Program Notes from March 22, 2005 Meeting of LKWA
The meeting was called to order by Chairman, Rick Persson, at 6:00 pm at the DNR office in Janesville. There were 44 persons in attendance.
Planning continues for the surveys needed for designation of Lake Koshkonong as an Important Bird Area (IBA). Our first survey will be for migratory ducks, especially diving ducks. The first survey will be April 2 at 9:30 am. The count will be from the shore of the bays and marshes around the lake. We also hope to do a boat and aerial surveys in order to count the birds resting in the middle of the lake.
Penny reported that we will co-host a field day in August or September with the Wisconsin Wetland Association. Quentin Carpenter (our speaker tonight) will guide a pontoon tour of the bays and wetlands.
We discussed hosting a public event for persons to see ducks. We could station LKWA members around the lake with spotting scopes and invite persons to observe waterfowl. We could co-sponsor the event with the Ned Hollister Bird Club and with the Green-Rock Audubon Society. This will probably be planned for next year when we have more experience with the sites that are accessible and provide good views of ducks. It would also be helpful to have a mailing list of the RKLD members to invite to the event. We could also post an invitation in the Janesville, Edgerton, Milton and Fort Atkinson papers.
A suggestion was made to consider sponsoring a tour with the Natural Resources Foundation in the future. Contact person is Charlie Leuthin
Penny announced that a Wisconsin Outdoors show about wood duck boxes was taped February 4th with Penny and Rick. It will be shown in two parts on public television (Milwaukee) on March 24th and March 31st. Repeats will be on March 26th and April 2. The host is Dan Small. An article also appeared in Wisconsin Outdoor News on Feb 25th.
Sightings around the lake: Rick reported seeing large groups of sandhill cranes in the fields along Highway 106. Three groups had 96, 180 and 237 birds. He also is seeing coots, redheads, common mergansers and buffleheads on the lake. Others have seen ring necks, wood ducks, shovelers and bald eagles.
Our next meeting is April 26 at the DNR office in Janesville at 6:00 pm. The speaker will be Charlie Kilian, a wildlife biologist. He is the DNR wildlife manager for the Lake Koshkonong Marsh Wildlife Area. He will talk about managing your wetlands for the benefit of wildlife. Please invite friends and neighbors.
Program - History of the Lake Koshkonong ecosystem
Quentin Carpenter, PhD is a wetland ecologist on the faculty of the Gaylord Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, UW, Madison. He introduced himself as a "former farmer" and has lived in Busseyville since 1979 where he owns land including wetlands.
Quentin said that in doing research for this talk, he focused on the period before 1900. He noted that 19th century images, either photos or paintings of the lake are rare.
First he reviewed the geologic history of the lake. In the pre-glacial era, there were many deep valleys with an ancestral Rock River and Lake Geneva. A bed- rock map created by records of well-drillings shows a valley up the Rock River with a branch toward Madison, the fore-runner of the Yahara River. 70,000 years ago the glaciers finally reached southern Wisconsin. They reached their maximum 18,000 years ago and by 14,000 years ago, they were retreating leaving lakes and a "rearranged Rock River valley". In the process, 2 moraines trapped a large lake and about 90% of present-day Jefferson county was under water. Water outflow from this lake cut through but it hit dolomite bedrock and could not cut further, and so Lake Koshkonong was formed.
Before the settlers arrived, the 1830 survey noted that "Koshkonong was a shallow lake". The uplands were mostly oak openings and prairies. By the time the settlers arrived, wetlands covered about 50% of Jefferson County. In the triangle of the Bark and Rock River which provided a fire shadow, there were maple forests. Also, in low areas along creeks, were maple and basswood stands. In reports from this time, the lake is described as shallow, covered with wild rice and with many waterfowl and many Indian villages. Large concentrations of native Americans lived around the lake in the summer and planted corn. In the winter, they dispersed to the north.
Interestingly, in writings from 1848-50, Increase Lapham described the lake as having a sandy bottom and in one area was 12 feet deep. In 1877, an "old settler" (who was Thure Kumlien) noted that the lake had a "muddy bottom". In the 20 year interim between these descriptions, prairie sod was broken and there was active wheat farming along the shores.
We owe much of the information about the early natural history of Lake Koshkonong to Thure Kumlien. He emigrated from Upsula, Sweden in 1843. He came because he wanted to marry a woman who was considered by his family to be beneath his station. He came to Milwaukee and chose to settle near Lake Koshkonong because of descriptions he had read about the area. Incidentally, C.G. Hammerquist came to the area with Thure Kumlien and Quentin now owns Mr. Hammerquist's farm. Kumlien tried farming but failed. He was a taxidermist and had an extensive knowledge of natural history. He supported himself by selling specimens to the east coast and European museums. He taught at Albion Academy and became curator of natural history at the Milwaukee Public Museum. Unfortunately, Kumlien died while working at the Milwaukee museum. As curator, he received boxes of specimens from all over the world. One day, he opened a box of tropical birds and died from the fumes. He was 69 years old. He left 2 sons and 2 daughters. A granddaughter has written his biography.
What did the early settlers do? They largely supported themselves by hunting and fishing. They cut "marsh hay" (blue joint grass and prairie cord grass) and put it in hay cocks. (Tom Shearer, an LKWA member, noted that he remembers his dad harvesting marsh hay in 1936 from drained areas in what is now Thiebeau marsh. Tom noted that only horses would eat this hay).
At one point, plans were made to create a canal from Milwaukee to the Mississippi River, but then the railroad came and it was not necessary. In the 1840s, steamboats came up the Rock River, but then the railroad decreed the river "un-navigable". Indianford Dam was built sometime after 1851. Records from that time noted that the dam "didn't raise the water much". In an 1888 painting of the lake, emergent vegetation is visible as are pelicans, cormorants and strange-looking ducks. Upon closer inspection, the strange ducks are decoys. In a painting from 1898 entitled, "gathering reeds on Lake Koshkonong", scattered bur oak are seen along the shore.
Carp were introduced in the late 19th century. In these early years, hunt clubs were very important on the lake. Early clubs were the Blackhawk and Carcajou. A photo from the Hoard Museum in the late 1800s shows a wide beach in from of the present mounds country club with evidence of a 4 foot water fluctuation on the shoreline markings.
The current dam was built in 1917-19 when a power plant was put in.
There is disagreement about what the word Koshkonong means. Two versions are "the lake we live on" and "low wet spot"
There was great interest in Quentin's presentation. A future meeting will be planned to get reminiscences of our older members and friends. An interesting comment from Tom Shearer was that he remembers Lautz Bay as having reeds when he was a child (1930s).
Another suggestion for a future meeting is to have decoy carver, Bob Swan, speak and show his decoys. Bob's work was recently featured in Decoy Magazine.
Respectfully submitted,
Penny Shackelford