Beyond Lake Mendota, Ho-Chunk ancestors left their mark on the landscape through a massive collection of effigy mounds used for gathering, ritual and burial, with at least 4,000 remaining throughout Wisconsin. Today tourists can visit the roughly 200 mounds in Madison, and take the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s First Nations Cultural Landscape Tour – a walking tour that explores upwards of 12,000 years of human history (running between 1 March and 30 November).
“I think the tours are so important for campus,” said Omar Poler, an Indigenous education coordinator in the Office of the Provost and a member of the Sokaogon Chippewa Community. “They’ve changed the way that UW-Madison sees and understands its own place,” Poler notes, adding that this is especially true of the tour guides.