Guided Walk: Indigenous Earthwork (Indian Mound) on Lake Mendota's North Shore

Registration will open September 18

Free to PLATO members and guests.

Registration is recommended.

Our Tour Guides: PLATO member and Madison Trust for Historic Preservation docent Teri Venker.  Teri has a lifelong interest in history and has been reading Native American history for over 30 years.

We have arranged for another well-known expert to guide a group through the mounds and introduce us to Governor's Island.

Indigenous Earthworks

We know pre-historic people greatly valued our Four Lakes (DeJope) area, because they built roughly 1,200 effigy (animal/spirit-shaped) and other mounds on the high grounds overlooking the lakes starting about 800 BC. While the vast majority was destroyed through development, Madison Trust for Historic Preservation docent Teri Venker will lead us on a two-mile walk where she will help us see remaining conical, linear, and effigy mounds. She will also share the fascinating background of the indigenous people who lived, traded, hunted and fished the shores of Lake Mendota going back 10,000 years. By the end, you will know what to look for in finding the indigenous earthworks that we so often overlook in our midst.

The Walk

Optional Tour

We will have an opportunity to be introduced to Governors Island as it adjoins the Institute property.  If time permits, we will walk onto the Island for some discovery.

Microphone:

Driving and Parking Information:

The trailhead begins at the  parking lot in front of the main Administration building on the grounds of the Mendota Mental Health Institute.

We'll walk from there, mainly on road but at some points we will be on lawns, which may still be wet with dew at that time of day.