...The place now known as Wisconsin has a rich history of wild-rice harvesting dating back thousands of years with the Menominee, the original people of the area who called themselves “People of the Wild Rice.” Wild rice, or manoomin, is also closely associated with Ojibwe tribes who arrived in Wisconsin hundreds of years ago in search of “food that grows on water.”...
SHELBY, Wis. – If she closes her eyes, Danelle Larson can still remember how the stretch of Mississippi River in front of her looked, as recent as a decade ago. It was nothing but open, muddy water. Now it’s covered with impressively tall and thick beds of wild rice.Larson is a research ecologist with the U.S. Geological Survey. Alicia Carhart is a Mississippi River vegetation specialist for the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. The two surveyed the plants by airboat in mid-September 2024. Summer floods on the river had delayed growth somewhat, but tall green shoots still waved in the breeze in almost every direction off the shores of Goose Island County Park near La Crosse, Wisconsin.
“It’s one of the most dramatic changes on the upper Mississippi,” Larson said. “It’s everywhere.”...
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- - Volume: 25 - WEEK: 19 Date: 5/6/2025 11:02:28 AM -