Wild About Ricing
By Judith Niemi
Photography by Bill Lindner
Canoeing a quiet northern lake, harvesting wild rice alongside mallards and coots, we're in the best place on earth. Birches and poplars are beginning to turn; the sun still has warmth, but its low angle gives the water its fall darkness, a deep cobalt blue. Overhead two eagles soar, keeping an eye on their lake.
My longtime ricing partner, Jesse Bearheart, keeps up an easy rhythm with her ricing sticks. We're not, in fact, getting much rice. Now and then the kernels tap into the canoe with the brisk sound of rain, but much of the rice has already blown down. Still, we're happy, gathering food in much the same way the Indians of the Laurel culture did on Big Rice Lake 2,000 years ago.
Poling from the stern, trying to keep us in good rice, I survey the whole lake. In the distance a tiny, dark standing figure slides through dense rice that hides the canoe.
"You know," says Jesse, "I actually wish more people were out here. We've got to get the young ones started."
Good rice lakes used to be filled with canoes in early September. The Department of Natural Resources, which regulates ricing, issued about 15,000 licenses annually in the early 1970s. Since 2000, the annual average has been 1,600.
The change is more than the passing of old ways. Selling rice used to produce significant income for many northern Minnesotans, but commercial development of paddy-grown "wild" rice has largely wiped out the market for natural rice. Wild rice harvested by hand can't compete in price with cultivated rice harvested with combines and processed and marketed en masse.
Most ricers now harvest simply for their own use, and because they love it. But not many new people are learning the old skill. Wild rice is important to wildlife and people, and needs an informed constituency to support good management.
If you'd like to try ricing, here are some basics to get you started. You'd do best to learn from an experienced harvester. However, if you don't know any harvesters, you could just get gear and a partner and show up at a good ricing lake. Then try it, watch, and ask questions.
Experienced ricers won't reveal the location of Sally's Patch or Grandpa's Duck Blind or other favorite spots, of course. Yet you're likely to find someone generous with information and advice, eager for converts to the tradition.
Scouting out rice.
Many people canoe through wild rice without recognizing it. In June the long, grassy leaves of wild rice float flat on the water, covering river edges, shallow bays, and entire small lakes. In July the upright stalks reach 6 feet or more. In August the seed heads are filling out.
A dedicated ricer such as Jesse starts the season then by visiting favorite lakes and following up rumors of new ricing places. Her scouting reports are full of buoyant optimism, but often a promising crop is drowned out by late summer rains, or left high and dry if water levels drop. It's good to know several rice beds; fortunately, Minnesota has an estimated 700 lakes with 60,000 acres of rice in 31 counties.
I recommend you look first at some of the rice beds regulated and managed by the DNR in partnership with six bands of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe. The DNR brochure "Minnesota Wild Rice Harvesting Regulations" lists 40 or more lakes with rice beds. In the Arrowhead, my home territory, the 1854 Authority (natural resources management agency of the Bois Forte and Grand Portage bands of Chippewa) monitors the amount of rice and the progress of ripening on 10 or more beds. You can get this information via telephone (218-722-8907) or Web site: 1854 Authority.
The Internet marks a new era in scouting for rice-no longer by an old Ford pickup, but by online aerial photos. Not all the sport is gone, though. You still have to find the lakes, some of them down unmarked roads with mud holes big enough to hide a compact car.
Harvest time.
On paper, open season is July 15 to Sept. 30-but only when rice is ripe, which usually starts in late August. Rivers and shallow beds ripen first; thick, tall beds ripen last. Soft, milky kernels form, turn firm, then gradually brown. Fully ripe kernels are quite hard, and fall easily. Not all lakes, beds, or even kernels on the same stalk ripen uniformly.
On most lakes it's up to you to know whether rice is ripe. Harvesting green rice is illegal, unethical, and impractical. You get very little yield, and you ruin that rice bed for those who come later. What's more, unripened rice breaks up during processing.
On a few managed and posted lakes, opening day is set by conservation officers. In the Arrowhead, DNR and 1854 Authority officers confer, with some input from elders. Keep in touch with the DNR or tribal authority in your region; there may be only 24 hours' notice of openings. If you don't have much flexibility, Labor Day weekend is a time you can count on some good lakes to be open.
Tools.
Ricing gear is low-budget, traditional, and strictly regulated. Minnesota allows nonmotorized watercraft up to 18 feet long and 36 inches wide. That permits almost any canoe; a flat-bottomed one you can stand in is best.
Most ricers use a push pole. To make one, cut a standing dead spruce, 15 feet or longer, and shave it very smooth. To keep it from sinking into the mud, you can add the standard tip: an aluminum "duckbill" available in sporting goods stores. Avoid a rigid T-shaped foot, which pulls up the rice. Better yet, use the old ways: Set into your pole a fork (12 inches or less) from a hardwood tree.
Your flails—knockers, ricers call them—are a pair of smooth, round sticks (not more than 30 inches long and 1 pound). Look for straight branches of cedar or basswood, or split pieces from straight-grained lumber.
Buy a few grain bags from the feed mill to transport your rice. You'll also need a license (available where DNR licenses are sold) and a life jacket. That's it.
Technique.
One person propels the boat; the other knocks the rice into it. How hard can that be? Trickier than you think.
You'll see canoes with one person paddling (from either bow or stern); this works where the rice is very thin. In most rice, you should pole rather than paddle to avoid accidentally knocking loose harvestable rice.
Poling is an art that takes some practice. The most skilled poler I've met pole-vaulted into chilly water, twice, one windy day. A stubborn poler who was determined to reach lush rice once grounded us on mud flats and had to wade out in the muck, like Bogart in The African Queen.
The harvester sits on the bottom of the canoe with most of the canoe in front like a huge bowl. He or she reaches with one flail to bend the rice over the canoe, and with a gentle backhand swish of the other flail, brushes the rice seed heads into the canoe. Only the ripe grains should fall-the unripened heads spring back up, and a few days later someone else can harvest them.
When you do it right, each grain dives, its long "beard" trailing, and in a while you're surrounded by a deep furry carpet of green and maroon rice beards.
Ricing hours are 9 to 3—long enough, for such hard work. Back at the boat landing, Jesse and I join the genial banter among strangers, and everyone silently checks out the rice in other canoes. We scoop our treasure into bags; Jesse goes over her canoe with whisk broom and dustpan to get every grain.
Finishing rice.
The rice you bag up at the landing needs to get out of those sacks pretty fast; like any grain, the rice will heat up, mold, and rot. You pour it onto a tarp and run your fingers through it, admiring the grains, picking out leaves, and letting the rice worms crawl away. Now, until you get it processed, your drying rice needs tending: Store it in shallow layers on tarps or in breathable containers, and turn it at least once a day.
Processing includes parching (to dry out and harden the grains), threshing (to rub loose the charred husks), and winnowing (to blow away the husks). Doing this yourself is possible, but not advisable your first year. Commercial processors are few, and may not take small amounts; but ask around and you'll find small-scale operations. These backyard processors are also ricers. With ingenious homemade rigs, they will provide you with a quick education in their versions of correct rice finishing.
Is ricing for you?
It's not for people allergic to grasses (Zizania palustris is actually a grass). Nor is it for people who fret about cost-effectiveness by counting mileage and pounds of rice. Nor for anyone squeamish about work or intimate contact with tiny critters.
In the spirit of full disclosure, I must say you'll itch from rice beards. And in the canoe, you'll often be part of a lively ecosystem, with black bugs, ladybugs, and tan spiders using you as a structural element.
Jesse, who lives near good rice beds, is always inviting new recruits—the ones who come back year after year to "rice camp" include young environmentalists, organic gardeners, country neighbors, ardent canoeists, and urban professionals who love to be hunter-gatherers for a few days. The motley crew shares work, meals, and music.
"These are my people, my community, even if we meet just once a year," she says. They believe in living by the seasons, and are philosophical about chance and weather.
Closing day is decided by nature. One morning you wake to a strong wind or rain and you know—every last grain has gone down, maybe even before some beds are officially open. Don Wedell, biologist and planner for the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe, says, "If a storm takes it—well, then that's seed for next year." Dedicated ricers are in it for the long term, for generations.
If you catch ricing fever, the amount of rice you harvest hardly matters. Through the winter you'll also have the satisfaction of cooking and serving delicious food you gathered with your own hands.
Judith Niemi, freelance writer and director of Women in the Wilderness, has been harvesting wild rice each season for 25 years. Reach her at: judithniemi@lakevermilion.com.