Five Years Celebrating Community & Conservation: Great Midwest Crane Fest Returns Nov. 14 & 15

BARABOO, WIS. — Sandhill Cranes are gathering along the Wisconsin River once again, and this November the community is invited to celebrate with them. The fifth annual Great Midwest Crane Fest, “Celebrating Community and Conservation,” takes place Saturday and Sunday, Nov. 14–15, at the International Crane Foundation and the Aldo Leopold Foundation in Baraboo, Wis.

Festival headliners include Ethan Tapper, forester and author of the award-winning How to Love a Forest, releasing his second book, The Forest Year, in October; author and filmmaker Maggie Dewane, sharing her new book Haiku and Hope: 50 States of Climate Change; and International Crane Foundation Co-founder Dr. George Archibald, returning to the festival after more than 50 years working to save all 15 crane species.

“Every year, this festival reminds me how much can happen when good partners share a common purpose,” said Dr. Rich Beilfuss, President and CEO of the International Crane Foundation. “For our fifth Crane Fest, we’ve built a weekend that feels like a celebration: authors, artists, scientists, and thousands of cranes filling the sky at sunset. We can’t wait to welcome everyone back to Baraboo.”

This year’s original artwork by Alex Lehner.

Five years in, the festival has become a fall tradition for nature lovers, families, artists, and conservationists from across the Midwest and beyond. This year’s lineup brings together bestselling authors, renowned scientists, and artists for a weekend of lectures, workshops, guided tours, and art. The centerpiece is nature’s own show: thousands of Sandhill Cranes settling onto the sandbars and shallows of the Wisconsin River, just beyond the famous Leopold Shack and farm, before their journey south.

“In 1937, Aldo Leopold penned one of the most haunting essays in all of conservation literature. ‘Marshland Elegy’ was in effect his elegy for the Sandhill Crane, which he believed would soon be extirpated from the nation’s heartland,” said Buddy Huffaker, President and Executive Director of the Aldo Leopold Foundation. “Imagine the chills today as tens of thousands of this ‘trumpet in the orchestra of evolution’ congregate daily in joyful noise on Wisconsin River sandbars just behind the Leopold Shack.”

Art also takes flight this year. A Beak Is a Bridge Between Field and Flyway, a multi-year initiative led by artist Austen Camille and the Wormfarm Institute, brings artworks and performances by Amanda Leigh Evans and Tia Kramer of DeepTime Collective, Mark Menjívar, and Julia Blair to both festival sites. Tyler Vouros, artist in residence at the Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum, and museum educators will also lead art programming. Posters and t-shirts featuring this year’s festival artwork by Alex Lehner will be available at both organizations’ gift shops.

General admission includes access to events at both sites: lectures, art displays, guided nature hikes and prairie walks, tours of the historic Leopold Shack, and the International Crane Foundation’s Crane Discovery Center, the only place in the world to see all 15 species of cranes. Ticketed crane-viewing tours and select workshops require advance registration and tend to sell out quickly.

“Working alongside the Aldo Leopold Foundation is one of the great joys of this festival,” Beilfuss added. “Leopold taught us that conservation is something we do together, with our neighbors and with the land. Our teams share a deep commitment to that idea, and this festival is where it comes to life, on the same landscape where Leopold wrote about cranes nearly a century ago. It’s a privilege to share it with our community.”

Tickets and the full schedule are available at greatmidwestcranefest.org. Parking is available at the International Crane Foundation on Shady Lane Road and the Aldo Leopold Foundation on Levee Road.

This event is co-hosted by the International Crane Foundation and the Aldo Leopold Foundation. Special thanks to our Partner sponsor, the Baraboo Chamber of Commerce.