found a year later.

Tamara Thomsen:
One ended up being 3000 years old, which is recovered and in the tank. And then we found another one next to it, a little bit shorter, 2000 years old.

Erica Ayisi:
Thompson says the canoes are at least 15ft long and made of cottonwood, elm and oak.

Tamara Thomsen:
Red oak is very porous, and so they, they would have had to understand how to seal that cellular structure in the canoe when they were building it in order to make the vessel watertight.

Erica Ayisi:
A total of 16 canoes were found in Lake Mendota between 2022 and 2025. The oldest is 5200 years old.

Tamara Thomsen:
To put yourself in that place and think what were, what were these people like? What were they doing in these canoes? And then why are all these canoes in this one spot?

Erica Ayisi:
So at what point in this did you start reaching out to Wisconsin’s native nations?

Tamara Thomsen:
Before any of the canoes were recovered, there was consultation with the Native Nations of Wisconsin.

Erica Ayisi:
Lawrence Plucinski, Tribal historic preservation officer for the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, helped with the preservation process when the second canoe was pulled from the lake. He says his ancestors used inland waterways as transportation between one side of the lake to the other to harvest, hunt, and fish.

Lawrence Plucinski:
You couldn’t carry much because they weren’t like the total dugout type canoes. You know, some were more leveler.

Erica Ayisi:
So what does that mean the fact that they didn’t carry and take them with them, they were left there?

Lawrence Plucinski:
The canoes were not owned by each individual or whatever. It was like a community.

Erica Ayisi:
There are no plans to move the remaining 14 canoes that are sitting here at the bottom of Lake Mendota. In a decision made collaboratively between Thomsen and Wisconsin’s Native Nations with the goal of responsible stewardship.

Lawrence Plucinski:
We’re not in the business of bringing up the canoes, especially the shape that they were in. They would have — they broke apart in your hand if you brought them up.

Erica Ayisi:
The two extracted canoes are sitting in a makeshift tank filled with polyethylene glycol at the State Preservation Facility in Madison to stabilize the fragile but heavy wood and then freeze dry them.

Tamara Thomsen:
Any water that’s left in the cellular structure will be taken off.

Erica Ayisi:
One canoe will be stored at the preservation facility, and the other will be on display at the upcoming Wisconsin History Center, where Plucinski says their Indigenous history can be preserved.

Lawrence Plucinski:
Let our knowledge be told, you know. Let our history be told of how we traveled.

Erica Ayisi:
In Madison, I’m Erica Ayisi for “Here & Now” and ICT.