Here & Now

Dane County Returns 165 Acres to the Ho-Chunk Nation

Frederica Freyberg:
In other news, the Ho-Chunk Nation will receive 165 acres of their ancestral homelands in a land transfer. The effort was funded by the Dane County Conservation Fund in collaboration with the county’s Land and Water Department. “Here & Now” reporter Erica Ayisi went to the site to hear how the Ho-Chunk will use the property. This report is in collaboration with ICT, formerly Indian Country Today.

Bill Quackenbush:
Every plant is a resource, right? They say everything our Mother Earth gifts us, like that, is a form of medicine. You just have to find out what it is. So you can smell that.

Erica Ayisi:
Bill Quackenbush, tribal historic preservation officer for the Ho-Chunk Nation, says plants can soothe sores on the body.

Bill Quackenbush:
It allows you to heal a lot better. So it’s a different form of medicine.

Erica Ayisi:
The plants, trees, mounds, and waterways in the Lower Mud Lake Natural Resource Area are a part of 165 acres of property returned to Ho-Chunk Nation from Dane County. Quackenbush says the land acquisition is an opportunity for the public to learn.

Bill Quackenbush:
So the milkweed itself, we call it maahic. You just – during this time of year these heads over here, while they’re really young — you pick that and it doesn’t hurt the plant at all. Once you gain the knowledge and use of it there, that’s something that we tend to pass on from generation to generation the plants.

Erica Ayisi:
Nearly $6.5 million from the Dane County Conservation Fund was used to purchase a private property south of Babcock County Park, including significant frontage along Yahara River, Lower Mud Lake and Lake Waubesa. Dane County will place it in a co-hold conservation easement in partnership with Groundswell Conservancy, a nonprofit environmental organization, to permanently prohibit development, preserve public access and protect the land’s cultural significance.

Tony Abate:
Ho-Chunk Nation will own and manage the land, steward the land in perpetuity.

Erica Ayisi:
Quackenbush says the Ho-Chunk are the land’s original caretakers.

Bill Quackenbush:
We’re the only tribe that has the ability to speak confidently about the — we were the first and original people from this region right here.

Erica Ayisi:
When you say ancestral territories, were Ho-Chunk always here?

Bill Quackenbush:
We have beautiful stories that talk about how we adapted through time from living in a place of refuge and moving back into these first places as that glacier began to recede.

Erica Ayisi:
He says their oral history talks about their cultural and environmental adaptation as Ho-Chunk people moved through the region for thousands of years.

Bill Quackenbush:
That place of refuge that we referred to, today’s society calls Driftless Area.

Erica Ayisi:
He says their indigenous language mentions ‘red banks’ of the past that are still evident in Wisconsin today.

Bill Quackenbush:
We say Mogauc in our language. It places you exactly where that location is. These ‘red banks’ that are associated with this ancestral place of origin.

Erica Ayisi:
According to Quackenbush, the Ho-Chunk Nation will be solely responsible for costs, including property taxes and maintenance of the land with insight from the conservancy that includes six archeological sites and 22 ancient burial mounds.

Bill Quackenbush:
There’s a mound system that rises right straight through. That’s nothing more than a large mortuary site. It’s like walking across a burial system for modern people out there. There’s some respect that needs to be instilled in that.

Erica Ayisi:
According to archeologists, there’s at least 118 previously recorded archeological sites in the Dunn Township part of Dane County. But the sites on the 165 acres donated to Ho-Chunk were lost in a series of treaties between the Ho-Chunk and the federal government during the 1800s, long before Wisconsin was an established state. This began an era of forced removals for Ho-Chunk, the original caretakers of this land and its waters.

Jon Greendeer:
By captions in time, in the 1800s primarily where a lot of land was ceded because there was forced removals.

Erica Ayisi:
Jon Greendeer, president of the Ho-Chunk Nation, says the treaties forced the tribe to relocate across the Midwest, but they returned to Wisconsin.

Jon Greendeer:
We were able to not only survive in some of those regions, we were also able to thrive and repopulate.

Erica Ayisi:
Ho-Chunk became an official nation in 1963 and today has about 8000 enrolled members. Greendeer says the land acquisition is about regaining their cultural footprint on their ancestral homelands.

Jon Greendeer:
For the Ho-Chunk Nation, we never really believed in land ownership. We believed that the land was there for us to use as we needed.

Erica Ayisi:
Considering that there’s a conservation easement between Dane County and Groundswell Conservancy, who is on the title in this project?

Jon Greendeer:
The Ho-Chunk Nation is going to be entitled to the project, and it’s going to be a part of anything going forward if there’s any decisions to be made in terms of development in that area.

Erica Ayisi:
As to the property, Groundswell Conservancy says the group, along with Dane County, will do annual visits to the location.

Heidi Habeger:
To make sure that the conservation values are being upheld in conjunction with the Ho-Chunk Nation.

Erica Ayisi:
And support Quackenbush in meeting the tribe’s goals to preserve the site.

Bill Quackenbush:
What we want is the protection and enhancement of the environmental resources.

Erica Ayisi:
And to build a gazebo for the public to sit and engage and learn.

Bill Quackenbush:
This property is a beautiful educational opportunity unfolding before our eyes.

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