Here are just a sampling of the hundreds of events scheduled to take place in the coming months.

Celebrating Wisconsin’s rich history in the shipping industry, a 125-foot schooner is currently under construction and is scheduled to launch in August 1998.

Upon its completion, the schooner will feature three 95-foot native white pine masts donated and blessed by the people of the Menominee Nation and will serve as an interactive classroom inviting students to learn about the value of Wisconsin’s Great Lakes ecosystem.

While under construction and following its completion, visitors are invited to tour the schooner and learn about its future voyages. Year-round.

A special historical musical, tentatively titled "The Sesquicentennial Show," will be created and performed during 1998 by Big Top Chautauqua, founded in the spirit of the traveling tent chautauquas of 100 years ago that brought entertainment, culture and education under canvas to rural American communities in pre-radio years of the 20th century.

The production will include original songs of Lake Superior and the Apostle Islands and projected historical photographs.

In addition to being performed in Bayfield, the musical will tour to eight other Wisconsin cities. Early June through early September in Bayfield - Fall tour dates to be announced.

Old World Wisconsin will present a permanent exhibit highlighting one of the earliest and largest African American settlements in Wisconsin during the 1850s.

The chapel, from the original Pleasant Ridge settlement in southwestern Wisconsin, will be restored and relocated to Old World Wisconsin.

A reproduction of two Pleasant Ridge cemeteries, a log church and original documents dating back to the 1850s will also be a part of this permanent exhibit.

Several interactive displays and dramatic presentations will be available, including a multi-ethnic barbecue picnic similar to those held at Pleasant Ridge in the early 20th century.

Old World Wisconsin is an outdoor living history museum comprised of more than 50 historic buildings assembled into 10 farmsteads and an 1870s village. Grand Opening scheduled for October 1998

Celebrating Wisconsin’s rich heritage, the Smithsonian Folklife Festival in Washington, D.C., will be re-staged on Madison’s Capitol Square, as well as on adjoining streets and parks.

Developed by the Wisconsin Arts Board, a member of the Cultural Coalition, the Madison event will include exhibits from folklife artists from Wisconsin’s sister states, including Chiba, Japan, and Hessen, Germany, and an expanded children’s area. Aug. 20-23

For the first time in 173 years, six Native American nations that occupy 11 reservations and communities throughout Wisconsin will gather for the New Dawn of Tradition Pow-Wow.