Ho-Chunk Garden

In collaboration with the Ho-Chunk Nation, Riverside International Friendship Gardens will be creating a new Ho-Chunk Garden to be included in the Riverside International Friendship Gardens at Riverside Park. The garden will be west of the existing Cameroon Garden and will have unrestricted views of the La Crosse, Black, and Mississippi Rivers.

Please join us in making this beautiful friendship garden a reality. Donate today.

(If donating via PayPal/credit card, please indicate in the “Note” field on PayPal that your donation is intended to support the Ho-Chunk Garden).

Garden Design

To reflect their culture, Ho-Chunk representatives have indicated they would like the garden to include native plants, including healing plants.

They have also recommended that a sculpture depicting Betsy Thunder be included. Betsy Thunder was a native healer who in the 1860’s used her healing skills to help both native peoples and the newly arriving settlers. The Ho-Chunk representatives have expressed their desire to symbolize through this sculpture a sense of community, friendship, and healing. We are proposing the sculpture of Betsy Thunder out of solid bronze in a kneeling pose on a native blanket.

The garden will also feature sculptures of native trail marker trees. The Ho-Chunk, as well as other native peoples, would shape young trees in a particular way to indicate a direction or other information and when the trees matured, the “map” could be used for many years. Therefore, the new garden will also include a trail marker in the main Ho-Chunk Garden followed by three other trail marker trees that would be placed throughout the International Gardens marking the “Ho-Chunk Trail,” with the last such marker at the bridge that crosses the La Crosse River. These would also be crafted in bronze. Quaking aspens, cedar, and dogwood trees (trees that had historically been used to create trail markers) will be planted to create a beautiful living screen between the gardens.

The garden will include flagstone benches made from local stone.

The large pathways (accessible) will be made of the same materials throughout the Garden, reflecting that we are all part of the same good earth and we all have a responsibility to protect and preserve it for future generations. Smaller pathways will be made from ground limestone.

There will also be educational signage to help the public learn more about Ho-Chunk culture.

Landscape design and concept planning has been donated by Coulee Region Ecoscapes, and consulting and construction documents have been donated by River Architects.

Impact

The City Parks Department estimates that approximately 200,000+ people access Riverside Park annually. Think of the incredible impact this new garden could have on those visitors: conveying our community’s respect for the Ho-Chunk Nation and providing education about their culture while providing another place of beauty to further enhance the downtown area.

Please join us in making this beautiful friendship garden a reality. Donate today. (If donating via PayPal/credit card, please indicate in the “Note” field on PayPal that your donation is intended to support the Ho-Chunk Garden).

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