OcoochMountains.com
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THE DRIFTLESS AREA · WISCONSIN
PAH-ko-chee ah-hay-MAH-shee
Mountains of Snowy Lodges — A Sacred Place
Vernon · Richland · Monroe · Juneau · Sauk · Crawford · La Crosse
The largest collection in the world — Thunderbird, Bear, Water Panther
Ancient shoreline stones — biofilm petrified into natural art
Hunter-gatherer peoples hunted, fished, traded, and celebrated here
The Effigy Moundbuilders are presumed to be egalitarian. There were no signs of burials, grave goods, status, or tribal tradition, implying that everyone could enjoy them, making them a true archetype for Oneness with Nature!
Wear the Myth. Keep the Stone.
Ready to Wear the Myth? Keep the Stone? → Visit the ShopEIGHT DEFINITIVE PAGES · ONE COMPLETE ARCHITECTURE
THE DRIFTLESS AREA
The Ocooch Mountains are part of the Paleozoic Plateau known as the Driftless Area, bordered by the Central Plains of Wisconsin to the north, the Baraboo Hills to the east, the Wisconsin River to the south, and the Mississippi River to the west.
— Ocooch Mountains, Eric Jonathan Zingler
These are not mountains in the conventional sense. They are the deeply dissected remnants of an ancient plateau.
What makes the Ocooch Mountains extraordinary is that they were never glaciated. The ancient shoreline was preserved — and with it, the Ocooch Mountain Rocks — early-lifeform biofilm mixed with sand — petrified by water into natural art.
Between approximately 700 and 1200 CE, hunter-gatherer peoples constructed approximately 20,000 effigy mounds across these ridges. The largest collection in the world. The principal effigies are the Thunderbird, representing the Sky/Night Realm; the Bear, representing the Earth/Forest Realm; and the Water Panther, representing the Water/Underground Realm. It is believed that these mounds were built to celebrate the annual renewal of life. They made the Ocooch Mountains a sacred place.
The Ocooch Mountains and the six realms are an archetype of Oneness with Nature, which our mission promotes, leading to a deeper relationship with the Creator, interior growth, responsible ecology, and more loving relationships.
Wear the Myth. Keep the Stone.
Visit the Shop →"The river teaches the pilgrim to release, to soften, to be moved."
Begin at the water's edge. Let the river carry what you no longer need. The pathway opens with release.
Cup water in your hands. Let it slip through your fingers. Name what you are letting go.
Sit beside moving water. Close your eyes. Breathe with the current. You are held by what flows beneath you.
May Sister Water teach you that usefulness and humility are the same virtue.
"The ancient bluffs hold their shape. The bear endures. So do you."
Walk the ridge. Feel the stone beneath your feet. The earth remembers what the ice could not erase.
Hold a stone from the Ocooch. Feel its weight. It has endured 480 million years. You can endure today.
Stand barefoot on earth. Press down. Feel the planet press back. You are supported by ancient ground.
May the stone you carry today carry the memory of everything that held its shape when the ice came.
"The thunderbird soars. Lift your gaze beyond what you can manage."
Look up. The thunderbird effigy mounds point skyward. Your vision is meant to soar beyond the ridge.
At noon, face the sun. Close your eyes. Feel Brother Sun on your face. You are seen by what you cannot look at directly.
Lie on your back in an open field. Let the sky hold you. There is no ceiling above you — only invitation.
May the sky above you never feel like a ceiling.
"Put your hand on a tree. Listen to what the roots remember."
Enter the forest. The canopy closes behind you. Here you are not observed — you are accompanied.
Place your hand on a tree trunk. Feel the bark. The roots beneath you reach as deep as the branches reach high.
Sit beneath a canopy. Listen. The forest speaks in rustling, in cracking, in silence between sounds.
May the tree you pass each day know that you see it.
"Sit in darkness long enough and the stars become companions."
Wait for darkness. The night realm does not rush. It asks you to sit with what you cannot see.
Go outside at night. No flashlight. Wait until your eyes adjust. Name one star. You have just made a companion.
In darkness, the other senses awaken. Hear the owl. Feel the cool. Smell the damp earth. The night is alive.
May Sister Moon show you that beauty shines in darkness.
"Descent is not defeat. The water panther guards the deepest springs."
Descend. The water panther waits below. What you find in the depths will sustain what grows above.
Find a spring. Drink from it. The water has traveled through stone for centuries to reach your lips.
Close your eyes. Imagine descending through stone, through root, through ancient water. You reach the spring. Rest there.
May the descent lead you to what only depth can teach.
A real Indigenous word — recovered through real research — restored to the landscape it has always named.
"I would suggest the meaning 'Snowy Lodges' or 'Snow-covered Lodges.' One would say The Mountains of the Snowy Lodges directly in Ioway as Pahkochee Ahaymahshee. Pronounced as PAH-ko-chee ah-hay-MAH-shee."
— Lance Michael Foster, MA, Tribal Historic Preservation Officer, Iowa Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska
Lance Michael Foster identified Ocooch as Báxoje / Páxoje — the self-referential name of the Ioway people. The Ioway lived in the Ocooch Mountains by the Mississippi floodplains near La Crosse, Wisconsin.
[ Photo: Foster's Painting — Hills and Snowy Lodges with smoke from the fire hole and tribal members in buffalo robes ]
Francis Perry and Edith Thundercloud (1977) identified the Ho-Chunk word Hoguć — pronounced ho-gooch — meaning "Where they go to shoot fish." William Quackenbush, Tribal Preservation Officer, verified: ho = fish, guuc = shoot. The Ho-Chunk fished the Wisconsin River and its tributaries in the Ocooch Mountains.
"I'm assuming that your use of the letter C in Ocooch has the value of K. Then I'd guess your analysis is probably about the best hypothesis possible."
— Robert Rankin, PhD, Siouan Linguistic Authority — to Lance Michael Foster
Linguist Brian McHugh hypothesized that Ocooch may have an ancient root word from Old Hoočąk, Okhúuč, pronounced "oh-COOCH."
— Brian McHugh, PhD, Temple University Linguist — to Eric Jonathan Zingler
Ocooch is not a made-up word. It is not a corruption.
It is a real Indigenous word — restored to the landscape
Want to go deeper? The complete etymology research is in the books.
Get the Books →The Honga Lineage
The Ocooch Mountains are located on land where many Indigenous peoples hunted, fished, traded, and celebrated for over 14,500 years.
Lance Michael Foster, MA, Iowa Historic Preservation Officer, Iowa Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska, said that the clans came together to form the Honga — the "Great Nation" — at MaShuje, "Red Earth," in the Green Bay area. From this convergence, the clans dispersed across the Upper Midwest — each carrying the memory of the land they had shaped.
The Ioway — Báxoje / Páxoje — were biological descendants of the Moundbuilders. They lived in the Ocooch Mountains by La Crosse, farming the floodplains and hunting buffalo on the plains to the west when they were part of the Oneota tradition. A sister tribe of the Ho-Chunk, the Ioway called the Ho-Chunk "Grandfathers." Their 1837 treaty map documents intimate geographic knowledge of the Ocooch Mountains. Lance Michael Foster, MA, Tribal Historic Preservation Officer, Iowa Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska, is their voice in this research.
Biological descendants of the Moundbuilders. Former homeland at Red Banks (Green Bay), where they cultivated the three sisters — corn, beans, and squash — in the floodplains. Presently located at Black River Falls, Wisconsin. Their word Hoguć — "Where they go to shoot fish" — reflects their deep relationship with the Wisconsin River and its tributaries. They serve as indigenous cultural preservation advisors for the Kickapoo Valley Reserve, a major river in the Ocooch Mountains.
A nation of the Great Lakes with deep relationships throughout the Upper Midwest through trade networks and shared ecological knowledge of the Ocooch Mountains region.
Ancient Great Lakes nation and wild rice cultivators. Witnesses to the effigy mound tradition across the Upper Midwest. Their presence in the region predates written history.
The Sac and Fox maintained trade relationships throughout the Driftless Area. Their knowledge of the river systems and ridgelines of the Ocooch Mountains contributed to the region's complex Indigenous geography. The Fox River bears witness to their presence.
The Kickapoo River — the most crooked river in North America — runs through the heart of the Ocooch Mountains and carries their name. As they passed through the area, the Kickapoo people's relationship with this landscape is written in the river itself: "one who moves about, standing now here, now there."
The Ocooch Mountains are located on the ancestral homelands of the Ioway, Ho-Chunk, Potawatomi, Menominee, Sac and Fox, and Kickapoo peoples. We honor their presence, their knowledge, and their enduring relationship with this land.
Five maps — from ancient shoreline to Indigenous territory to 19th-century exploration.
MAP 1
The Earliest Written Record of the Ocooch Mountains
In 1822, Major Stephen H. Long's expedition map placed 'Ocooch Mts.' on the American cartographic record for the first time. The green circle marks the Ocooch Mountains at the junction of the Kickapoo River and the Wisconsin River — surrounded by Prairie du Chien, the Black River, and Prairie de la Crosse.
480 million years ago, a warm shallow sea covered what is now Wisconsin. The Ocooch Mountains are the surviving remnant of that sea's shoreline — preserved by the Driftless Area's escape from glaciation. The ancient biofilm that formed in that sea became the Ocooch Mountain Rocks.
Between 700 and 1200 CE, approximately 20,000 effigy mounds were constructed across the Ocooch Mountains — the largest collection in the world, although only a few thousand remain today. The mounds follow the ridge lines, with water panther effigies near springs and rivers.
The Ioway (Báxoje / Páxoje) signed a treaty in 1837 that included a detailed map of their territorial knowledge — confirming their intimate geographic relationship with the Ocooch Mountains. Eric Jonathan Zingler identified this map as evidence that Major Long learned from private conversations with an Ioway chief that they once lived in the region he would later name the Ocooch Mountains.
Major Stephen H. Long's 1822 expedition map is the earliest map to feature the Ocooch Mountain region, recording the river systems and ridgelines. Mapmakers in Europe and America incorporated his work into their maps until 1849, when rails, roads, and cities displaced geographical features.
The Ocooch Mountains are bounded by the Central Plains of Wisconsin to the north, the Baraboo Hills to the east, the Wisconsin River to the south, and the Mississippi River to the west. The counties of Vernon, Richland, Monroe, Juneau, Sauk, Crawford, and La Crosse lie within this boundary.
The research behind OcoochMountains.com — in video and in print.
Eric Jonathan Zingler
The complete authoritative source — history, geology, Indigenous peoples, etymology, and the sacred story of the Driftless Area.
Buy on Amazon →
Eric Jonathan Zingler
The geological and mythic story of the ancient shoreline stones — their formation, their realm alignment, and their Creator's witness.
Buy on Amazon →Ancient shoreline biofilm — petrified by water — shaped into natural art by 480 million years.
Bear-like · Strong profiles · Dense mineralization · earthy
The bear effigy in stone. Dense, powerful, watchful, protective, storytelling.
Myth-bearers · Eyes that speak
The thunderbird effigy in stone. Expansive, visionary.
Ancient shoreline memory · Serpentine
The water panther effigy in stone. Fluid, ancient, transformative.
Wear the Myth. Keep the Stone.
Visit the Shop →THE SACRED JOURNEY
Enter each realm. Receive the blessing. The pathway is ancient — walked by the Effigy Moundbuilders for ten thousand years before us. Walk slowly. Listen deeply.
Thunderbird on the Cliff · Wind · Sight
Stand at the edge of the ancient sandstone bluff. The Thunderbird Effigy Mound spreads its wings above you — a guardian mapped in earth, watching the valley below. The wind here is the Thunderbird's breath. Lift your arms. You are seen from above and below.
Ritual: Face the open sky. Breathe the wind fully in. Release what weighs you down on the exhale. The Thunderbird carries it upward.
Milky Way · Stars · Ancient Memory
The Ocooch night sky is among the darkest in Wisconsin — no light pollution, just the original darkness. The Effigy Moundbuilders read these same stars, oriented their mounds to solstice sunrises and moonsets. Above you, the river of the Milky Way flows. You are made of this light.
Ritual: Lie on your back. Find the center of the Milky Way. Let ten thousand years of ceremony rise up through the earth beneath you.
Bear in the Meadow · Root · Ground
The Bear Effigy Mound rises from the open meadow — the largest of all effigy forms, honoring the Bear Clan who kept the healing plants. In the Ocooch meadows, wildflowers bloom in sequences the Moundbuilders knew by heart. The earth holds every generation that has ever walked here.
Ritual: Remove your shoes if you are able. Place your feet or hands flat on the earth. Breathe slowly, rooting downward with each exhale.
Cathedral Canopy · Path · Stillness
The Ocooch forests are among the oldest in the Midwest — oak savannas and ridgeline forests that survived every glaciation because they stood on the unglaciated plateau. The trees here are elders. The path through them was walked before memory. Slow your pace to theirs.
Ritual: Walk in silence. At the oldest tree you find, place your hand on the bark. Listen for what it carries. The forest has been holding this for you.
Ocooch Stream · Water Panther · Flow
The cold, clear streams of the Ocooch flow over limestone beds unchanged since the Paleozoic seas retreated. Below the surface, the Water Panther — Mishibizhii — moves between worlds. These streams do not hesitate. They know only flow, and in that knowing, they carry everything downstream.
Ritual: Cup your hands in the stream. Let the cold water run through your fingers. Release what you have been holding. The Water Panther carries it to the deep.
Sacred Cave · Deep Water · Renewal
The Ocooch limestone caves are the gateways the Moundbuilders understood as the boundary between worlds. Here, underground rivers run in total darkness. Stalactites carry ten thousand years of mineral memory. The cave does not distinguish between the living and the ancient — all are equally present in the dark.
Ritual: In the dark — or with eyes closed — breathe until you feel the boundary between your body and the cave dissolve. Let the old self go. What rises from the deep is renewed.
The pathway is complete when you carry it forward. Return to the world as you left the cave — renewed, rooted, seeing with opened eyes. The Ocooch Mountains walk with you now.
Wear the Myth. Keep the Stone.
Visit the Shop →A pilgrimage in five movements — from the first breath of Oneness to the harvest of loving relationships.
Cards 1–8
The first movement opens the pilgrim to the living world.
Cards 9–16
Encounter with the Creator through the Canticle of the Sun.
Cards 17–24
Encounter becomes action. Tend the land.
Cards 25–36
The outer journey reshapes the inner landscape.
Cards 37–52
The harvest of the arc — love in every direction.
The Pilgrim's Pathway moves through six realms across the four seasons — Water (Early Spring), Earth (Late Spring), Sky (Summer), Forest (Early Autumn), Night (Late Autumn), Underworld (Winter).
Where geology, Indigenous wisdom, and the sacred imagination converge.
EIGHT DEFINITIVE PAGES · ONE COMPLETE ARCHITECTURE
To see the natural world as companion, not backdrop.
To meet the Creator in the living world — in stone, river, sky, and root.
To let the outer journey reshape the inner landscape.
To tend the land that has tended us.
To carry the gentleness of nature into every human encounter.
Sister Water
Water Realm
Sister Earth
Earth Realm
Brother Sun
Sky Realm
Brother Wind
Forest Realm
Sister Moon
Night Realm
Brother Fire
Underworld Realm
Fifty-two blessings — one for every week of the year — organized across the Five Movements of the Pilgrim's Arc.
Card 1 · Water
"May you find, in every river you cross, a reminder that you are held by what flows beneath you."
Card 2 · Earth
"May the stone you carry today carry the memory of everything that held its shape when the ice came."
Card 3 · Sky
"May the first bird you hear each morning remind you that the world begins before you wake."
Card 4 · Forest
"May the tree you pass each day know that you see it."
+ 4 more blessings in this movement
Card 9
"May the sky above you never feel like a ceiling."
Card 10
"May Sister Moon show you that beauty shines in darkness."
Card 11
"May Sister Water teach you that usefulness and humility are the same virtue."
Card 12
"May Brother Wind carry your prayer wherever it needs to go."
+ 4 more
Card 17
"Blessed is the one who plants something they will never see fully grown."
Card 18
"Blessed is the one who cleans the stream no one told them to clean."
Card 19
"Blessed is the one who learns the name of one invasive plant and removes it."
Card 20
"Blessed is the milkweed patch. Blessed is the rain garden. Blessed is the native prairie."
+ 4 more
Card 25
"May the darkness teach you what the light could not."
Card 26
"May the descent lead you to what only depth can teach."
Card 27
"May the patience of a river teach you that persistence without force is the most powerful form of movement."
Card 28
"May the stone in your hand remind you that you are held."
+ 8 more
Card 37
"May the roots you cannot see be as strong as the ones you can."
Card 38
"May the gentleness you learned in nature show up at the dinner table."
Card 39
"May you see the people you love the way the thunderbird sees the land."
Card 40
"May you love the way the river loves — patiently, persistently."
+ 8 more
CARD 52 — CAPSTONE
"May the Ocooch Mountains — their realms, their stones, their mounds, their sky — remind you of what you are made of: ancient water, ancient earth, ancient fire, ancient air. You belong to a beautiful world. Love it well. Love each other well. PAH-ko-chee ah-hay-MAH-shee — Mountains of Snowy Lodges. Wear the Myth. Keep the Stone."
© 2026 Eric Jonathan Zingler · Card 52 of 52
Fifty-two thresholds. One arc. A lifetime of spiraling through.
Return to The Realms →
The ecological vision at the heart of the Ocooch Mountains mission.
The Driftless Area is one of the most ecologically precious landscapes in North America. Unglaciated for 480 million years, it harbors species and geological formations found nowhere else. The Ocooch Mountains are an archetype for Oneness with Nature, inviting you to see nature as Eden Earth.
Eden Earth is the ecological arm of the Ocooch Mountains mission. We believe that responsible ecology is not a political position — it is a spiritual practice. To tend the land is to tend the relationship between the human soul and the living world.
The Effigy Moundbuilders left no signs of hierarchy. They built mounds to celebrate the renewal of life. If we are to honor their legacy, we must treat all land as they did — as a sacred trust, not a commodity. Restore native prairie. Plant milkweed. Protect the springs. Clean the streams. The land remembers what we do to it.
Oneness with Nature. Creator Encounter. Interior Growth. Responsible Ecology. Loving Relationships. Five movements. One arc. A lifetime of spiraling through — returning always to the land that holds us.
Wear the Myth. Keep the Stone.
Visit the Shop →The authoritative sources for the Ocooch Mountains story.
Eric Jonathan Zingler
The complete authoritative source — history, geology, Indigenous peoples, etymology, and the sacred story of the Driftless Area.
Buy on Amazon →Eric Jonathan Zingler
Ancient Cave Stone — the geological and mythic story of the ancient shoreline stones, their formation, realm alignment, and the Creator's witness.
Buy on Amazon →Eric Jonathan Zingler — historian, artist, and storyteller.
While contemplating my historical book, The Ocooch Mountains, I realized how Native Americans used myth to explain concepts and experience the world around them more deeply. As I finished Ocooch Mountain Rocks, I realized that it was necessary to view the second part of the book as a Work of Art. After taking a photo, I work with it to reveal texture and mineral color. Some rock images are unchangeable, but others, after adjusting contrast, saturation, or warmth, reveal themselves in wondrous ways. Some look like jewels, and others take on striking features. Each finished image is one-of-a-kind and cannot be reproduced. They have faces and eyes, and their gaze, creature-shaped and colored, asks for a story. OcoochMountains.com gives them their story using myth, like the Native Americans.
St. Francis used metaphor in his Canticle of the Sun — Brother Sun, Sister Moon. Franciscan Spirituality underlies the mythic world of OcoochMountains.com, which incorporates the Native American archetypal mound shapes of the Thunderbird, Bear, and Water Panther into the world of Stone, an amorphic place of six realms filled with stones. The Pilgrim's journey through these realms leads to introspection and unity with our Eden, Earth, and our Creator.
Selected sources consulted in the research and writing of The Ocooch Mountains.
Wear the Myth. Keep the Stone.
Visit the Shop →Pilgrim stories of ecological stewardship — from people practicing Oneness with Nature, one act at a time.
This Wiki belongs to the pilgrims. Every entry is a real story of ecological stewardship — a person, a place, an act of care for the living world. Add your story. Search for inspiration. Discover that you belong to a growing community of people making a difference, one milkweed plant, one stream cleanup, one bee sanctuary at a time.
Who knows what we could do with a thousand entries?
Every act of care is an effigy mound — built for everyone, belonging to no one, lasting longer than the builder.
Wear the Myth. Keep the Stone.
Visit the Shop →Wear the Myth. Keep the Stone.
Each effigy symbol — Thunderbird, Bear, Water Panther — available on apparel and gear.
Sky/Night Realm
T-shirts, hoodies, hats — gold on dark
Earth/Forest Realm
T-shirts, hats, totes — forest green
Water/Underworld Realm
T-shirts, mugs — stream blue
All Realms
The actual Ocooch Mountain Rocks — Protection, Vision, Flow stones
A portion of all proceeds goes directly to habitat restoration and Indigenous cultural preservation in the Ocooch Mountains region.