MPR's Tom Robertson reports from Bemidji, where It's harvest time for wild rice in Minnesota, and nowhere is the season more important than on the Leech Lake Indian Reservation in northern Minnesota. The reservation has more than 6,000 acres of wild rice beds within its boundaries.
For hundreds of years, rice has had a significant cultural and spiritual importance to the Ojibwe people. That tradition remains strong today, and the Leech Lake tribe is working to strengthen the plant's economic impact.
Transcripts
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JEFF HARPER: No quick movements.
[CHUCKLING]
Or we're all going in to drink.
TOM ROBERTSON: Jeff Harper and Mutt Robinson push their canoe off a gravel landing into a quiet bay on Leech Lake. With a long wooden pole, Harper maneuvers the boat along the shallow waters and into a thick bed of wild rice. It's perhaps the most valuable aquatic plant in Northern Minnesota, stabilizing lake beds, purifying the water, and providing food and habitat for songbirds and waterfowl. But Harper says to the Ojibwe, wild rice is also part of cultural identity.
JEFF HARPER: Well, first of all, it's a food source and, like Mutt said, it's a tradition. And so we put both of them together. We know that our people have always done it since we've been in the rice and we want to continue doing it until we're gone or until the rice is gone, which hopefully, neither one is-- neither one happens.
TOM ROBERTSON: Harper has been harvesting wild rice since he was 11 years old. He says the plant is one of the reasons the Ojibwe moved into northern Minnesota some 400 years ago.
JEFF HARPER: Historically, this used to be Sioux tribal area and the Ojibwe people came and took it away. They liked the rice and that's what some of the last wars were fought about here, was over the rice because it's the food value of it, the spiritual value of it. Our people saw it. We wanted it and we weren't willing to be without it.
TOM ROBERTSON: As Harper works the pole to guide his canoe through the rice bed, Robinson sweeps a pair of 30 inch cedar sticks across the heads of the rice, knocking the grain into the bottom of the boat. The reservation will pay $1 a pound for unfinished rice. Robinson says he doesn't do it for the money but rather to keep his culture alive.
MUTT ROBINSON: I mean. If we lose that then, as Indian people, what do we have, you know? There's only so much things that we have left that we can do. Well, somebody put in some kind of boundaries on us or some kind of limitations on what we can do or what we can't do. And this is one of the two things that we truly have left.
TOM ROBERTSON: Tribal officials over the years have helped to keep interest alive in ricing by paying top dollar for harvested rice. Each year, the reservation purchases about 200,000 pounds of wild rice in total from thousands of tribal members who rice. Mutt Robinson says the season comes at a time when many people can use the extra money.
MUTT ROBINSON: It's a time when school is starting and it's a time where they can go out and they can get some extra money for their-- to help to get school clothes for the kids and stuff like that. Oh, yeah, it's an important time of the season for a lot of people.
TOM ROBERTSON: This year, the tribe is operating its own processing plant. About 10 people are employed at the factory just outside the little town of Ballklubb. The workers are processing about 10,000 pounds of green rice a day, producing 5,000 pounds of finished rice. Plant employee Bob Gochee says wild rice is vital to Leech Lake's economy.
BOB GOCHEE: You know, there's nothing actually around on the reservation, except for the casinos. If you don't-- where else you got to go to work, you know? There's nothing here, you know, except for the casinos. And a lot of guys been through the casinos and didn't like that kind of work. So now they got the ricing and they got-- it's money for their kids to get clothes and helps the kids a lot. I say it does, you know? It really does.
TOM ROBERTSON: The tribe is beginning to take a more aggressive approach to marketing its wild rice. About 80% of sales are mail order and lots of wild rice goes to Casino restaurants throughout Minnesota. Assistant controller Matt Erickson says the tribe right now is happy just to break even, but there are hopes of expanding.
MATT ERICKSON: And we're trying to hire a marketing director right now to market the rice internationally. Our planning office has made some connections overseas but nothing's followed through on that. So we're trying to get into the national and international markets. We're looking into putting some web pages up right now.
TOM ROBERTSON: While saying he hopes the market will expand, wild ricer Mutt Robinson says his bottom line is that the tradition of harvesting the plant has to be kept alive.
MUTT ROBINSON: It's just the way of life, you know? I think that's more important than most of anything. Anything you teach your kids, this is the way they did it, the way we've always done it, and the way we'll always do it, you know? I think that's more value to them than most anything. At least, you're teaching them what you learned and, you know, what's gone on for hundreds of years, you know, as far as Indian people anyway.
TOM ROBERTSON: The wild rice harvesting season will continue through mid-September. I'm Tom Robertson, Minnesota Public Radio.