Teens from Minneapolis
spread wild rice seeds and glimpsed their heritage outside of the
city confines.
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Leann
Eagle Tail throws wild rice seeds onto a spot along the Rum
River, near Cambridge, MN. Eagle
Tail joined other classmates from Takoda Prep and guides from
Wilderness Inquiry, Green River Greening and Isanti County,
to seed along the Rum River at Becklin Homestead Park. The
Rum River was a wild rice haven until changed water chemistry
wiped it out. Now the water quality is back and the kids are
helped to plant for the day.
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Hailie
Woodard laughed as she got stuck in the mud as classmate Gabby
Moose held the canoe, as they planted wild rice seeds along
the Rum River, near Cambridge, MN.
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Lowan
Badhand, left, Kaleena Morrison, center, and Terrell McCray
canoed up the Rum River to find spots to help plant wild rice
seeds, near Cambridge, MN.
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Theresa
Wondra, a guide with Great River Greening, threw wild rice
seed up into the air so that it could fall along the Rum River
for planting, near Cambridge, MN.
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Wild
rice seeds were carried in buckets for planting along the
Rum River, near Cambridge, MN.
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Takoda
Prep teacher Thomas Lonetti threw wild rice seeds along the
Rum River for planting, near Cambridge, MN.
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Takoda
Prep students, including Leann Eagle Tail, center, made their
way along the Rum River to help plant wild rice seeds, near Cambridge, MN.
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CAMBRIDGE, MN On the banks of the Rum River, Hailie Woodard
stroked a canoe paddle in the water for the first time in her 16
years. Stepping carefully out of the wobbly boat, she sank into
ankle-deep mud as she tried to fling clumps of wet wild rice seed
on the water's edges.
It was true immersion learning.
Woodard, a lifelong city dweller who is part American Indian,
had never seen the stalks of wild rice that were once so integral
to indigenous life. But on a sun-kissed autumn day this week, she
stood in mud and water to see and understand its environmental requirements
and cultural significance. As part of a school field trip, she was
helping to restore the aquatic plant to an area where it was once
ubiquitous and, trip leaders hoped, feel a connection to
her indigenous heritage.
"It's good to know what you are," she said. "If you don't know
what you are, you're just lost."
Woodard and eight of her classmates from the Takoda Prep alternative
high school in Minneapolis helped spread wild rice to the main channel
and backwaters of the river this week as two nonprofits, Wilderness
Inquiry and Great River Greening, teamed up for the first time and
brought urban students with them.
The Rum River, winding from Mille Lacs to the mighty Mississippi,
was once a wild rice haven, contributing an important source of
food for people and wildlife. While it still exists there naturally,
it has declined in recent years. With a Legacy Amendment grant,
Great River Greening, which aims to restore Minnesota's natural
heritage, is helping to coax it to flourish with annual reseeding
in the fall, hoping it will grow in the spring.
Leann Eagle Tail threw wild rice seeds along the Rum River
near Cambridge this week. Eagle Tail joined classmates from Takoda
Prep and guides from two nonprofits to spread the seeds along the
banks. The river was once a wild rice haven, and efforts to restore
the plant are beginning to take hold.
Leann Eagle Tail threw wild rice seeds along the Rum River near
Cambridge this week. Eagle Tail joined classmates from Takoda Prep
and guides from two nonprofits to spread the seeds along the banks.
The river was once a wild rice haven, and efforts to restore the
plant are beginning to take hold.
The grain is an important piece of Minnesota's environmental
and cultural heritage.
An Ojibwe migration story tells of a cultural and spiritual
tie to natural wild rice. Tribal prophets foretold that migration
from the east would continue until people found food that grows
on water. Known in Ojibwe as manoomin, wild rice is still revered
in the culture.
But natural wild rice, which reseeds itself each year and grows
optimally in moving water a half foot to 3 feet deep, has declined
throughout the state. Its threats include water quality, water levels,
lake bed conditions, damming and channeling of waterways, water
recreation, shore land development and industrial activities, according
to a Minnesota Department of Natural Resources study.
This year, Great River Greening teamed with Wilderness Inquiry,
which strives to introduce urban youth to the outdoors, and invited
help from students at Takoda Prep, where more than 80 percent of
the students identify themselves as Native American.
The school's secondary education director, Chris Hubbard, said
the opportunity for students to get out where the rice once grew
was a learning experience on many levels.
"Students are losing their sense of culture," Hubbard said.
Doing something seen as positive such as rice seeding can help them
identify with how well their ancestors treated and honored the earth,
he said.
Turning off Kanye
On the banks of the Rum, at Becklin Homestead Park, the nine
students wobbled as they climbed precariously into canoes and took
paddles in hand.
Haley Woodard laughed as she sank in mud. "It's good to see
the forest for once instead of being in the city all the time,"
she said.
Haley Woodard laughed as she sank in mud. "It's good to see the
forest for once instead of being in the city all the time," she
said.
Rhinestones from one girl's sunglasses glinted in the sun. A
couple girls carried purses.
Student Kaleena Morrison, 20, wore perfect eyeliner and pulled
an earbud out of her ear before canoeing: Time to trade Kanye West's
"I Wonder" for the whir of the breeze in the trees and the trickle
of the river. "It's just peaceful," she said.
Terrell McCray, 18, was one of five in the group who had canoed
before. He volunteered to sit in the back to steer.
"Dude!" he smiled and loudly warned his friend in the bow, "Do
not be acting dumb in the canoe. I do NOT want to flip over."
Wilderness Inquiry trip leader Cyri Tjaden emphasized how rice
harvesting in August was a community gathering in American Indian
communities. They harvested the grasslike wild rice plants the same
way it is harvested today: using poles with fork-like endings to
push the canoes gently through the stalks, and using sticks to bend
the top of the rice plants over to collect seeds. Harvest is a "significant
spiritual and cultural thing," she said.
Wiley Buck, a restoration ecologist with Great River Greening,
told the group that the rice plant population "was still really
high in the '50s and '60s." Now, efforts to restore it seem to be
working; seed spread last year had grown.
"We're getting smarter about what it needs," he said.
Woodard was one of just a couple students who traded her shoes
flip-flops for tall rubber boots that Wilderness Inquiry
provided.
Working with wild rice wasn't difficult, the students learned,
but it was sometimes dirty.
"Ah! Ah! Noon!" lamented one girl with pure white Jordan sneakers,
now partly black with dirt. "I'm done," she said as she crawled
back into the canoe.
As they paddled to the river's mucky edges, they took clumps
of musty-smelling seed in their latex-gloved hands and tried to
fling it far and wide in quiet spots along the river's edges. A
flock of Canada geese flew over, honking loudly as it rearranged
a disorganized V.
Woodard, emboldened by the rubber boots, jumped out of her canoe
on one bank, eager to help. Almost falling as she sank deep into
muck, she caught herself with her arm, turning the cuff of her lime
green sweatshirt black. She laughed.
"I'll wash it," she said later, shrugging. "It's good to see
the forest for once instead of being in the city all the time."
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Takoda
Prep students Jordan Deegan, left, and Max Fauble paddled
in a canoe to find spots to plant wild rice seeds along the
Rum River, near Cambridge, MN.
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Takoda
Prep students placed a little frog they found into a bucket
with wild rice seeds that they were planting along the Rum
River, near Cambridge, MN.
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Takoda
Prep students Gabby Moose, left, and Hallie Woodard, threw
wild rice seeds into a pond near the Rum River, near Cambridge, MN.
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Takoda
Prep students Hailie Woodard, left, and Max Fauble, center,
and others threw wild rice seeds along the Rum River, near Cambridge, MN.
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