This article was originally written by CMN's Geoscience Faculty, Kate Flick.

If you were kenēw (eagle), you may have recently seen CMN SDI interns paddling the Wolf River below Balsam Row dam, through the channel, to Shawano Lake. "What are they up to," kenēw might have wondered?

“It is important as students of this Menominee Place to imagine the lifeways of the past, present and future,” notes Geoscience Faculty Dr. Kate Flick.  “We know wild rice is an important relative for Menominee, People of the Wild Rice, and experiencing and imagining a river dabbled with wild rice which opens to a large lake filled with wild rice is part of that.”

Wild rice camps were common on Shawano Lake until as recent as the early 1900s.  Learning from wild rice means taking a look not just at the close relationship Menominee have with the Manōmaeh (wild rice), but seeing through a Netǣnawemākanak (all my relatives) lens.  This perspective includes exploring cultural, biologic, and geologic connections that tell stories about the health of Manōmaeh.  Importantly, using western scientific ways of knowing braided with traditional knowledge, CMN SDI interns took a dive into the past, present, and future of Manōmaeh on and around the Menominee Reservation in an experience that included data collection and analysis measuring important water quality and quantity parameters on the Wolf River and Shawano Lake, as well as taking in water teachings from cultural and scientific experts. 

Menominee Cultural Resource Protector Paemapemeh (seen going by), Jeff Grignon, explained to students that Manōmaeh has many reasons for not being as abundant as it was once was in the area–including changing hydrologic regimes, changing temperatures, changing water chemistry, and histories of landscape change.

CMN’s emerging geoscience associates degree and research program hopes to expand these connections.  A step towards this goal included hosting Dr. Crystal Ng, a hydrogeology professor from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, to hear about how she learns from Manōmaeh in her work.  She is part of Kawe Gidaa-naanaagadawendaamin Manoomin (First We Must Consider Manoomin/Psiη)--a collaboration among tribes, intertribal treaty organizations, and University of Minnesota faculty, staff, and students, which prioritizes tribal views and needs as they work together to protect Manōmaeh / Manoomin / Psiη (Wild Rice). Crystal led hand-on activities at Shawano Lake and Wolf River with the CMN SDI interns that demonstrated methods for monitoring surface water levels, groundwater, and water quality - all factors to which Manōmaeh is sensitive. She plans to return in the coming months to provide input on further ways to incorporate scientific teachings around Manōmaeh in the new geoscience program, while learning more about how the Menominee people cared for Manōmaeh. 

CMN SDI Interns have been researching various aspects of geoscience, agriculture, orchards, water, Indigenous international partnerships, and more this summer.  Whatever the focus of their research, interns could see connections to Manōmaeh.  When reflecting on the data, Renewable Energy Research Intern Mary Corn Fischer wondered if the health of wild rice could be linked to the human connection.  Paemapemeh confirms that Manōmaeh is a very human-oriented plant linked to the sustained health of the Menominee, which was gifted to the People in the time of great change and renewal of health as glaciers receded from the landscape.

 

If you are interested in learning more or sharing your perspective, please come to the Intern community report out on Aug 3rd @ 5:00 at the Cultural Learning Center. There will also be a community input meeting for the Geoscience program in the fall.

If you are interested in participating, please contact Kate Flick at kflick@menominee.edu or 799-6226x3164.