Their Salmon, Our Wild Rice?

Washington State has a recovery program for Pacific salmon. Salmon are an iconic species in Washington. Mendocino California has the Salmon Restoration Program. Oregon has the Wild Salmon Center. That's the source of this assessment:

Billions of taxpayer dollars have been spent on salmon restoration efforts in the United States and Canada but few success stories have emerged. Some may yet succeed; it is still too early – only a few salmon generations’ worth of time – to discount them. But most salmon restoration efforts have failed so far because they were implemented only after salmon stocks reached low levels of abundance.

St. Louis River at Jay Cooke State Park

Photo by J. Harrington

The "Anishinaabeg have changed their management practices. The tribes routinely restore lake habitats and seed wild rice beds to ensure there is a harvest to be had the next year." That helps to protect what we currently have. It does not necessarily bring about restoration to areas where wild rice may once have been abundant but is no more. Wild rice is the official state grain of Minnesota. There is growing evidence that wild rice needs protection. A web site, Protect Our Manoomin, lists a Protect Our Manoomin Council. There are, as of this writing, more than 700 signatories to a petition to protect wild rice. We are not aware of major public relations or outreach campaigns to generate support for protecting what we have, let alone restoring what we've lost, although Winona LaDuke, of the White Earth Recovery Project, has written extensively about the significance of wild rice to her people. Is it not time to consider finding additional ways to enhance and expand the work already being done to protect and restore a Minnesota icon?

A delegation from Amnesty International is visiting Duluth today and tomorrow. Part of their agenda is to share the effects of the Mount Polley tailings dam failure and call attention to the fact that government regulators were ill prepared to protect citizens from such disasters. The wild rice that is slowly returning to the St. Louis River would be put at risk should the proposed PolyMet NorthMet project proceed as proposed. Minnesota can and should do better.

In honor of the time of year and today's theme, please enjoy both Original Local and today's poem:

                     Last Snow

By Heid E. Erdrich

Dumped wet and momentary on a dull ground

that’s been clear but clearly sleeping, for days.

Last snow melts as it falls, piles up slush, runs in first light

making a music in the streets we wish we could keep.

Last snow. That’s what we’ll think for weeks to come.

Close sun sets up a glare that smarts like a good cry.

We could head north and north and never let this season go.

Stubborn beast, the body reads the past in the change of light,

knows the blow of grief in the time of trees’ tight-fisted leaves.

Stubborn calendar of bone. Last snow. Now it must always be so.

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