Traditions Applied: Wild Rice - Sacred Manomin Indian Country Today - August 17, 2004. All Rights Reserved 
Wild rice, or manomin, is a sacred staple for many Ojibwe people. Bois Forte band members said wild rice was their potato growing up. It was readily available, and every family obtained a sizable quantity to last most of the year.
Wild rice production has decreased on Nett Lake. Wild Rice is not actually a rice, it is a legume, but called a rice because it grows in lakes.
For the Bois Forte people wild rice is also a commercial commodity. Families benefited financially by selling the finished product to supplement the family income. The spiritual connection to the wild rice goes back centuries and Nett Lake, which was one of the most prolific wild rice producing lakes in Minnesota, maintains a spiritual attachment to the people.
But competition in the wild rice market has led to an economic downturn for the people of Nett Lake. Cultivated wild rice grown in paddies from Minnesota to California have made a huge dent in the sale of more expensive, but naturally processed, wild rice that comes from the lakes.
Some marketing of the paddy wild rice uses American Indian imagery, or claims it is hand harvested, which confuses the public. Many years ago, Minnesota passed laws controlling the marketing practices and statements to protect the true native, lake grown and naturally-processed product.
"What the commercial growers have is not wild rice, it shouldn't be called that," elders said. The difference is in color, paddy rice is black, lake rice, brownish gray. Lake rice cooks up more easily and faster, paddy wild rice may take double the time to soften. The taste is also different. Hand harvested, parched and processed lake grown wild rice has a nuttier flavor that carries its own through soups and other dishes, Bois Forte members said.
Bois Forte wants to rejuvenate a failing commercial enterprise with the wild rice that Nett Lake produces. This is another of the many plans for economic development by the Bois Forte council and the Department of Natural Resources.
Without help, said Chris Holmes, band biologist, Nett Lake will not have wild rice in 20 years. Fast-growing bogs are taking over, choking out the oxygen from fresh water streams, and covering the lake to where it will eventually no longer be a lake.
Damming the lake in the 1920s was intended to regulate the water fluctuation of the lake. Years ago the lake would produce wild rice maybe one out of four years which was not conducive to a good economic crop. It did provide families with wild rice.
When the federal government opened the reservation to loggers, the trees that surrounded the lake and contributed to a healthy biosphere were cut. Those trees were turned into paper and other products. What was left were trees that beavers liked. So the beaver cut the trees, made dams and the fresh water to the lake was slowed down, said Corey Strong, director of the Department of Natural Resources.
The beaver dams were blown up from time to time, but the decay of the lake continued. The wild rice of the best-producing lake in the state was in jeopardy.
A new dam was built to regulate the water, but still the bogs encroached and many families who previously would take it upon themselves to clear the creeks and rivers flowing into the lake slowly quit, Strong said.
Production of wild rice was dropping. The top year of production in the past few years has been 65,000 pounds of wild rice, with a much lower production for families that ranged from 14,000 to 25,000 pounds. The potential, Holmes said could be for more than one million pounds of wild rice. That would make a sizeable commercial product.
More drastic measures were needed to save the sacred manomin.
It took 10 years of planning and the ideas had to be sold to elders and the council, Strong said. Nett Lake is void of any motorized boat or vehicle, which presented a major stumbling block. The bogs had to be destroyed and the only cutters available used motors and thus fuel spills could threaten the lake.
Strong said the elders were against this process because of the gasoline and oil. But with new technology that created a vegetable oil-based hydraulic oil and new methods of cleanup for potential diesel spills the elders and the tribal council got behind the project.
Now Nett Lake has three motorized vehicles in use; the bog cutter, a harvester that picks up the floating gunk and deposits the bog residue on the lake's banks and an air boat to transport workers to the cutter and harvester that is also used by officials to inspect the progress of wild rice regeneration.
Revenues from Fortune Bay Resort and Casino paid for a cutter and harvester. For the past two years the bogs were cut, some stream inlets opened up and with the flow of fresh oxygenated water to the lake the rice beds are now growing.
Wild rice seed can lay dormant for up to six years before decaying in the lake bottom. When the right mixture of oxygen, sunlight and temperature are achieved the seed will germinate. That is happening on Nett Lake today.
Hand harvested and processed wild rice requires hard work. Canoes are polled by one person through the wild rice beds while another person uses knockers, or hefty sticks to bend the grassy plant over the canoe and with the other stick knock the rice into the boat. In rhythmic fashion from one side to another a canoe can be filled, depending on the year with some 200 pounds of wild rice in a few hours.
The rice is then taken to shore where a large cast iron pot is set over an open fire and the rice is then stirred in the pot where it is parched; stirred with a wooden paddle by hand. The rice is then placed in a birch bark or other type pan and tossed in the wind so the shucks blow from the seed. Harvested wild rice can be stored for many years.
Care is taken during the harvesting to make sure that enough seed is returned to the lake so it will continue to grow.
The Bois Forte Band of Chippewa at one time had a thriving commercial wild rice operation. It is still in operation, but produces very little income for the band members. The market is small and the wild rice is mostly sold in the band's gift shops and in some area food markets.
Processing the wild rice on a larger scale for economic development when the lake is restored and the wild rice regenerates is a goal for the Department of Natural Resources and the community. This will provide a stable income for a few employees.
The people of Minnesota and Wisconsin know the value of lake grown and hand harvested wild rice. But the message isn't out to the rest of the country. Marketing of a higher-priced product will present certain pitfalls for the Bois Forte, but they are hoping the quality of the product will be a selling point.
|
