For the first time in its 62-year history, the Illinois Nature Preserves Commission (INPC), a division of the IL DNR, was addressed by a federally recognized tribe, the Ho-Chunk Nation (HCN). A proposal co-authored by staff members of JDCF and Bill Quackenbush, Tribal Historic Preservation Officer for the Ho-Chunk Nation, was heard and approved by the INPC Commissioners. The result is the dedication of JDCF’s Casper Bluff Land and Water Reserve as an Illinois Nature Preserve in January.

“This Nature Preserve dedication grants the highest level of legal protection to the land,” said former JDCF Director of Land Conservation Jim Johannsen. Dedicating the property as a state Nature Preserve is our way of doubling down on our promise to protect this place forever.”

Perched on a bluff overlooking the Mississippi River backwaters, JDCF purchased Casper Bluff in 2007 to protect both its natural features and historic cultural lands that have been used extensively by the ancestors of the Ho-Chunk and other Indigenous peoples for thousands of years. Since then, JDCF has restored the land to its original native prairie and oak savanna habitats.

“This land was Ho-Chunk land long before it was a JDCF preserve,” said JDCF Executive Director Steve Barg. “The dedication of this nature preserve will ensure that the people that have called this area home for millennia will always have access to their ancestral lands here.”

Under the Illinois Natural Areas Preservation Act, the INPC is a governmental body charged with identifying and protecting the highest quality remaining natural areas in Illinois. INPC works across the state with public and private landowners to voluntarily dedicate their lands as Nature Preserves, ensuring the land’s natural and cultural resources will endure for future generations to enjoy.

“I don’t think most people understand how much this means to Ho-Chunk people,” said HCN Director of Heritage Preservation and Traditional Chief Clayton Winneshiek. Chief Winneshiek along with other current and former officials from the HCN attended the 249th meeting of the INPC at the DNR Headquarters in Springfield, IL. “It’s not often that people recognize that this land is part of our homelands.”

According to oral history, the land that is now known as northwest Illinois was home to the Ho-Chunk and other Native American peoples for thousands of years before being settled by Euro-American peoples in the nineteenth century. During this time, the Ho-Chunk and other tribal nations were forcibly removed from the region. Today, the Ho-Chunk people are organized as two separate federally recognized tribes: the Ho-Chunk Nation of Wisconsin and the Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska.