Big Lake 2026

In May, during the season of fiddleheads, garlicky ramps, wild asparagus and morels, the 2026 Wisconsin Idea Seminar set off on the Big Lake journey to follow a 900-mile circular path around Wisconsin. Our mission: to visit communities and meet with fellow Wisconsinites to learn about their perspectives on the places that hold deep meaning to them and to see how the Wisconsin Idea mobilizes collaborations across the state. 

At Koepke Farms in Waukesha County, we heard from farmers, watershed managers, conservancies and neighbors who have joined hands to sustain the health of animals, soil and water. We met with Hmong farmers at GreenGold Gardens to learn about their commitment to cultivate culturally relevant produce on hilltop plots that nourishes communities in the Wausau area and beyond. We learned how Red Cliff Fishing Company and the Red Cliff Mino Bimaadiziiwin Farm are helping to meet food sovereignty goals and to feed communities near and far. We boarded jon boats on the Kakagon River to see where wild rice grows and to learn about the Bad River Tribe’s relentless efforts to protect the abundant waters there. 

We met grandmothers, like Nisogaabokwe Melonee Montano, Edith Leoso and Zakiya Courtney, who are repositories and conduits of knowledge and love—who bridge eras and geographies, and who are actively working to sustain and care for their communities. We were an audience for lively performance by Milwaukee’s United Community Center’s Latino Arts Strings Program, high school students who mentor younger generations of musicians and serve their community through music.

In short, we met Wisconsinites who recognize that our communities thrive when we come together with respect, creativity and a desire to work for the collective good. 

Over forty years ago, the Wisconsin Idea Seminar emerged out of the commitment to introduce University of Wisconsin-Madison faculty and staff to the people and places of Wisconsin. The Seminar has charted paths through the state, crisscrossing rivers, forests, rolling hills and prairies. With the cadence of spring ephemerals, the Seminar is an annual experience, an opportunity to reflect on the Wisconsin Idea, to forage for meaning and inspiration. The Seminar invites those new to the state to extend their roots here, to deepen connections and to fortify a sense of place and purpose. Over the decades, more than 1,300 Seminar alumni have intentionally paused their daily lives for this five-day journey to focus on the social and cultural contexts that shape the lives of Wisconsinites, including current and future students of the university. 

Throughout our 2026 Big Lake journey, participants considered how we are all shaped by the Great Lakes and how people across the state are collaborating to care for the waters that define Wisconsin. For five days we used all of our senses to experience the interconnectedness of water, fire, land, food and language. We saw the dynamic ways that our work at the university can be animated by respect, reciprocity and responsibility to people, land and water.

We met UW-Madison alumni at each stop, Badgers who are committed to the wellbeing of their communities and who continue to strengthen relations between the university and their local communities to advance research, entrepreneurship and collaborations that are guided by community priorities. 

2026 Seminar travelers were a curious and thoughtful bunch and included faculty and staff representing about 20 different divisions, schools and colleges with distinct academic and research interests. What they all share is curiosity, empathy and a willingness to be moved—moved by water, moved by stories, moved by bus and small boats across the varied landscapes and waterscapes of Wisconsin. And now these faculty and staff are poised to deepen their roots here. With their curiosity and desire to contribute to shaping the living concept that is the Wisconsin Idea, they are inspired by what we can all do together with communities across the state and beyond.