I recently ventured out a few times for one of my favorite fall activities- wild ricing. Yes, you can find wild rice in a lot of grocery stores in northern Wisconsin, but going ricing is a good reminder that food doesn't come from a grocery store and reconnects us to the natural world. Wild ricing is not terribly difficult. I've threatened a number of people with taking them ricing over the years. Some I've taken, others I haven't been able to connect with. So often people remark that they don't know how to rice. The biggest hurdle in ricing is finding a good spot.
I went once with a crafty veteran ricer and we did pretty dern good. It weighed out to 58-pounds of green rice. As a rule, finished rice weighs about half what the green rice weighs. I learn a lot by ricing with a seasoned vet of the rice beds. We talk about great harvests, bad harvests, great lakes, acceptable lakes, and how peaceful it is to be out. Often times, ricing involves being in difficult to reach areas. Wild rice doesn't like polluted water or disturbed sediment. This requirement rules out many lakes as suitable for rice growth. A motorboat stirring up sediment or heavy wave action during the floating-leaf stage can ruin a bed.
I also took a novice wild ricing for the first time. Prior to going he asked about ricing in a particular flowage that we've trapped. I wasn't certain of the quality of the rice, so I told him I do know of a good spot that I am certain of the amount. We walked in a half-mile from where we parked with the canoe on a hand-pulled trailer. When we got to the landing, Travis looked out across the bed and asked, "Is that all rice?" Yes it was. He was immediately impressed with the amount of rice and said he has never seen so much rice before. I put on a quick clinic on proper ricing and how the "motor" needs to time the pushes on the push-pole with the action of the knocker.
After about 15-minutes of taking turns between doing the knocking and pushing, most people enter into the advanced stages of wild ricing. It isn't rocket science. It helps to be a harvester and to recognize that there are only so many days the rice is ripe and will fall. Travis fit the bill nicely. One of the few requirements in wild ricing is that you must be tolerant of bugs. There are lots of bugs. Lots. After ricing, the rice is literally alive and jumping with all of the bugs in it. The spiders scurry around and weave webs. Wild rice is more than an annual grass. Its a living organism with a lot of facets.
Travis is a harvester. He helps me teach trapper education and understands that deer antlers make thin soup. He's got a garden, fruit trees, and makes maple syrup. As he said when we were ricing, "I like to eat anything that mother nature provides." Many of us harvesters like to keep our harvesting honey-holes to ourselves, whether its a good berry patch, oak stand, mink trapping spot, or a great patch of wild rice that holds a lot of ducks. Some may question the wisdom of taking someone to a honey-hole, as I did with Travis. How many people is he going to tell? How many times is he going to go there without me.
The locale I took Travis can be found on a map and is known to a lot of people as a good duck hunting spot. I've even ran into other people I didn't know that were going ricing there. I'm not worried if Travis goes there with some other friends or family. Heck, he's got two boys, so I hope he takes them there. Wild rice habitat needs protecting and is a fragile resource. The only thing worse than going to "my spot" and seeing four other boats, would be going there and finding the rice beds destroyed.
If people can place a value on natural resources, they are far more likely to find value in protecting it.
Travis may never go with me again (I hope he does) but if he takes his kids out, then that's just as good as me taking them. It seems to be trendy to take kids out harvesting, but consider taking a novice adult out, too.
Take someone new out harvesting!
