There’s an exciting bicycling event happening and you are invited!
The Greater Waupaca Area Parks and Trails Spring Ride Fundraiser is coming
up on Saturday, May 21 st , 9 – noon.
This is a fundraising event to help cover costs of signage for the newest
section of trail.
Cost is $50 which includes a T-shirt and lunch at South Park
Upper Shelter at noon.
Register for the ride at: https://commonrootsrising.org/gwapt/
The Spring Ride on the Masākāēw Trail, guided by Scott Rusch, will introduce bicyclists to the trail. It will cover the new route that begins at Rotary Park in the city of Waupaca, to the Tomorrow River Trail at Ogdensburg, to Scandinavia, and back through Waupaca, past Swan Park, and back to Rotary Park. Riders can opt to do any part of the route or the entirety.
The day of the ride we will meet at South Park.
We reached out to GWAPT members, Jane Haasch and Scott Rusch, with some questions to get more information and details about the trail, and what to expect on the Spring Ride …
Here are their responses:
How did the trail get this beautiful, unique name and what does it mean?
When we first discussed a name for the route, one of our members, Jane Morrow, suggested we find a Native American name, preferably Menominee because of the history of the Waupaca area. The trail route crosses over water ten times. We considered Ten Crossings as the name. Scott Rusch found some suggestions in Menominee searching on the internet. We settled on Masākāēw, which means “crossing over water” or “crossing over a bridge”. With help from Jean Cox in the Menominee Nation Historic Preservation Office, we connected with David Grignon (Nahwahquaw- When the Sun at Mid-sky), Tribal Historic Preservation Officer, Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin. He corrected the original spelling we had found, confirmed the pronunciation, and was pleased that we were using a Menominee word since, to quote him,
“The Menominee people occupied the area of Waupaca for thousands of years until we were forced to cede the land in the Treaty era.”
David Grignon
How do you pronounce Masākāēw?
*Pronunciation of Masākāēw Trail: Ma (‘may’) – sa (‘a’ as in father) – kaew (‘ka’ as
in cat, without the “t”)
Is there a specific cost/donation amount to attend the Spring Ride?
Cost is $50 per rider which includes a T-shirt and lunch.
Do we need to register ahead of time? If so, where?
Pre-registration is encouraged! Here’s how …
- Go to: https://commonrootsrising.org/gwapt/
- Follow the directions to make a donation through Paypal, or send a check.
- Scroll down to “Get Trail Connected”
- Enter your name and email
- In the comment/message field, type in Address, City, State, Zip, Phone
number, T-shirt size (S, M, L, XL, XXL, or XXXL), and note if vegetarian. - Click SUBMIT
Registrations will be accepted on the day of the event as well. Please come early to take care of these details and sign a waiver at 8:30 a.m. Donations are welcome that day also. Non-riders are welcome to buy a T-shirt and have lunch. You can pay $25 at https://commonrootsrising.org/gwapt/ and give us your information same as above so we reserve your shirt and lunch. You are welcome to socialize at the park during the ride or just come at 11:30. You can order a shirt the day of if you like.
Learn about about Greater Waupaca Area Parks and Trails
