News Release

The Iowa Tribe and Effigy Mounds

Three Bear Mounds at Marching Bear Mound Group, Effigy Mounds National Monument

NPS/Eaton Coté

News Release Date: October 28, 2023 HARPERS FERRY, IA — Last November, Effigy Mounds National Monument entered into a historic sister park agreement with the Iowa Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska’s Ioway Tribal National Park. To learn about this agreement, the first sister park agreement between a national park unit and a Tribal Nation’s national park, join us Tuesday, November 7 at 6:00 pm. Lance Foster, Vice Chairman and Tribal Historic Preservation Officer of the Iowa Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska as well as the director of the Ioway Tribal National Park, will be speaking. His presentation, “Iowa Tribe and Effigy Mounds: A Sister Park Connection,” will be given in the visitor center auditorium at Effigy Mounds National Monument.

Effigy Mounds National Monument was established on Oct. 25, 1949, to protect significant precontact earthen mounds found in northeast Iowa. Subsequent legislation expanded the purpose and significance by specifying the wildlife, scenic, and other natural values of the area. Ioway Tribal National Park, or Baxoje Mowatanani in Baxoje the Ioway language, was established by the Iowa Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska on June 17, 2020, to preserve the land and promote heritage for future generations of its Tribal members and protect its various significant historical and natural resources. The Iowa Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska was the second Tribal nation to establish a Tribal national park. The Iowa Tribe is one of the descendant Tribes with NPS-recognized affiliation to Effigy Mounds National Monument, with a continued interest in Effigy Mounds National Monument and their ancestral connection there.

“We look forward to a period of healing, not only for the Iowa Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska and Effigy Mounds National Monument but all Tribal Nations,” Vice Chairman Foster said at the time the agreement was signed. “There is a long and difficult history between the National Park Service and Tribes; may this be one step forward together towards the future.”

Effigy Mounds National Monument is located three miles north of Marquette, Iowa, and 22 miles south of Waukon, Iowa, on Highway 76. For more information, call [phone], ext. 123, or visit the park's website at www.nps.gov/effigymounds or its Facebook page at www.facebook.com/EffigyMounds.