The 3,000-year-old dugout canoe recovered from Lake Mendota glows red as a 3D scan is performed on it. The scan was conducted by Lennon Rodgers, Director of the Grainger Engineering Design Innovation Lab at UW-Madison, and undergraduate student Gabriela Setyawan. Photo taken Sept. 23, 2022 at the State Archive Preservation Facility in Madison, Wisconsin, one day after the historic dugout canoe was recovered from Madison's Lake Mendota. Dated to 1000 B.C., it was the oldest canoe ever recovered in the Great Lakes region by 1,000 years. (Dean Witter - Wisconsin Historical Society)

The 3,000-year-old dugout canoe recovered from Lake Mendota glows red as a 3D scan is performed on it. The scan was conducted by Lennon Rodgers, Director of the Grainger Engineering Design Innovation Lab at UW-Madison, and undergraduate student Gabriela Setyawan. Photo taken Sept. 23, 2022 at the State Archive Preservation Facility in Madison, Wisconsin, one day after the historic dugout canoe was recovered from Madison's Lake Mendota. Dated to 1000 B.C., it was the oldest canoe ever recovered in the Great Lakes region by 1,000 years. (Dean Witter - Wisconsin Historical Society)

MADISON (WKOW) — It's now been a month since archaeologists recovered the oldest canoe ever discovered in the Great Lakes region from the banks of Lake Mendota — a 3,000-year-old Ho-Chunk dugout canoe dating to 1126 B.C.

While discovering the canoe itself is monumental, its finding offers insight into the ancient Ho-Chunk community that dwelled in the area.

Bill Quackenbush, tribal historic preservation officer for the Ho-Chunk Nation, was waiting on the shoreline as the canoe came out of the water.

"They're bringing up an item that truth be told, shouldn't exist right now," Quackenbush said. "Is it important? It is in some aspects, but in the other aspects, not as important."

This canoe is the second ancient dugout canoe discovered in the area. Another canoe — dating back to around 800 A.D. — was recovered just feet away from the older canoe last year. Quackenbush says it offers insight into the everyday lives of people that once dwelled in the area.

"It holds a little, if any sacred value, but holds a vast amount of practical value and the ability for it to assure that you know, our oral history, it remains accurate," Quackenbush said.

The vessel had to be carefully maneuvered while being brought to shore. After, it was loaded onto a truck and taken to Wisconsin's Archival Preservation Facility — a large, secure warehouse on Madison's east side.

"It stores millions of objects, 400,000 archaeological records, and many many other things from the history of Wisconsin," State Archaeologist Dr. James Skibo said.

Skibo and other curators at the facility are working to ensure the canoe is properly preserved. It currently sits alongside the other dugout canoe in a large water tank in the building's large artifact storage room — a room containing some of Wisconsin's larger relics, including the first-ever Culver's sign and the Tommy Bartlett boat.

Maritime archaeologist Tamara Thomsen keeps a close eye on the canoes, as she's the one who discovered them — a fact she still can't believe.

"We weren't even looking for canoes, again. We were just putting time in underwater and looking at fish," Thomsen said of the second time she found a canoe. "And by gosh, there was another dugout canoe."

When told how old the second canoe was, Thomsen's jaw dropped.

"I was like, 'that's wrong, this is really wrong,'" Thomsen said. "And the guy said, 'you know, I'm very certain that this is the date, but I'll run it again.'"

It was the correct date and meant that the dugout canoe was the oldest canoe ever discovered in the Great Lakes region.

Both canoes will sit in preservation for three years. In 2026, they'll go on display at the Wisconsin Historical Society's new History Center Museum.

The most fascinating part of the discoveries for Skibo is what they say about the areas history. He believes the two canoes were near each other despite being dated thousands of years apart because a Ho-Chunk civilization likely inhabited the shoreline for thousands of years.

Skibo's team of archaeologists now plan on excavating the site further to see what else is down there.

"The next thing we're going to do as soon as the water freezes, we're going to take the ground penetrating radar out onto the ice, and you can go through the ice, go through the water and go into the sediment, and see not only are there more canoes, but there's likely villages that are underwater right now 200 yards offshore from the current shoreline," Skibo said. "That's where you bury your canoe — where your village is."

If true, the site would be one of the oldest in Wisconsin and is a game-changer for archaeologists like Skibo.

But for people in the Ho-Chunk community, like Quackenbush, it only cements their history in Madison.

"It doesn't change our history," Quackenbush said. "It's as important to the Ho-Chunk to bring a dugout canoe as it is to today's society. To verify that humans could be seen, and have been in the state of Wisconsin here for quite some time."

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