- Happy Thanksgiving and welcome to "In Wisconsin."
I'm Frederica Freyberg in for Patty Loew.
This week, a closer look at Camp Madison
and how it made history at the University of Wisconsin Arboretum.
- It's an incredible undertaking,
and it was one that had never happened before.
- Plus, Hmong refugees bridge a generation gap with food,
especially when it comes to Thanksgiving.
- And they go, "Well, this chicken is so big.
How do we cook this chicken?"
- And do you know this man?
- He's been described as being a botanist,
a geologist, a meteorologist, an antiquarian.
- Increase Lapham is considered to be
Wisconsin's first great scientist.
Find out why next on "In Wisconsin."
- Major funding for "In Wisconsin" is provided by:
the people of Alliant Energy who bring safe, reliable
and environmentally friendly energy to keep homes,
neighborhoods and life in Wisconsin running smoothly.
Alliant Energy, we're on for you.
And Animal Dentistry and Oral Surgery Specialists
of Milwaukee, Oshkosh and Minneapolis,
a veterinary team working with pet owners
and family veterinarians providing care for oral disease
and dental problems of small companion animals.
- If you're looking to walk off that Thanksgiving meal tomorrow,
we know just the place.
It's one of the more amazing pieces
of conservation history in our state,
and it can be found in the center of our capitol city.
As "In Wisconsin" reporter Jo Garrett shows you,
this place is the vision of famed Wisconsin
conservationist Aldo Leopold and hundreds of young men
who were part of what was called Camp Madison.
- CCC stands for the Civilian Conservation Corps.
They were an outdoor conservation project.
It was part of President Roosevelt's relief effort.
It was the simplest form of relief program for young folks.
Every camp had a company of men made up of about 200.
This one became Camp Madison.
- Bob Moore is an author and historian based in Verona
who will soon publish a book about the CCC in Wisconsin.
According to Moore, Camp Madison,
based here at the University of Wisconsin Arboretum,
in the heart of our state capitol,
is unlike any CCC camp anywhere.
- The CCC in the arboretum was such a special situation.
It was such a special case
that existed nowhere else in America.
- There were other CCC camps in urban areas.
There was one in Milwaukee.
And the enrollees at Camp Madison did build those
iconic structures so well-known, the trails and shelters.
But Camp Madison also had a special mission,
unique in the country. They built this.
- A 60-acre tall grass prairie.
- It's an incredible undertaking,
and it was one that had never happened before.
- Never before had a prairie been restored
in the United States. First time.
And it happened at a critical time
for two very important reasons.
- Number one, most of Wisconsin was plowed
and there wasn't much left and it would be easy
to lose the rest of it in the ensuing years.
And, number two, you had the manpower to do it.
In 1935 the CCC boys came along
and that was their saving grace.
- This restoration of the land that would come to be
known as Curtis Prairie was a dream of Aldo Leopold,
the first director of the arboretum.
- When the arboretum was dedicated in 1934,
Aldo Leopold was here at the dedication.
He was on the faculty at the time
of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
At the dedication he said, you know what would be nice,
is to have a sample of Dane County back
when our ancestors were here in the 1840s.
That's what we should do.
Those CCC kids were the ones that could go and get it done.
They'd get in the trucks, drive out of camp
and they'd go looking for native plants in Wisconsin.
Now, of course, these kids are young teenagers.
They don't know what a native plant is.
- This is when the faculty of the nearby university,
people like Leopold and Ted Sperry, pictured here,
proved critical. They found the plants.
- Many of those sites were along the Wisconsin River
in the Prairie du Sac area,
in the lower Wisconsin River area,
close to the river on rocky ledges
where it's not farmable really
but the native plants can still hang on.
The university staff would find these places.
The CCC did the work. They made it happen.
We're in a supply building.
- And some of the buildings the CCC'ers worked in,
they lived in, survive.
- We're in one of the last remaining barracks buildings
that the CCCs lived in here in the arboretum.
There were ten buildings just like this one.
This is where the young men stayed.
This is where they had their bunks.
You can kind of use your imagination I suppose
to think about rows of beds behind me, foot lockers,
very much like an army barracks.
- The arboretum still uses these buildings.
There are six remaining
for classes, offices, seed storage.
They are another precious legacy of Camp Madison.
- It's very unusual to have surviving CCC
barracks buildings here or anywhere in the United States.
There's a lot of CCC work that's out there, but the actual camp itself,
where you can actually see the buildings,
that's highly unusual, very unusual
- Hundreds of young men passed through here,
200 at a time.
The minimum enrollment was six months.
The maximum, two years.
Camp Madison opened in 1935
and it was one of the last of the CCC camps in the country
to close when it was decommissioned in 1941.
- It was a fun adventure time for them.
They worked eight hours, but they had time off in the evenings.
- They made music together.
They played sports together.
They even put a parade float together.
These young men learned to work together.
- Many of these young kids had never been away from home.
They'd never been in a communal setting before.
Never had to live with other people before.
They never had to get along with other people before
and they had to do that in the CCCs.
- In 1939, a uniform was specially commissioned
for the Civilian Conservation Corps.
- This is the dress hat for the new CCC.
And, it's a forest green with an emblem as you see signifying the CCC.
It was a badge of honor when they were walking down the streets of Madison
in their dress CCC uniforms.
- Honor and hard work.
The CCC'ers never made much money.
- The pay was $30 a month.
Now, the interesting thing about all that is,
when they walked up to that pay table,
they weren't handed $30.
They were handed $5... for a month's work.
Now, what happened to the other $25?
The other $25, when they went into the CCC, they had to sign a form.
The other $25 went home to the folks.
Leopold said, besides restoring Dane County to the way it used to be,
this is going to be an education center.
And, they're not gonna just build something and go away.
They're gonna put something here that other people are going to see
day after day and year after year.
- There is a rock overlooking Curtis Prairie
inscribed with this dedication.
"In time of despair,
"they recreated a piece of the past
to make hope for the future."
*
- And that future continues to be full of opportunity.
The University of Wisconsin Arboretum
is celebrating 75 years of innovative research.
- We've got nearly two square miles, 1200 acres,
right in the middle of a medium-size city.
- And a world class collection of restored ecosystems.
- It's a special place.
It's where the arboretum began.
- But with all of its success, the UW arboretum now faces
an environmental quandary scientists are trying to solve.
To learn more, join us for "Landscape Legacy,"
an "In Wisconsin" special on the UW Arboretum.
It airs next Thursday at 7:00,
right here on Wisconsin Public Television.
November is deer hunting season.
It's an annual ritual woven into the cultural
and economic fabric of our state.
But in recent years there has been a growing concern
by some hunters that the deer herd has been
decimated by predators.
This week, a look at how the DNR is responding to
those concerns with a massive field research project
unlike any other in Wisconsin.
- The man with the so-called "H antenna"
is Chris Jakes, research scientist
for the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.
- Most of my graduate training was with big game research.
- Jakes's experience with big game animals will soon
be put to use with Wisconsin's whitetail deer.
The animal is a state icon, source of commerce,
source of controversy, hunting prize
and now the subject of two gigantic research projects
brought about in part by the concerns of hunters.
The first is called the big buck study.
It's a five-year project that will address this question.
- What is the percentage of bucks that die annually by way of hunting?
- At the same time, the DNR will conduct a shorter
three-year study on fawns to answer this concern.
- How many fawns are getting killed
by the various predators
and at what rate across northern and east central Wisconsin?
We've got expanding wolf populations and there's
evidence that suggests that our black bear population
also is greater than we previously thought.
We've got coyotes, bobcats.
We're trying to better understand the impacts
that all of these predators are having on fawn survival.
- Two studies on the whitetail make for one gigantic effort.
- It's the biggest in the history of Wisconsin.
The buck study is a $1.5 million research project.
We want to capture 90 animals or 60 bucks annually
over two study areas for four years
and radio collar those animals.
In addition to those, we want to capture
an additional 100 bucks annually per study area
and ear tag those individuals.
We'll likely be capturing up to 4,000 or 5,000 animals
over the life of this study, so a big, big effort.
- They plan to stick to two study sites,
one near Clam Lake, the other in central Wisconsin,
Shawano, Waupaca, Outagamie counties, large areas,
and they have many collaborators,
including individuals.
- We've got over 200 of our hunters now who have
signed up as official research volunteers to help us out.
- Still, they need more.
- We especially need help with capturing animals.
I mean, that's a long-term proposition.
We're going to be out there for ten weeks
every day of the field season.
- If you like tracking animals, this volunteer opportunity
could be highly interesting, with some unusual visuals.
- We're going to be deploying helicopters with net guns.
We'll also follow up with ground trapping efforts.
Rocket nets, just a big net that is propelled
by rocket canisters we'll shoot over the tops of animals.
- Capture, track, collar.
- This is what we'll be fitting on the fawns.
This is kind of an expansion break-away radio collar.
- There are many parts of these research projects
that experts say play to the skills of hunters of all ages.
- We'd love to have all of these volunteers,
if they have kids, bring the kids out, you know.
The youth is our future and we want to get
our youth hunters excited about this.
A lot of hunters have voiced concern that
they're not listened to and their input is not valued.
This is a way to involve hunters directly
in the field research alongside of us.
And that's exactly what we want to do.
- For more information on how you can volunteer
for this DNR deer research study, go to our website
at wpt.org and then click on "In Wisconsin."
There are additional interviews with Chris Jakes
about the project and what hunters should do
if they come across a deer with a radio collar.
Well, the DNR will need Wisconsin residents
to help with its study.
These citizen scientists can take inspiration
in the story of a man by the name of Increase Lapham.
He's considered Wisconsin's first scientist.
Lapham was self-taught, but his scientific work
in botany, forestry and meteorology still has
an influence today, 200 years after his birth.
"In Wisconsin" reporter Andy Soth takes you
on a quest looking for Lapham's legacy.
And that journey starts in the Wisconsin Dells.
- Not far from downtown Wisconsin Dells,
you'll find Taylor's Glen.
And in Taylor's Glen, at least on this crystal day,
you'll find two history buffs on a mission.
- Take a look at this and see what you think.
- That's definitely the location.
It's a matter of obviously where the light and shadow is.
- They're looking for the setting of a 19th century photograph,
a picture with personal meaning for each of them.
It was taken by H.H. Bennett, whose stereoscopic views
of the Dells made it known the world over.
Bennett's great granddaughter, Debra Jean Kinder,
hopes to retake the picture.
- So many people come here to see the waterparks.
But I'm sad that people are missing out
on the natural beauty.
- We've got Bennett's dates, that he was working here.
That would have been 1865.
- Historian Rob Nurre will portray the subject of the photograph,
a person he's long been fascinated with.
That's Increase Allen Lapham,
examining the geology of Taylor's Glen.
No one in Wisconsin's early history
had a broader appreciation of the natural wonders
of the state than Lapham.
- He's been described as being a universal genius.
He's been described as being a botanist, a geologist,
a meteorologist, an antiquarian.
It's just really hard to come up with a handle
for what this man was.
- He was a self-taught civil engineer when he
came to Wisconsin to build a canal in 1836,
a dozen years before statehood.
The canal was never built, but with his curious mind and range of interests,
Lapham never lacked for things to do.
- He is one of the first people who have now come
west of Lake Michigan who has an interest and skill
in collecting biological material.
- Upon his arrival, Lapham immediately began
documenting local plants.
- This probably is the first scientific publication
to have been issued west of the Great Lakes.
- Lapham published a list of the plants of Milwaukee
and later donated thousands of specimens
to what became the UW Herbarium, a literal library of plants.
- These pressed, dried plant specimens
are a series of examples of nature's bounty.
- The herbarium today holds more than a million samples
for botanical research.
Lapham brought the same scientific approach
to documenting a unique feature
of the southern Wisconsin landscape:
effigy mounds, constructed centuries before his arrival.
Former state archeologist Bob Birmingham points out
some intact effigy mounds in Madison.
- Head, leg, and then another leg here,
body coming across here
and then terminating in a very long tail.
- And I'd like to present a model of this effigy tree
for our Ho-Chunk nation.
- It's part of a set of mounds recently rededicated
with the addition of a bronze sculpture
by Ho-Chunk artist Harry Whitehorse.
- (singing and drums beating)
- The fact that these mounds remain intact,
and the recognized connection they hold
with contemporary Ho-Chunk, owes a lot to Lapham.
- Like the mounds, our native people have persisted.
- PhD candidate Libby Tronnes has been studying
how effigy mounds have been interpreted over time.
- People are very curious about these mounds,
so people are inventing stories
that clearly they were built by people from Atlanta,
so the ten lost tribes, the Greeks were here, Alexander the Great was here.
It's just kind of the forefront of solving
the mystery of who done it, who built these?
He's rejecting the prevailing notion
that surely there's a lost, more advanced race.
The most obvious conclusion is, actually,
they're the contemporary native tribes.
- It's a way to reach across the past
and touch your ancestors
and at the same time look ahead to the future.
- It's actually almost 40 years later
that the Smithsonian makes that same declaration.
So, a bit ahead of his time there.
- Ahead of his time also describes Lapham's
understanding of forestry.
- There are some people who have before this time said
there is an unending supply of wood in northern Wisconsin.
There is no way we will ever, for thousands of years,
ever have enough demand that we would need
the wood from northern Wisconsin.
But clearly Lapham realized that isn't the case.
- In 1967 Lapham offered a report
for the Wisconsin legislature.
- It's titled "The Disastrous Effect of the Destruction of Forest Trees."
- Despite the title's dire warning, the forest disappeared.
- And we end up cutting off northern Wisconsin.
The Great Cutover, is it's eventually referred to.
- Lapham had better luck influencing the government
when it came to the weather.
This is the view from what today is called Lapham Peak.
Not far away on another rise
sits this massive radar installation,
part of the National Weather Service office near Sullivan.
- A lot of people consider him the father of the Weather Service.
- Meteorologist in-charge Steve Brueske
keeps a portrait of Lapham on his office wall.
- I think he'd be stunned when he'd look at something
like this radar up here or see the computers that we have.
- But he wouldn't be stunned by the work being done
by today's National Weather Service,
an agency he helped found and direct.
- I think today, looking at that weather map that we see on television,
he is the one that really created the system
that we still rely on today.
- They say everyone talks about the weather,
but Increase Lapham actually did something about it.
His original motivation was to warn Great Lakes ships of coming foul weather.
- Our primary mission is to protect lives and property by issuing warnings.
The mission is the same today.
- On Lapham Peak, one of the many plaques in his honor,
remembers Lapham as an eminent scientist and useful citizen.
In predicting weather and preserving the natural
and archeological treasures of Wisconsin,
Lapham's self-taught science served the public.
An influence that can still be seen when you look for Lapham.
- That report about Increase Lapham kicks off
a new initiative here at Wisconsin Public Television called "Quest."
It's a project that will delve into issues
about Wisconsin's environment.
For more information, go to questwisconsin.org
for a multimedia approach to our environmental reporting.
That website will also give you more information
about Increase Lapham and citizen scientists in Wisconsin.
Well, it's estimated that more than 47,000 Hmong
live in Wisconsin and some are recent immigrants.
The transition to a new culture and customs can be difficult,
especially when it comes to Thanksgiving.
On that note, Bao Thao Vang came up with a recipe for success
involving good food that's good for you in Appleton.
*
- Bao Thao Vang has a job that keeps her on the move.
She covers three counties in the Fox Valley
teaching nutrition to the large Hmong community in this area.
- A lot of the Hmong people now have
high blood pressure and diabetes.
- One place where Thao Vang teaches
is Appleton North High School.
Here she lets teens know not only how to make healthy meals,
but how to make connections with their elders.
- When I teach the younger Hmong, I told them,
that this is what you're eating in this country,
but your in-laws or your parents, they like the Hmong food,
so you can make this into Hmong food, too.
- One of the recipes they're learning to make is for
Hmong rice cake, a dessert most of them eat at home.
- I have eaten it before,
but this is my first time to make it.
- Thao Vang also goes out to educate the elder Hmong.
They gather for classes sponsored by Lutheran Social Services
at the Thompson community center in Appleton.
She gives this group the same advice as the teens, but in reverse.
- For example, for the elder, I will make them American food
and say, this is your children, or your grandchildren,
when they go to school, these are the food that they eat.
- Thao Vang is in a good position to understand
both the elders in her community from Laos
and the generations of Hmong growing up here.
That's because she was born in Laos
and at the age of eight came to America.
- My first day in school, when the teacher talked,
you just hear the "s" sound,
so it's really difficult.
I go, how am I going to learn this language?
- It's her memories of learning a new language
and culture that she calls on when teaching
the elders about good nutrition.
For them, even shopping for groceries is a challenge.
- For our Hmong people, when they go there,
they don't take canned food or boxed food because they --
It's not that they don't like it.
It's that they don't know how to cook.
- In addition to her in-person education efforts,
Thao Vang hosts a Hmong-language cable show on television.
It's called "Bridging Hmong American"
and presents a wide range of helpful ideas.
The most popular show so far tackles the topic of turkeys.
- People come to me and say, we saw your show
on the turkey and it's good.
- She says the turkey show came about because new immigrants
were confused when offered a gift basket
with a raw Thanksgiving turkey.
- And they go, well, this chicken is so big.
How do we cook this chicken?
Sometimes they are cut up and boil it like a chicken.
- With her media exposure and many nutrition classes,
Thao Vang continues to spread the word about the health benefits
that come from eating nutritious food.
That and a sympathetic ear make her a valuable resource
to both young and old in the Hmong community.
- I listen to them and try to be a person
that they can go to if they have any question about anything.
- Repeats of the show "Bridging Hmong American"
still air in the Fox Valley,
but new production has been cancelled by Time Warner Cable.
To find a link, log on to our website at wpt.org,
then scroll down and click on "In Wisconsin."
An extensive list of programs in the Hmong language
is available through the Appleton Public Library.
As we mentioned earlier, "In Wisconsin"
will not be seen next Thursday, so we can bring you
the U.W. Arboretum special called "Landscape Legacy."
"In Wisconsin" will return after the new year,
with these new reports.
- This is "In Wisconsin" reporter Jo Garrett,
and I'm breaking the rules, sneaking a taste.
Good! You should try one Frank.
On a one of a kind nature trail devoted to wild edibles.
There's only one in the country and it's in Wisconsin.
- I'm Art Hackett near Arlington,
where researchers are looking for the right combination
of crops if Wisconsin's future climate
is different than the one today.
- I'm "In Wisconsin" reporter Liz Koerner.
This newly renovated building houses a museum
that's so unique it's already attracting
visitors from around the world.
But, it's not just about the past.
They also offer hands-on lessons here
at the Wisconsin Canoe Heritage Museum in Spooner.
- Join us when "In Wisconsin" returns Thursday, January 6,
at our new time, 7:30, right here
on Wisconsin Public Television.
Until then, you can follow what we're working on
with our interactive blog called the Producers Journal.
It's updated each week by the journalists
who work in front of and behind-the-scenes on "In Wisconsin."
We hope you'll check out the Producers Journal
at wpt.org and click on "In Wisconsin."
Finally this week, travel to Douglas County,
where white pines have been standing tall
for generations to see.
Have a great week in Wisconsin
and we'll see you back here January 6.
*
- Major funding for "In Wisconsin" is provided by:
the people of Alliant Energy who bring safe, reliable
and environmentally friendly energy to keep homes,
neighborhoods and life in Wisconsin running smoothly.
Alliant Energy, we're on for you.
And Animal Dentistry and Oral Surgery Specialists
of Oshkosh, Milwaukee and Minneapolis,
a veterinary team working with pet owners
and family veterinarians providing care for oral disease
and dental problems of small companion animals.