Fox - Settlements

In the early nineteenth century, the Fox settlement pattern alternated between large semipermanent villages occupied during the summer planting and fall harvesting seasons and small dispersed camps used during the winter and early spring hunting seasons. The semipermanent villages were located in river bottoms near agricultural fields and moved periodically as firewood resources were depleted. Generally, fewer than twenty dwellings or lodges made up a village, with the lodges aligned in parallel rows along an east-west axis. A typical summer lodge consisted of an elm-bark-covered pole scaffolding measuring forty to sixty feet long and twenty feet wide. Winter camps varied in size from one to a few extended families, with dwellings consisting of dome-shaped, poleframed structures covered with cattail mats. On the 3,476-acre reservation, the Fox now live in scattered modern housing.