Menominee dugout canoe to represent Wisconsin in Smithsonian exhibit

A Menominee dugout canoe is representing Wisconsin in a Smithsonian America 250 exhibit at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C., putting a Menominee-made object on a national stage as the country moves toward its 250th anniversary. The exhibition, From These Lands: Sharing Our Natural and Cultural Heritage, opened June 18 and runs through 2029.

The Smithsonian built the show around more than 600 specimens and cultural items from all 50 states, the District of Columbia and five U.S. territories. It spans 5,000 square feet and is part of Smithsonian’s Our Shared Future: 250 initiative, with the museum framing the project as a way to help visitors understand the nation’s past, interpret the present and plan for the future.

The canoe itself is documented in the Smithsonian object record as a dugout canoe used by Menomoni Indians of Wisconsin. The record describes it as open, sharp-ended, round-bottom and keelless, a form characteristic of the western Lake region. It measures 19 feet 9 inches long, with a beam of 21 1/2 inches and a depth of 12 inches, and the record says it was collected by W. J. Hoffman.

For Menominee County, the exhibit gives a familiar watercraft a place in a broader national story without separating it from the community that made and used it. The canoe is not just a display piece from Wisconsin history. It is a Menominee object tied to transportation, subsistence and material culture, and its presence in Washington puts that history in front of a national audience during a milestone year.

Smithsonian Magazine said co-curators Torben Rick and Stewart Edie shaped the exhibition around connections between people, places and the natural world, narrowing hundreds of suggested objects into a smaller set of stories. In that framework, the Menominee canoe carries more than a state label: it stands for a living relationship between the Menominee and the waterways that shaped daily life in Wisconsin, while joining one of the Smithsonian’s broadest looks yet at the country’s shared natural and cultural heritage.