We, the Waupaca Community Arts Board acknowledge that Indigenous Peoples have been here for millennia and that their homeland was forcefully taken. The Indigenous way of life as they honored the land and all of its inhabitants was forever changed. The land on which we now reside is the ancestral homeland of the Menominee Nation of Wisconsin.

As original inhabitants, the Menominee named the river, Wāpah-Sēpēw and Waupaca, Wāpahkoh, “place of tomorrow seen clearly”. We honor with gratitude the land and all the generations who have stewarded it. We strive to build awareness of the Menominee’s long history and resolve to work with the Menominee people now and into the future, by engaging in purposeful learning and actions consistent with the Waupaca Community Arts Board mission statement.