MADISON – Well, this was different.

“And better,” said Alexander Pendleton of Shorewood, Wis.

We stood May 17 on Bascom Hill on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus and took in the sight.

The grassy space is famous for hosting gatherings, sometimes even pranks by students. One of the most well-known was the Sept. 4, 1979 placement of about 1,000 plastic pink flamingos on the sloping terrain.

But this day Bascom was graced by something more natural.

The hill was peppered with dozens of wild turkey decoys. Hens. Toms. Preeners. Strutters. Feeders.

A crowd of people, volunteers, biologists, conservation organization staff and curious onlookers, reveled in the scene.

I think I even saw a satisfied smile crease the face of Pres. Abraham Lincoln, the statue that overlooks the hill.

Everybody knew this was no joke. This was a gathering with meaning.

“The most successful wildlife reintroduction in state history,” said Pendleton, accompanied by his wife Terese. “What an achievement.”

The May 17 event on Bascom, and a subsequent luncheon and program in UW Memorial Union, was a celebration of the 50th anniversary of the reintroduction of wild turkeys to Wisconsin.

The National Wild Turkey Federation was the primary sponsor of the events. Department of Natural Resources staff, both current and retired, also took part.

Significantly, former DNR employees Ron Nicklaus and Jon Nelson were on hand. Nicklaus was the leader of field operations of the 1976 turkey reintroduction and helped release the first 29 birds near Romance in Vernon County. Nelson was hired as a field technician about three months after the first birds arrived and worked on the turkey project for 10 years.

“Nobody really knew how it would go,” Nicklaus said. “And if anyone tries to tell you they knew it would be so successful and over so much of the state, they are lying. It’s been incredible.”

Wild turkeys were native to Wisconsin but the species was depleted through the 1800s by removal of vast areas of timber and high, unregulated turkey harvests by market and subsistence hunters.

By 1860 the birds were rare, and in 1881 the last wild turkey in the state’s original flock was killed near Darlington, according to the Department of Natural Resources’ document “Ecology of Wild Turkeys in Wisconsin.”

Efforts through the early to mid-1900s to bring the species back, mostly through stocking game farm birds, largely failed.

But by the 1970s the DNR had seen what worked in other states and put a plan together for Wisconsin.It was based on transferring wild turkeys obtained in the Ozark Mountains of Missouri into suitable habitat. In Wisconsin, the best wild turkey habitat was in the Driftless Area of southwestern Wisconsin.

The plan also relied on an agreement between state agencies. The Wisconsin DNR would exchange three ruffed grouse for each wild turkey provided by the Missouri Department of Conservation.

That proved trickier than it may seem. Nicklaus, who was tasked with capturing the grouse, had to bend and even break some rules to get it done.

“The grouse were tough to trap, and then of course you had to check the traps at least once a day, even on weekends and holidays,” Nicklaus said. “So we worked every day to get it done.”

Eventually enough grouse had been captured to convince the Missouri biologists to collect some wild turkeys for the trade.

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Frank Lloyd Wright spent nearly five decades building and rebuilding Taliesin, his home and architecture school in the hills just outside Spring Green, before it became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2019. Bayfield, the smallest incorporated city in Wisconsin at roughly 600 residents, runs as the mainland gateway to the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore. Lake Geneva preserves a 21-mile public-access shore path that has stayed open since 1888 through an easement granted by the original lakefront landowners. Rib Mountain near Wausau rises out of central Wisconsin as a 1.7-billion-year-old quartzite ridge, one of the oldest geological features in North America. The eleven Wisconsin towns below each run on a different version of slow time.

Lake Geneva

Lake Geneva grew up in the late 19th century as a summer retreat for wealthy Chicago families. The Geneva Lake Shore Path traces the entire 21-mile shoreline as a public-access easement granted by the original lakefront landowners, passing 19th-century estates including the Wrigley, Maytag, Drake, and Schwinn family homes. Black Point Estate and Gardens, a preserved Queen Anne-style mansion on the south shore, opens for public guided boat tours in summer through the Wisconsin Historical Society.

For a different perspective, Lake Geneva Cruise Line runs narrated boat tours including the still-operating US Mail Boat Tour, where a runner jumps from the moving boat to deliver mail to lakeside homes (a tradition dating to 1916 that operates June through mid-September).

Ladysmith

Ladysmith sits along the Flambeau River in northern Wisconsin and was established in 1885. The annual Northland Mardi Gras each July packs a four-day craft fair, parade, and lighted boat parade into a town of fewer than 4,000. The Rusk County Historical Society Museum holds multiple buildings on its grounds, including a replica of the Gates County Courthouse and the Little Red Schoolhouse, with permanent collections covering logging history, antique farm machinery, and military artifacts.

Memorial Park along the Flambeau River anchors community events. The Reclaimed Flambeau Mine Site, a former copper-zinc mine restored to natural habitat, runs walking trails through prairie and woodland on the reclaimed property.

Lake Hallie

Lake Hallie sits just north of Eau Claire on the lake of the same name. The public boat launch handles bass and northern pike fishing in summer and ice fishing in winter. Pinehurst Park covers the year-round outdoor side: bike trails for various skill levels in warmer months, then snowboarding, skiing, and tubing at the park hill once snow falls.

Lake Hallie Golf runs a well-kept course with a driving range and pro shop. The Lake Hallie Sportsman’s Club hosts community fishing contests and steak feeds throughout the year.

Thiensville

Thiensville runs along the Milwaukee River north of its namesake city. The Main Street Historic District holds early 20th-century commercial architecture from the village’s plank-road days. The Green Bay Road Historic District covers the horse-and-buggy era buildings further out.

The Ozaukee Interurban Trail, a 30-mile rail-trail running between Mequon and Belgium, passes through Thiensville with paved biking and walking access. Village Park hosts the Thiensville Village Market every Saturday from June through October, with local produce, artisanal goods, and live music drawing regular weekend crowds.

Bayfield

Bayfield sits on Lake Superior at the northern tip of the Bayfield Peninsula and is the smallest incorporated city in Wisconsin, with roughly 600 year-round residents on less than one square mile. It serves as the mainland gateway to the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore, which protects 21 of the 22 Apostle Islands across 69,540 acres of Lake Superior shoreline and water. Apostle Islands Cruises runs narrated sightseeing tours out to the sea caves and historic lighthouses, and local outfitters guide kayak trips into the sandstone caves carved along the cliffs.

Bayfield’s 50-block Historic District dates to its turn-of-the-century timber, fishing, and brownstone boom, when the Queen Anne mansions and commercial storefronts along Rittenhouse Avenue went up. Eckels Pottery, the oldest pottery studio in the state, still operates downtown, and the Bayfield Maritime Museum covers the town’s fishing and lighthouse-keeping past. Bayfield bills itself as the Berry Capital of Wisconsin, and its annual Applefest each October draws crowds far larger than the resident population. A car ferry crosses the channel to Madeline Island, the one Apostle island left out of the national lakeshore and the site of La Pointe, among the oldest European settlements in the state.

Mineral Point

Mineral Point in Iowa County is the third-oldest city in Wisconsin, settled in 1827 during the lead-mining boom that drew waves of Cornish miners from southwestern England. The dugouts those early miners burrowed into the hillsides reportedly resembled badger dens, which is one origin story for Wisconsin’s Badger State nickname. The town of about 2,500 sits roughly 50 miles west of Madison, and its historic district (the first in Wisconsin listed on the National Register of Historic Places) holds more than 500 structures, including 1840s Cornish limestone cottages.

Pendarvis, a cluster of restored stone and timber miners’ cottages on Shake Rag Street operated by the Wisconsin Historical Society, preserves the Cornish settlement and runs costumed-interpreter tours seasonally. High Street holds the densest row of 19th-century commercial buildings in the state, now filled with galleries and pottery studios that have turned Mineral Point into an arts town. The Red Rooster Cafe has served Cornish pasties and figgyhobbin for decades, and the Cornish Festival each September keeps the heritage going. The Mineral Point Railroad Museum occupies the oldest surviving depot in Wisconsin, which operated between 1856 and 1984.

New London

New London sits at the confluence of the Wolf and Embarrass Rivers. The town adopts the name “New Dublin” each year for the St. Patrick’s Day weekend (typically the weekend closest to March 17), with a parade, Irish music, and traditional food drawing thousands. Mosquito Hill Nature Center, a 430-acre Outagamie County natural area, runs hiking trails, summit-overlook viewpoints, and educational programming on the local ecology.

The Heritage Historical Village holds restored period buildings and artifacts covering the area’s settlement. The Newton Blackmour State Trail, a 23-mile rail-trail, passes through town for biking, hiking, and winter snowmobiling.

Spring Green

Spring Green is a village of just over 1,400 people in the Driftless hills of southwestern Wisconsin, on the north bank of the Wisconsin River. Its identity runs almost entirely through Frank Lloyd Wright, who spent boyhood summers in the valley with his mother’s family and then spent nearly five decades, beginning in 1911, building and rebuilding Taliesin, his home, studio, and architecture school, into the brow of a hill just south of town. Wright used local limestone and sand dredged from the Wisconsin River to make the buildings look like they grew out of the landscape. Taliesin was named a National Historic Landmark in 1976 and a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2019.

Spring Green carries more than Wright. The American Players Theatre, an outdoor classical-theater company widely rated among the best in the country, stages Shakespeare and other repertory in a wooded amphitheater through the summer season. The House on the Rock, Alex Jordan’s eccentric hilltop complex south of town, holds oddities including the world’s largest indoor carousel. The Spring Green Preserve, sometimes called the Wisconsin Desert, protects a rare landscape of sand prairie and prickly pear cactus on the bluffs above the river.

Sister Bay

Sister Bay is a Door County village of fewer than 1,000 residents on the Green Bay side of the Door Peninsula. Sister Bay Beach gives the waterfront a grassy public edge, and the pier and Sister Bay Marina put the harbor within a short walk of downtown. Sister Bay Scenic Boat Tours runs easygoing cruises out onto Green Bay, and the village fills with visitors through the summer and the fall-color weeks without ever losing its unhurried feel.

The town’s best-known address is Al Johnson’s Swedish Restaurant and Butik, where goats graze on the grass-covered sod roof through the warm months while the kitchen turns out Swedish pancakes and meatballs below. The waterfront dining scene runs well beyond it, and the surrounding peninsula keeps state parks, orchards, and shoreline drives within easy reach for a day spent doing very little in particular.

Elkhart Lake

Elkhart Lake in Sheboygan County wraps around its namesake spring-fed lake. The sandy public beach handles swimming, kayaking, and paddleboarding through the warmer months. Road America, a 4-mile road-racing circuit just south of the village, has been the country’s premier natural-terrain road course since opening in 1955 and hosts IndyCar, IMSA sports car, and motorcycle races throughout the season.

Aspira Spa at The Osthoff Resort runs full-service treatments inspired by the surrounding lake and forest. Henschel’s Indian Museum & Trout Farm pairs an unusual Native American artifact collection with a working catch-your-own trout pond on the same property.

Rib Mountain

Rib Mountain rises above the city of Wausau as a 1.7-billion-year-old quartzite ridge, one of the oldest geological features in North America. Rib Mountain State Park covers more than 1,500 acres with 15 miles of hiking trails climbing through quartzite ledges to the summit, where a 60-foot observation tower overlooks the Wisconsin River valley.

Granite Peak Ski Area on the south face of Rib Mountain runs 75 named trails across 200 acres of skiable terrain (the largest ski area in Wisconsin) and operates a high-speed six-pack chairlift for fast access. Winter at the state park transforms the upper trails into snowshoeing and cross-country skiing routes.

Eleven Versions Of Slow

The eleven Wisconsin towns above each hang on a specific anchor. Lake Geneva and Elkhart Lake run on summer lakefront tradition, and Sister Bay adds the Door County version up on Green Bay. Ladysmith and New London hold cultural identities (a lumber-town festival, Irish heritage) that bigger cities long ago shed. Bayfield and Mineral Point built theirs on geography and immigrant history, a Lake Superior archipelago and a Cornish lead-mining boom. Spring Green and Rib Mountain anchor architectural and geological specialties. Lake Hallie and Thiensville cluster around a lake and a river for daily recreation. None of them is in a hurry.