Transcripts

[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH] CATHERINE WINTER: On the Leech Lake Indian Reservation in Northern Minnesota, a few boys fish and shoot a slingshot from a bridge over the Bowstring River. Wild rice processor Darrow Gibbs stands next to the bridge and looks upstream.

DARROW GIBBS: You see this little piece of green right here on the point, that little piece of green right there? And all the minty green stuff you see beyond, not the high stuff, but all the low stuff, that's all wild rice.

CATHERINE WINTER: Gibbs points to plants that look like pale bulrushes growing up from under water. He says normally, by this time of year, the rice would reach farther beyond the surface. But this summer, it had to grow farther because the water is deeper, and some of the crop has been killed.

DARROW GIBBS: When it's laying on the water, there's enough oxygen taken in to the plant so it's somewhat buoyant. So what happens is when the water comes up quickly, it just simply pulls it up by the roots, floats it downstream. And then you have no crop. It's all gone, nothing left.

CATHERINE WINTER: Gibbs says probably 2/3 of this year's rice crop is gone. That doesn't mean grocery stores won't have wild rice. Most wild rice is actually cultivated. And farmers can regulate the water levels in paddies. But people in Northern Minnesota still harvest tons of rice from lakes and rivers every year. Most of the pickers are Native Americans. And many of the best ricing lakes are on Indian reservations.

Earl Robinson is a member of the Leech Lake Band of Chippewa. He was a rice buyer for almost 40 years. The Bowstring River winds through his back yard, where a row of canoes sits near a metal drum used for parching rice. Robinson says this year's crop looks bad. And a lot of his friends and neighbors will have to do without things they would normally buy this fall.

EARL ROBINSON: That's their main earning season, in the fall. I think the people depend on that more than anything else because that's when they buy clothes for their kids for school, things like that.

CATHERINE WINTER: The process of harvesting wild rice is laborious. One person pulls a canoe through the water, while the other pulls plants into the canoe and knocks the ripe rice into the bottom of the boat. A pair of pickers, often a husband and wife team, can make several thousand dollars a season. But the Leech Lake Reservation's director of resource management, Gerald White, says the money isn't the only important thing.

GERALD WHITE: Activities like this remind us of who we are. It's hard work. And it's hot sometimes, and you get bit. I mean, it's not fun. But it's something that we need to do. We're Anishinaabe people. And this is one of the things, it's a tradition that we do. It also makes a big difference when you can go out and get your own wild rice, finish it, and eat it, or give it away. It sustains us spiritually. And it ties us to the lakes.

CATHERINE WINTER: White says he's been harvesting wild rice for 25 years, and he's never seen conditions this bad. The crop is poor on most lakes and rivers across Minnesota and north into Ontario and Manitoba. Wild rice harvesters and processors say they may get about a quarter to a third of the usual crop, but only if the rain stops and the water levels drop. Even then, the rice is maturing late and could be killed by an early frost or winter storm. I'm Catherine Winter, Main Street Radio, Grand Rapids.