Home is a simple word, but the experience of finding home is personal, complex, and always evolving.
The Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters invites people across Wisconsin to join our Finding Home series and explore what it means to find home through the lenses of science, arts, history, literature, and civil discourse.
In every region of the state, people shape their sense of home through cultural expression, ecological knowledge, and community care. Many are also noticing changes in the places they know best, from shifting seasons to new pressures on land, housing, and water. Finding Home programs explore how people respond with creativity, stewardship, and resilience.
At its core, Finding Home brings people with different perspectives together with the goal of deepening understanding and identifying shared values and common ground.
In today’s Finding Home story, we speak with Representative Jeffrey Mursau of Wisconsin’s 36th Assembly District. As a longtime representative of northern rural Wisconsin, Mursau believes that it is imperative to invest strongly in rural communities, particularly their schools. He also emphasizes the importance of protecting Wisconsin’s natural landscapes, not only for the environment, but for the long-term resilience and economic vitality of the communities that depend on them.
“For hunting and all the activities, the land, the water that we recreate in ... it’s important to keep our Northwoods for future generations.” Mursau says. “If we take that water and we take these woods and destroy them, there’s going to be nothing for people to come up to in northern Wisconsin, and consequently, our economy is going to fail.”
Mursau views conservation as a bipartisan issue, believing that regardless of political differences, Wisconsinites value healthy forests, clean water, and the outdoor traditions that define our state. He notes that forestry is Wisconsin’s second-largest industry following agriculture and sees emerging technologies like biochar as an opportunity to strengthen forest health while supporting rural economies and improving soil quality.
He is also passionate about addressing PFAS contamination, an issue that hits close to home. In his hometown, the application of contaminated sludge to farm fields polluted private wells with PFAS, leaving residents reliant on bottled water for more than a decade and hesitant to grow gardens on their own property.
Mursau also believes that Wisconsin has much to learn from its Tribal Nations, particularly their long-standing ethic of reciprocity with the land. One example that he shares is the sustainable management of fishing that ensures that fish populations remain abundant for future generations.
