Angela Fitzgerald heads to Chippewa Falls to explore the historic Northern Wisconsin State Fair, a community staple for more than 100 years. Its rich history includes agricultural exhibits, a midway and even a 1935 Green Bay Packers game. Nowadays, visitors can hop on carnival rides, try culinary concoctions or attend a pig, duck and goat race.
After that, we catch up with Anja Notanja Sieger, a Milwaukee-based poet and performance artist who’s revitalizing typewriter poetry. Setting up a vintage typewriter in public spaces, she crafts custom poems on demand, creating intimate connections with her audience. Sieger’s approach and spontaneous creativity make her a beloved figure in Milwaukee’s cultural scene.
Next, ride along on the cross-country odyssey that is the Cannonball Motorcycle Race. As if the multi-thousand-mile course — from Virginia Beach, Virginia, to Oceanside, California — wasn’t enough of a challenge, the Cannonball’s competitors race on nearly hundred-year-old antique motorcycles. Beaver Dam’s Jonas Zahn and Brenda Kuhl had an epic adventure racing on an Italian Moto Guzzi with sidecar.
Get to know the Ojibwe Pony, which traditionally lived alongside the Anishinaabe people, but came close to extinction in the 1970s. The driving of Native people from their lands left only four ponies. Since then, efforts have been made to save the unique breed, including by The Humble Horse in Spring Valley. The organization’s founder, Em Loerzal values the horses as family members within her Ojibwe community.
And finally, we descend into Carolyn’s Caverns of Chilton, Wisconsin. For some, the thought of descending into the depths of a dark, tight cave is the stuff of nightmares. For Robert Root, it was a fear that he needed to face; a challenging journey he had to make.
