By Spoorthy Raman for Mongabay.
Broadcast version by Mike Moen for Wisconsin News Connection reporting for the Solutions Journalism Network-Public News Service Collaboration
In the late summer of 2023, thick stands of wild rice stood tall and shimmered gold in some of Lac du Flambeau’s lakes. The plant has been virtually absent in these lakes for decades, so for Joe Graveen, the sight of grain-filled stalks was a thing of joy, he says. As the wild rice program manager for the Lac du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians, a tribal band in northern Wisconsin, Graveen was seeing the fruits (or grains, literally) of hard work he and his tribe’s members had put in over the past six years.
“It was the first time that I think a lot of us saw wild rice in a while, in about 20 years or maybe longer,” Graveen says. “It always brings a smile to my face to see our harvesters’ reaction.”
The wild rice only grew here after years of grit and endurance. In late 2017, the band launched a new program to revive wild rice in some of the 260 lakes on their reservation. Leading the program is Graveen, a “ricer” and knowledge keeper who learned about the plant and harvesting methods from his elders. The restoration involved seeding the lakebeds with tons of rice seeds, monitoring water quality, fending off geese from gobbling the young rice plants, and keeping tabs on the lakes’ water levels.
Across the Great Lakes Basin in the U.S. and Canada, there’s a growing interest among many tribes and First Nations to lead efforts to revive wild rice. Closely intertwined with Indigenous culture and identity, wild rice was decimated after the arrival of European settlers. But today, many partners are supporting initiatives to restore wild rice, including federal agencies, state agencies, intertribal agencies, funding initiatives, universities, and NGOs, recognizing the grain’s cultural and ecological significance and vulnerability to climate change.
Manoomin: Gift of the Creator
Northern wild rice (Zizania palustris) is an annual wetland plant native to the Great Lakes. Called manoomin in Anishinaabemowin, it translates to “good berry” or “food that grows on water.” Legend has it that the Anishinaabeg people — a cultural-linguistic group that includes the Ojibwe, Chippewa, Odawa, Potawatomi, Algonquin, Mississauga and other Indigenous peoples — once living near the mouth of the St. Lawrence River, walked south in search of this grain following a prophecy.
“Wild rice is very important to us because of the teachings,” says Roger Labine from the Lac Vieux Desert Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians in Michigan, who hails from the Fish Clan of the Ojibwe Chippewa Nation. “We honor wild rice as a sacred gift from the Creator to identify where we needed to be on Mother Earth.”
The plant grows in the muddy bottoms of shallow, slow-flowing lakes and rivers. The seeds germinate in the spring after being submerged under ice and snow in the winter. By summer, flowers develop into seeds, which are harvested in late summer and early fall. The nutty flavor and long shelf life made the light-brown grain a staple in the Anishinaabe people’s diet.
“We had this in our wigwams when it was too cold to go hunt and fish and gather,” Labine says. “We could stay in and have nourishment.” A distant relative of domesticated rice (Oryza sativa) from Asia, wild rice is highly nutritious and is packed with more proteins, vitamins and dietary fiber than the former.
As a wetland species, wild rice creates a unique ecosystem, says Jonathan Gilbert, director of biological services for the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission (GLIFWC), an intertribal agency comprised of 11 Ojibwe tribes. “It has a whole bunch of plants and animals and nutrients and energy flow, and it’s diverse.”
The grain is an important food source for many migratory and non-migratory waterfowl, including the locally threatened rusty blackbird (Euphagus carolinus), trumpeter swan (Cygnus buccinator) and common loon (Gavia immer). Wild rice beds serve as fish nurseries: juvenile fish feed on the insects and take cover from predators. Wetland mammals like beavers (Castor canadensis), muskrats (Ondatra zibethicus) and river otters (Lontra canadensis) all call the rice beds home. The plants maintain water quality by absorbing nutrients in the sediments and preventing their buildup.
Wild rice also plays a vital role in the ceremonies of native tribes and First Nations. “We are spiritually connected to it,” Graveen says. “It’s always been a part of who we are as Anishinaabe people.”
Too hot for wild rice?
Historical accounts suggest that until the 1800s, wild rice covered tens of thousands of acres of lakebeds in the region. However, intense logging in the Great Lakes area in the 19th century clogged waterways and changed the chemistry of the water. Dams altered the water levels in areas with wild rice. Railroads, farmlands and other developments destroyed nearly two-thirds of wetlands in the region — a critical habitat for wild rice. Mining and manufacturing industries spewed toxic chemicals like mercury into the water bodies.
While some of these threats, such as dams and pollution, still exist, wild rice is today most threatened by climate change and the resulting irregular weather patterns it brings: rainstorms, floods, tornadoes, and loss of snow cover. A 2018 GLIFWC climate change vulnerability assessment of species important to the tribes identified manoomin as “extremely vulnerable.”
“Almost all of the concerns [that wild rice face today] tie directly to climate change,” Gilbert says. “I think one of the reasons why the tribes are so concerned about climate effects on wild rice is because they see it as kind of like an existential threat to their identity.”
Rising temperatures are conducive to wild rice diseases, such as brown spot disease, which can reduce seed production by 90%, and pests like rice worms (moth larvae). A lack of snow cover and ice, increasingly common due to climate change, favors invasive and native aquatic plants such as pondweeds, water lilies, hybrid cattails and flowering rush, which can outcompete wild rice.
The race is on to save the beloved manoomin from these threats before the plant and its knowledge keepers vanish.
Reseeding hope with restoration
For centuries, the Anishinaabe people have stewarded wild rice by perfecting harvesting techniques that ensure the annual crop returns every year. A typical harvest starts in the late summer or early fall and is a monthlong affair. It involves two people on a canoe; no motorboats, as they can destroy the rice stands. With a push pole, one steers the canoe through the thick beds, and the other bends each stalk over and taps it with a ricing stick. The ripened grains fall into the bottom of the canoe, while the unripe seeds are left behind to mature.
Although a good rice bed acre can yield more than 500 pounds of seeds, or about 560 kilograms per hectare, hand harvesting captures only a tenth of this amount. The remaining seeds fall to the bottom of the lake, some of which are eaten by the birds and fish, while others grow into new plants. But with thriving rice beds gone, seed banks have vanished, too.
Today, restoration at Lac Vieux Desert involves manually seeding the rice beds, regularly monitoring water quality and level, measuring the stem density of rice beds, and educating owners of summer cabins around the lakes not to destroy wild rice beds. The tribe has also actively engaged with federal and state agencies for monitoring, funding and enforcement against vandalism of wild rice beds.
“We’re going out there like Johnny Appleseed” — an American nurseryman fabled for spreading apple seeds wherever he went — “throwing rice out there on an annual basis,” says Labine, who is also the water resource technician for the Lac Vieux Desert Band. “Last year we put 4,500 pounds [about 2,000 kg] of rice back in.” Restorers must be patient; rice seeds can take up to seven years to germinate.
The work has resulted in 14 sites of thriving beds where members can harvest manoomin. The band has restarted ceremonies involving the sacred grain. While yields vary annually, the effort has gained momentum, with all 12 tribes in Michigan having similar restoration programs. “There’s a big movement, just like reviving our language,” Labine says.
In late 2023, Michigan recognized wild rice as the state’s native grain after years of tribes pursuing protections for it. Labine says he hopes this recognition can further education and outreach efforts. The Michigan Wild Rice Initiative, a tribal collective, is working toward developing a statewide wild rice stewardship plan by the end of February 2024.
In Lac du Flambeau, the tribe seeded 3,500 lbs (about 1,600 kg) of wild rice in the last two years, resulting in the 2023 bumper yield. The return of wild rice in the reservation has meant restarting manoomin feasts, where community members gather to celebrate harvests. Now, the tribe is looking at how to ensure the yields stay.
“We’re looking at trying to get good data, and then, eventually, we’ll develop a management plan for wild rice,” says Graveen, who’s seeking the help of computer engineering researcher Josiah Hester from the Georgia Institute of Technology.
Using sensors and artificial intelligence, Hester’s team is building wild rice monitoring infrastructure that captures real-time data on water quality, waterfowl activity, water levels, wakes from boat activity, and ice sheet thickness in the lakes. Machine-learning algorithms then churn through the sensor data, images and audio to predict the environmental trends, which, combined with Graveen’s traditional ecological knowledge, can determine if the rice beds can sustain an abundant harvest in the coming year.
“We’re building this for this urgent critical problem around rice and climate disaster mitigation,” says Hester, who adds he understands the importance of traditional ecological knowledge as a Hawaiian native. For Graveen, the real-time monitoring system means spending less time in the field. “If we can cut down our time, I’m all for it — I’m just a one-man operation right now.”
In Minnesota, the 1854 Authority, an intertribal agency working with the Bois Forte and Grand Portage bands, began a wild rice restoration program in the St. Louis River estuary. By 2025, the program aims to restore at least 275 acres (111 hectares). Besides monitoring water quality, the agency has installed nearly 50 enclosures around the beds to prevent ducks and geese from eating the plants. So far, more than 80,000 lbs (36,300 kg) of wild rice has been seeded, covering 260 acres (105 hectares). In 2023 alone, the agency seeded 12,547 lbs (5,691 kg) of the grain, covering 61 acres (25 hectares).
The agency has also started wild rice camps for students and resource managers to learn more about Minnesota’s state grain, a status conferred on wild rice in 1977. “In addition to restoring rice, we are trying to restore people’s knowledge and appreciation of rice,” says Darren Vogt, director of resource management at the 1854 Authority.
The Keweenaw Bay Indian Community in Michigan has similarly seeded thousands of pounds of wild rice seed in lakes within Baraga county over the past decade, reviving rice beds in lakes ravaged by pollution. On the Canadian side of the border, Plenty Canada, a local NGO working with First Nations in Eastern Ontario, has seeded a few lakebeds in the region with wild rice since 2018 under pilot projects.
While the ecological benefits of wild rice restoration have yet to be scientifically measured, Graveen, who fishes, hunts and traps, says he’s seen the return of waterfowl and other wildlife in the lake after restoration.
The way forward
Despite tasting success, restoration programs face funding challenges and are dependent on periodic grants for which there’s lots of competition. Often, the natural resources departments at the tribes, which usually run such programs, are short-staffed, with a handful of people managing many species, including manoomin. As most wetlands have been lost, very little land is available for restoration. But the tribes’ persistence has meant wild rice restoration is now the focus of federal and state departments.
“I’m seeing a lot more attention being paid to wild rice these days, from not only the tribes but the states as well,” Gilbert says.
For the tribes, being at the discussion table with federal and state agencies, university researchers, and funders — something that wasn’t the case for several decades — is a win. While Graveen says he’s convinced that wild rice may not return to its past glory, success for him is tribes working together on policy and management at the state and federal levels.
“It’s going to take everybody to bring back wild rice,” Labine says.
Spoorthy Raman wrote this article for Mongabay.
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Ho-Chunk Farms' annual Indian Corn Harvest is reviving and preserving this tradition for the northeast Nebraska tribe. Corn from a Winnebago family's heirloom seeds is grown organically, handpicked, harvested and processed as closely as possible to the way it was done by the tribe's ancestors.
Cory Cleveland, Ho-Chunk Farms agriculture business manager, said the Indian Corn Harvest involves several steps and several generations. He explained that after the corn is picked and husked, it is boiled and blanched for ten to fifteen minutes followed by the "wasgu."
"Then a lot of our elders like to come and do the 'wasgu.' And that's taking off kernel-by-kernel with hand and spoon. This is a time a lot of our elders will share stories with maybe some of their grandchildren that may be helping also. So, it's a really good time to connect with one another," he said.
Following the wasgu, the corn is dried on screens for two or three days and put in quart-size bags. Cleveland said the corn is then frozen and typically used in a traditional corn soup. He says about one-third of this year's 350 quarts will be distributed to folks who helped with the process.
Much of the remaining corn is reserved for another Winnebago cultural tradition.
"And the rest, at Ho-Chunk Farms, we store it, and we give to tribal members that have passed, to their funerals. On the last day of the funerals, generally, there is a corn soup. We usually give two quarts to the funerals throughout the year," he explained.
Students in Winnebago Public Schools also participate in the Indian Corn Project. Middle and high school students in the Academy program pick the corn, and after it's blanched and boiled take it back to school where they "wasgu," dry and package it. Even students as young as first through third grade get involved by helping husk.
"The husking is what takes a long time. I mean, if you've husked one yourself, you can understand doing probably three or four hundred of those. So, it's good to have their help. If we can have them say, 'Hey, Mom and Dad, I went to help with the Indian corn today,' that is what we're trying to do with the Indian Corn Project," Cleveland said.
The Indian Corn Project also contributes to the Winnebago tribe's goal of food sovereignty for its community.
Disclosure: Ho-Chunk, Inc. contributes to our fund for reporting on Cultural Resources, Housing/Homelessness, Native American Issues. If you would like to help support news in the public interest,
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By Arielle Zionts and Katheryn Houghton for KFF Health News.
Broadcast version by Kathleen Shannon for Greater Dakota News Service reporting for the KFF Health News-Public News Service Collaboration
When the Indian Health Service can't provide medical care to Native Americans, the federal agency can refer them elsewhere. But each year, it rejects tens of thousands of requests to fund those appointments, forcing patients to go without treatment or pay daunting medical bills out of their own pockets.
In theory, Native Americans are entitled to free health care when the Indian Health Service foots the bill at its facilities or sites managed by tribes. In reality, the agency is chronically underfunded and understaffed, leading to limited medical services and leaving vast swaths of the country without easy access to care.
Its Purchased/Referred Care program aims to fill gaps by paying outside providers for services patients might be unable to get through an agency-funded clinic or hospital, such as cancer treatment or pregnancy care. But resource shortages, complex rules, and administrative fumbles severely impede access to the referral program, according to patients, elected officials, and people who work with the agency.
The Indian Health Service, part of the Department of Health and Human Services, serves about 2.6 million Native Americans and Alaska Natives.
Native Americans qualify for the referred-care program if they live on tribal land - only 13% do - or within their nation's "delivery area," which usually includes surrounding counties. Those who live in another tribe's delivery area are eligible in limited cases, while Native Americans who live beyond such borders are excluded.
Eligible patients aren't guaranteed funding or timely help, however. Some of the Indian Health Service's 170 service units exhaust their annual pool of money or reserve it for the most serious medical concerns.
Referred-care programs denied or deferred nearly $552 million in spending for about 120,000 requests from eligible patients in fiscal year 2022.
As a result, Native Americans might forgo care, increasing the risk of death or serious illness for people with preventable or treatable medical conditions.
The problem isn't new. Federal watchdog agencies have reported concerns with the program for decades.
Connie Brushbreaker, a member of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe, has been denied or waitlisted for funding at least 14 times since 2018. She said it doesn't make sense that the agency sometimes refuses to pay for treatment that will later be approved once a health problem becomes more serious and expensive.
"We try to do this preventative stuff before something gets to the point where you need surgery," said Brushbreaker, who lives on her tribe's reservation in South Dakota.
Many Native Americans say the U.S. government is violating its treaties with tribal nations, which often promised to provide for the health and welfare of tribes in return for their land.
"I keep having my elders here saying, 'There's treaty rights that say they're supposed to be able to provide these services to us,'" said Lyle Rutherford, a council member for the Blackfeet Nation in northwestern Montana who said he also worked at the Indian Health Service for 11 years.
Native Americans have high rates of diseases compared with the general population, and a median age of death that's 14 years younger than that of white people. Researchers who have studied the issue say many problems stem from colonization and government policies such as forcing Indigenous people into boarding schools and isolated reservations and making them give up healthy traditions, including bison hunting and religious ceremonies. They also cite an ongoing lack of health funding.
Congress budgeted nearly $7 billion for the Indian Health Service this year, of which roughly $1 billion is set aside for the referred-care program. A committee of tribal health and government leaders has long made funding recommendations that far exceed the agency's budget. Its latest report says the Indian Health Service needs $63 billion to cover patients' needs for fiscal year 2026, including $10 billion for referred care.
Brendan White, an agency spokesperson, said improving the referred-care program is a top goal of the Indian Health Service. He said about 83% of the health units it manages have been able to approve all eligible funding requests this year.
White said the agency recently improved how referred-care programs prioritize such requests and it is tackling staff shortages that can slow down the process. An estimated third of positions within the referred-care program were unfilled as of June, he said.
The Indian Health Service also recently expanded some delivery areas to include more people and is studying whether it can afford to create statewide eligibility in the Dakotas.
Jonni Kroll of the Little Shell Tribe of Chippewa Indians of Montana doesn't qualify for the referred-care program because she lives in Deer Park, Washington, nearly 400 miles from her tribe's headquarters.
She said tying eligibility to tribal lands echoes old government policies meant to keep Indigenous people in one place, even if it means less access to jobs, education, and health care.
Kroll, 58, said she sometimes worries about the medical costs of aging. Moving to qualify for the program is unrealistic.
"We have people that live all across the nation," she said. "What do we do? Sell our homes, leave our families and our jobs?"
People applying for funding face a system so complicated that the Indian Health Service created flowcharts outlining the process.
Misty and Adam Heiden, of Mandan, North Dakota, experienced that firsthand. Their nearest Indian Health Service hospital no longer offers birthing services. So, late last year, Misty Heiden asked the referred-care program to pay for the delivery of their baby at an outside facility.
Heiden, 40, is a member of the Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate, a South Dakota-based tribe, but lives within the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe's delivery area. Native Americans who live in another tribe's area, as she does, are eligible if they have close ties. Even though she is married to a Standing Rock tribal member, Heiden was deemed ineligible by hospital staff.
Now, the family has had to cut into its grocery budget to help pay off more than $1,000 in medical debt.
"It was kind of a slap in the face," Adam Heiden said.
White, the Indian Health Service spokesperson, said many providers offer educational materials to help patients understand eligibility. But the Standing Rock rules, for example, aren't fully explained in its brochure.
When patients are eligible, their needs are ranked using a medical priority list.
Connie Brushbreaker's doctor at the Indian Health Service hospital in Rosebud, South Dakota, said she needed to see an orthopedic surgeon. But hospital staffers said the unit covers only patients at imminent risk of dying.
She said that, at one point, a worker at the referred-care program told her she could handle her pain, which was so intense she had to limit work duties and rely on her husband to put her hair in a ponytail.
"I feel like I am being tossed aside, like I do not matter," Brushbreaker wrote in an appeal letter. "I am begging you to reconsider."
The 55-year-old was eventually approved for funding and had surgery this July, two years after injuring her shoulder and four months after her referral.
Patients said they sometimes have trouble reaching referred-care departments due to staffing problems.
Patti Conica, a member of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, needed emergency care after developing a serious infection in June 2023. She said she applied for funding to cover the cost but has yet to receive a decision on her case despite repeated phone calls to referred-care staffers and in-person visits.
"I've been given the runaround," said Conica, 58, who lives in Fort Yates, North Dakota, her tribe's headquarters.
She now faces more than $1,500 in medical bills, some of which have been turned over to a collection agency.
Tyler Tordsen, a Republican state lawmaker and member of the Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate in South Dakota, says the referred-care program needs more funding but officials could also do a "better job managing their finances."
Some service units have large amounts of leftover funding. But it's unclear how much of this money is unspent dollars versus earmarked for approved cases going through billing.
Meanwhile, more tribes are managing their health care facilities - an arrangement that still uses agency money - to try new ways to improve services.
Many also try to help patients receive outside care in other ways. That can include offering free transportation to appointments, arranging for specialists to visit reservations, or creating tribal health insurance programs.
For Brushbreaker, begging for funding "felt like I had to sell my soul to the IHS gods."
"I'm just tired of fighting the system," she said.
Arielle Zionts and Katheryn Houghton wrote this story for KFF Health News.
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