‘A special Minnesota thing’: Wild rice harvest season returns

LEECH LAKE RESERVATION, MINN. – Canoes and poles are being prepped. Folks sit in their driveways, whittling sticks. It can only mean one thing: Wild rice season has returned to northern Minnesota.

“You hear the buzz around Cass Lake and all around the reservation this time of year,” said Matt Frazer, with the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe’s Division of Resource Management. “It’s the talk of the town right now.”

Harvesting wild rice — the Ojibwe call it manoomin, meaning “the good berry” — is weather-dependent and varies each season. Aug. 15 marks the official start of wild rice harvest in Minnesota, but anyone who knows wild rice knows that’s an arbitrary date that has ebbed and flowed in state statute.

“The manoomin makes its own schedule,” Frazer said with a laugh.

The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources and tribal biologists report poor to average rice stands this year, due to heavy rains and severe storms. But there’s at least one silver lining on Leech Lake’s Steamboat Bay. That’s where Frazer and expert ricer Dave Bismarck, who also works at the resource management office in Cass Lake, went out scouting wild rice beds on Wednesday.

This particular rice bed off the shores of Anderson’s Cove Resort north of Walker is lush, thick and tall. The grain’s golden heads dancing in the breeze that morning had Frazer smiling. Bismarck, too, was filled with optimism. They both said Steamboat’s rice bed hasn’t looked this good in years.

“According to what all the other rice beds are looking like, I think everybody is going to be here,” Bismarck said. “There’s going to be a lot of ricers here.”

But not for a few more weeks. Patience is key.

In Aitkin County, where the Godward family has for generations cultivated wild rice using dikes and ponds, as well as harvested by hand, the family is preparing for a harvest date in late August.

Brandon Godward stood over a cultivated field Monday, discussing the drawing down of water from the fields, hemmed in by man-made dikes. “About two weeks before harvest is when we pull the plug,” he said.

The Godward family anticipates harvest to start the opening weekend of the State Fair. As for Jimmy Uran Jr., with the White Earth Division of Natural Resources, he plans to hold off longer.

“We’ll wait till September,” he said. “The rice needs to be ready.”

Minnesota’s green rice law makes it illegal to harvest unripe rice. Even within harvest season, someone caught harvesting rice that isn’t ready may get 90 days in jail and a $1,000 fine.

If that seems like a harsh penalty for grain, know that wild rice is sacred and a cherished way of life for Indigenous people. The abundance of wild rice has declined over time in Minnesota, where most of the world’s natural wild rice grows. Premature harvesting can damage stalks and ruin future harvests.

Ann Geisen, a DNR wildlife lake specialist, said trying to harvest unripe rice is seen as disrespectful. The DNR does field complaints each year, and the agency does its best to educate and encourage scouting of rice beds to find harvestable stands. It also provides an outlook report on conditions throughout the season, which runs through Sept. 30.

Decades ago opening date occurred a month earlier, on July 15. But in 2009 state law moved the season start date to Aug. 15.

“The Aug. 15 date has a lot of confusion,” said Darren Vogt, resource management division director with the 1854 Treaty Authority in Duluth, an intertribal natural resource management organization.

“I’d say typically no places are ready by that point,” he said. “I think people’s intentions are good, but there’s that feeling that you got to be the first one out there.”

Vogt said it looks to be a late ripening year, with yields below average across northeastern Minnesota. June flooding washed out rice beds. But there will still be some to harvest when it’s ready.

It’s important to keep harvesting alive, Vogt added, and to do it “in a good way,” the Indigenous expression about honoring tradition and spirit.

Rice should easily fall off stalks, though harvesting is labor intensive. Two wooden sticks called “knockers” gently brush against the stalks and mature kernels fall into a canoe. (See Bismarck harvest in this video.)

Wild rice on reservations can only be harvested by tribal members or residents within the reservation. But nontribal members can harvest wild rice off reservations so long as they have a license.

Geisen said there are more harvesting opportunities in Minnesota than anywhere else in the United States. In Wisconsin, only residents can harvest. Minnesota has more rice waters, she said, and it’s the only place where nonresidents can harvest, too.

She said more nonresidents are buying wild rice harvesting licenses. Ten years ago there were 73 nonresident purchasers; last year, it was nearly 250, according to data provided to the Minnesota Star Tribune.

“We’ve had folks from almost every state, some foreign countries coming to Minnesota to harvest rice,” Geisen said. “I know that not everyone is into rice. ... But even if you don’t rice, it’s a special Minnesota thing.”

Anyone looking for more information on wild rice in their area can contact their local DNR wildlife office.

Kim Hyatt reported this story from the Leech Lake Reservation and Christopher Vondracek from rural Aitkin County.