A dugout canoe gives Iowans the opportunity to touch Indigenous history

On this episode of Talk of Iowa , host Charity Nebbe talks to Bill Quackenbush, a member of the Ho-Chunk Nation who recently helped the Wisconsin Historical Society to identify several ancient canoes that were pulled from Lake Mendota in Madison, Wisconsin. Quackenbush was at Lake Darling State Park in southeast Iowa this July, where he gave a presentation about these ancient canoes to Project AWARE participants, and took participants - including the Talk of Iowa gang - out paddling on his own canoe which was carved out of a cottonwood log.

This canoe recently completed a five-day journey through ancestral Ho-Chunk territory, along sections of the Mississippi River. Quackenbush shares about carving the canoe, and the efforts he's been a part of to educate the public on this ancient technology and the Ho-Chunk Nation, which was forcibly relocated by the federal government from Wisconsin.

Later in the hour, we learn more about Project AWARE, an annual weeklong river cleanup event in Iowa. Charity talks with two volunteers with the non-profit, and Elizabeth Reetz of the Office of the State Archaeologist, who partners with the event.

Guests:

• Bill “Nąąwącekǧize” Quackenbush, tribal historic preservation officer and cultural resources division manager, Ho Chunk Nation
• Brian Soenen, founder, Iowa Project AWARE
• Liz Maas, fundraising director, Iowa Project AWARE
• Elizabeth Reetz, strategic initiatives director, Office of the State Archaeologist