3,000-year-old canoe recovered from Lake Mendota

On a brisk and breezy first day of fall, divers recovered an ancient Ho-Chunk canoe from the depths of Lake Mendota, an effort coordinated by the Wisconsin State Historical Society and members of the Ho-Chunk Nation. The dugout canoe, estimated to have sunk to the bottom of the lake some 3,000 years ago, is more than twice as old as another Ho-Chunk canoe recovered from Lake Mendota last year. Divers raised the canoe from the floor of the lake and transported it on a raft across the lake to Spring Harbor Beach, where it was loaded for transport. Those present included Marlon WhiteEagle, president of the Ho-Chunk Nation, and Omar Poler, the American Indian Curriculum Service Coordinator at UW-Madison's Teacher Education Center. On the southern shores of Lake Mendota, the UW-Madison campus occupies ancestral Ho-Chunk land, known as Teejop in the Ho-Chunk language. UW-Madison researchers played a key role in examining the first canoe found.