Niagara Escarpment events scheduled on October 7-9

FOX CITIES

Sites and venues in several counties will busy on the weekend of October 7-9 with events pertaining to the Niagara Escarpment, which treads its way from south central Wisconsin northeast through Door County.

Titled “Living on the Ledge,” the three days of activities are being coordinated by the Niagara Escarpment Network with the cooperation of public and private sector entities.

Culinary experience

From 5-8:30 pm on Friday, Oct. 7, the seasonal productive bounty of the escarpment's landscape will be featured in a “Ledge Wars – A Culinary Experience” dinner being prepared at the Fox Valley Technical College culinary institute in Little Chute.

With Bill Jartz of WBAY-TV in Green Bay serving as the host for the event, chefs and culinary arts students will prepare a four-course meal paired with Wisconsin Ledge wines from Trout Springs Winery in Brown County. For an attendance limit of 100, reservations and payment are due by Monday, Oct. 3. A live cooking competition involving the students will also be held.

Saturday activities

The venue moves to the University of Wisconsin – Fox Valley campus in Menasha on Saturday, Oct. 8. Fee-based workshops will be held from 8:30 am to 5:30 p.m. Topics for those workshops are landscape painting and wine making and tasting.

Led by professionals in the field, free events for the day's $10 general admission are mushroom hunting, beekeeping basics, fossil identification, historic surveying techniques, bat habitats, cheese carving, and sustainable viticulture (raising grapes).

Starting at 6:30 pm, two world premier films will be shown. They are Daniel Larson's 40-minute documentary on the Niagara Escarpment that's titled “The Great Ledge” and the 75-minute film by Roger Kuhns which depicts the natural history of the escarpment's geological features.

Sunday schedule

Three touring expeditions are offered on Sunday, Oct. 9. They are a visit featuring wine tastings at Trout Springs Winery, an exploration of the effigy mounds at High Cliff state park near Sherwood in Calumet County, and a guided driving tour of the geological features of the escarpment in Dodge County.

Fees for the weekend are $50 for the Friday dinner and $10 for each of the following two days. There is also a $60 package for the weekend covering everything except for the two extra fee workshops on Saturday.

The www.escarpmentnetwork.org website has a detailed schedule along with access for making reservations. The phone number for additional information is 920-751-4770.