Features

Following the Current

an ambitious new museum exhibit explains how cultures have intersected over four centuries of Chippewa Valley history

Tom Giffey, photos by Andrea Paulseth |

There’s an old adage that you can never step into the same river twice. Even if the river appears unchanged, the chaotic flow of billions of water molecules, the impact of the elements, and the relentless passage of time mean that neither the river nor the traveler are identical on subsequent journeys.

“If there’s one signature piece, it’s the use of photographs to put you in the same space as the people we’re talking about.” — Susan McLeod Director, Chippewa Valley Museum

It’s fitting, then, that the new cornerstone exhibit of the Chippewa Valley Museum embraces the metaphor of the river. It’s called “Changing Currents: Reinventing the Chippewa Valley,” and like the river that lends the museum its name, the 4,200-square-foot exhibit traverses both space and time, tracing the intersecting narrative streams of those who have called the Chippewa Valley home, from Native Americans to French fur traders to 19th century lumberjacks to contemporary immigrants. Like ripples in flowing water, these people’s stories intersect and magnify each other in fascinating and unpredictable ways. Roughly nine years in the planning, the $850,000 exhibit has replaced two major exhibits created in the early 1990s, “Paths of the People” and “Settlement and Survival.” While portions of “Changing Currents” were opened to visitors in July, the museum held a grand opening for the exhibit on Dec. 7 (although finishing touches will continues for a while after that date).

Beginning in 1650, roughly when French trappers began to interact with the region’s indigenous peoples, the exhibit tells the Valley’s story in both broad themes and minute details, employing more than 400 original artifacts and 300 photos. Visitors can interact with a virtual fur trader, explore an Ojibwe wigwam, toot a riverboat whistle, watch a record flood inundate 19th century Eau Claire, and hear voices recount life in a 1950s northwoods resort. Through it all, they’ll meet fascinating local figures, from Klan-battling priests to legendary Civil War eagles.

Needed Changes 

Interactive trader Jean-Baptiste Perrault.
Interactive trader Jean-Baptiste Perrault.

The massive effort necessary to create “Changing Currents” had several motivations, including the desire to share new research and employ new methods of immersing visitors in history and simply because the prior exhibits were showing their age – metaphorically and literally.

“People would always ask us, ‘Are there a lot of those brown skunks around here?’ ” explains Susan McLeod, the museums director, referring to a tableau of mounted woodland creates that used to greet visitors. In fact, there are no brown skunks; the museum specimen had merely faded after long decades under artificial light. Other exhibits were similarly showing wear and tear, and no wonder: “Paths of the People: The Ojibwe in the Chippewa Valley,” opened in 1991; “Settlement and Survival: Building Towns in the Chippewa Valley, 1850-1925,” opened the following year. At the time, recalls McLeod, both were innovative for the museum: Instead of merely showcasing historical items in glass case after glass case, these were interpretive exhibits that featured continuous narrative threads and helped bring the past to life.

However, the two old exhibits kept the history of Native Americans and white settlers apart. “Interpretively, it doesn’t make sense anymore to have those as separate stories,” explains John Vanek, the museum’s editor, who wrote most of the text for the new exhibit. Accordingly, “Changing Currents” weaves together the stories of indigenous peoples with newcomers from 1650 to the present. In addition to telling a more integrated tale, the exhibit also continues the region’s story beyond the 1925 ending date of “Settlement and Survival.”

'A Zillion Things' 

That’s a huge swathe of history to encompass, museum officials acknowledge. “Since 1650, a zillion things have happened, so how are you going to bring those things together, while still giving those people voice?” McLeod says. The answer: a lot of effort – and editing. Research was conducted, lessons were learned from temporary exhibits, and grants were sought and received, including $250,000 from the National Endowment for the Humanities and $150,000 from the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

McLeod shared a mantra she admits the museum’s staff is probably tired of hearing: “Developing an exhibit is like writing in three dimensions.” The exhibit tells a story with physical objects and words, of course, but also with color, light, audio, and even a 3D video game that allows visitors to do business with a fur trader, Jean-Baptiste Perrault, who set up shop near what is now Menomonie in 1788. The game was created by students in a UW-Stout animation course; they also animated a sequence that plays on a screen elsewhere in the exhibit and graphically shows the devastation caused by an 1884 flood during which the river rose 27 feet in Eau Claire. Such elements will appeal to visitors of all ages, and that’s important: McLeod notes that about 40 percent of the museum’s visitors are children, and their comprehension level must be considered.

Written by Vanek and designed by museum consultant Jeanne Nyre, the exhibit is broken into six sections, “Canoe Country,” “Land of Strangers,” “People Are Flooding In,” “Making Americans,” “Vacationland,” and “Waves of Change.” The sections are chronological as well as thematic, and visitors will notice that similar ideas, concepts, and conflicts pop up repeatedly. For example, the spearfishing controversy of the late 1980s, which is described near the end of the exhibit, has its roots in 19th century treaties described earlier in the exhibit.

McLeod, who is retiring as museum director this month, says visitors sometimes ask if the museum has a signature piece in its collection – a local Mona Lisa, so to speak. It doesn’t, at least in terms of a single physical object. However, she explains, “If there’s one signature piece, it’s the use of photographs to put you in the same space as the people we’re talking about.” And some of these images – the near life-sized lumberjacks dwarfed by a pile of stumps, the Native American family fleeing a man-made flood with their possessions piled in a boat – undoubtedly will stay with may visitors. The stream of history told by “Changing Currents” is deep, and you’ll want to give yourself the chance to drink it all in.

Chippewa Valley Museum Tues., 1-8pm (FREE 5-8pm); Wed.-Fri., 1-5pm; Sat., 10am-5pm; Sun., 1-5pm; closed Mon. • Carson Park, Eau Claire • adults $5; ages 5-17 and those with student ID, $2; under age 5, FREE • (715) 834-7871 • www.cvmuseum.com