STORIES ABOUT THE PRESERVE
The Preserve is a place where fond memories are made, where people connect to nature, where people learn to love natural things, like plants, birds, views, rocks, insects.
This page is a place for you to share your story with the Friends and followers.
A Second 3000 Year Old Canoe Recovered from Lake Mendota
Friends Arlene Koziol and Doris Dubielzig witnessed firsthand the recovery of an ancient canoe from the lake bottom not far from the shores of the Lakeshore Nature Preserve. Below is their account of this remarkable event that occurred the morning of Thursday, September 22nd, 2022. Text written by Doris Dubielzig, photos taken by Arlene Koziol.
Canoe in sling, accompanied by divers, passing Arlene’s house, with Eagle Heights in the background.
Arlene Koziol called, breathlessly, at 8:15 this morning: "They’ve recovered another canoe and it’s passing on Lake Mendota outside our house! I’m taking pictures, but you’ve got to get down to Spring Harbor Beach NOW!” I threw on a pair of jeans and drove the few blocks, so as not to miss it.
A reporter for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, who had learned three days ago of this scheduled recovery and another Wisconsin Historical Society archaeologist, who brought her 10-year-old daughter from Stoughton for the occasion, told me the background of this find. Last May, Tamara Thomsen took a diving student out “to pick up some hours” on Lake Mendota. They went past the site of the first discovery, and lo, there was another! The shifting sand offshore Shorewood Hills had exposed this second canoe. Radiocarbon dating provided the age of the “new” canoe at 3000 years, making it the oldest craft recovered from the Great Lakes region. This second discovery offers a novel view into the far past, much farther back even than the time of the effigy mound builders thought to have built the canoe recovered in 2021. The tool markings on the two craft will be compared to learn what, if any, changes occurred in construction techniques over the intervening 1800 years.
Wisconsin State Archaeologist James Skibo give a fist bump to maritime archeologist Tamara Thomsen, for the successful recovery of the second ancient canoe she’s uncovered in Lake Mendota. Effigy mound builders expert Amy Rosebrough is to her left.
When the motorboat reached the beach, additional wet-suited personnel waded into the water to escort the canoe to the shore. Wisconsin State Archaeologist James Skibo, Tamara Thomsen and Amy Rosebrough (Assistant State Archaeologist of WI and expert on effigy mound builders) were among them. After the assembled Ho-Chunk paid their respects to the vessel, the sling bearing the canoe was lifted by a team of eight people and carried to the truck that would convey it to the State Archive Preservation Facility. Rosebrough noted a year ago, “Once it’s out of the water, we have a very rapid countdown that starts,” as the canoe “will start to degrade almost immediately.”
All of Arlene Koziol’s photos can be found here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/29411257@N00/albums/72177720302326835  Friends Through the Years: Our 21st Anniversary PadletCreated by Friends Vice President Seth McGee for our 2022 Annual Meeting, this padlet is a repository of Friends' photos, memories, and stories since our founding in 2001. You may find and add to the padlet yourself using this link: padlet.com/samcgee/t0zm29snqekahl78
A Madison treasure: the Lakeshore Nature Preserve
Gisela Kutzbach, in a presentation at Bethel Lutheran Church, tells the story of the Preserve in pictures and in words. She focuses on:
What is the Preserve ---- What people do in the Preserve Why should we have the Preserve How did the Preserve come about How is the Preserve managed today She brings in the fascinating history of the Preserve from the time of the mound builders to the first settlers and removal of the Ho-chunk, to acquisitions and gifts of Preserve lands to the university and Aldo Leopold's role in protecting these lands. She brings this historical perspective up to the last twenty years of the Friends of the Preserve and the 2022 updated Master Plan developed by UW Preserve staff and consultants. The presentation was one of the webinars by Bethel's Caring for Creation program. You will enjoy the numerous photos and maps illustrating the talk. Gisela has been a member of the Friends since 2004. Discovering new things about an Old Friend:
Friends of the Lakeshore Preserve Field Trip on Lake Mendota – by Marj Rhine  Picnic Point seen from the lake
For anyone who lives or works near Lake Mendota, or who enjoys strolling or birding at the Lakeshore Preserve, Lake Mendota is an old friend, its waters dotted with migrating birds in the spring and fall, a boating mecca in the summer, and an arena for ice-boating and other cold weather play in the winter. However, in a June 27, 2018 Friends of the Lakeshore fieldtrip out onto the lake guided by John Magnuson (professor emeritus of zoology and limnology and Founding Director of the UW-Madison Center of Limnology), participants learned some surprising new insights about this lake so central to Madison’s identity.
As we pulled out into the lake in our small Boston whaler, John at the wheel of our boat, he slowly swung the boat and killed the engine, inviting us to look back at the sweep of the shoreline we were leaving behind. The twelve participants had split into two groups; because the research vessel The Limnos was having some engine trouble, we were riding instead in these two smaller boats, skimming close to the lake’s gray waters on this overcast day. As we looked back at the shore, John directed our gaze to the way the landscape alters quite dramatically just before the Limnology Building, as the sightline shifts from the urbanized campus buildings visible on the left to the lush trees that mark the start of the preserve. This transition is a remarkable testament to the labor of love of many different people, both at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and in Friends of the Lakeshore Preserve, who have struggled to preserve and restore this precious land, the three and a half miles of (relatively) undeveloped lake shoreline.  The other half of our group!
We next boated over to the other side of Picnic Point, to the northwest edge of the Lakeshore Preserve, where the two boats floated together to listen to John give us a glimpse of the lake’s history since the early nineteenth century. As he told how the army surgeon’s mate John Wakefield described the lake and landscape he saw in 1832 (traveling in the area during the Blackhawk wars), we could begin to imagine the wilder, woodsier and more marshy landscape that once defined this area. Through the poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s words, we could imagine a lake ringed with gold—the beaches that once circled the lake before water levels rose when the Yahara River was first damned for a grist mill in 1847. It was surprising to learn that core samples of the lake bed so visibly document the impact of this damming and raising of lake levels, showing how the previous whitish gray sediment of calcium carbonate, that once lined the lakebed in white, is now covered by a layer of blackish-brown sediment (under the current layer of organic muck) indicating the shoreline erosion that occurred after the damn was installed. John also invited participants to ponder various ecological issues: what is the value of leaving dead trees that fall into the lake, harboring the insects that attract fish? How does dredging historic deposits of phosphorus in tributary streams, from previous decades of agricultural fertilizer application, help control the lake’s frequent toxic algae outbursts?
The sandstone shoreline past Raymer's Cove, with the algae creating an unusual green color.
We finished up this fascinating excursion with some fun-filled hands-on science. Boating close to a buoy that constantly collects up-to-the-minute scientific information, we used our cell phones to access the limnology department’s website to see the most current—less than two minutes earlier—report of various temperature and wind conditions. Volunteers used a collecting rake to pull up zebra mussels to examine, as well as various kinds of aquatic plants, including lettuce, coon tail and pond weed. We lowered a device that snaps shut at a lower level to collect the icy cold water resting farther below the surface. After one participant lowered a mesh funnel to collect plankton, we passed around jars to take a close look at these tiny plants and zooplankton swirling about in the water, the first steps in the lake’s rich and complex ecosystem.
Zebra mussels had collected on a rod.
I am grateful to John Magnuson for so generously sharing his expertise and experience, and to the Friends of the Lakeshore Preserve for organizing this outing. Getting the opportunity to know our old friend Lake Mendota in this new, more engaged way made me even more appreciative to live in this amazing landscape of our four lakes, more mindful of human impact, and more inspired by the people who devote their studies and time to preserving and restoring our stunning natural surroundings. This experience left me wishing more people in Madison will explore ways to both learn more about our lakes and natural spaces and be attentive to ways to help protect them, including volunteering at the Lakeshore Preserve!
Story and Photos by Marj Rhine - June 2018 Virtual Geocaching: an interactive walk
If you are into the booming app of Geocache and are in the mood for a beautiful hike in nature, this trail is for you. The preserve is a great opportunity for an amazing virtual geocache trail, with great views of Lake Mendota and pieces of the past that not many people know about. My name is Aaron, I am 12 and I decided to take it upon myself to make a great geocaching trail for everyone else, kids and adults alike to enjoy the preserve. I visit here all the time and I always enjoy walking around the preserve. I want other kids my age to enjoy the wonders of the preserve and because Geocaching is so popular I thought making a trail would be a great way to attract Geocachers. I would recommend this trail for anyone who loves nature, adventure and Geocaching.Click here to see main page.
Painting the Big Oak: a story unfolding
Peggy Macamara sketching the Big Oak. June 2014. Photo Arlene Koziol
1Oth Anniversary of the Friends in 2011
My Photo walk at Frautschi Point
I'm a five year old boy and my grammy gave me a really nice red camera to photograph what I like on our walk. We went after a rainstorm, so I wore my boots. Then she made a book for me from my photos and added the words. Thank you Grammy.
"If I had influence with the good fairy who is supposed to preside over the christening of all children, I would ask that her gift to each child in the world be a sense of wonder so indestructible that it would last throughout life." – Rachel Carson |
