The Story of Wild Rice
MacGregor describes the procedures used by the Ojibwe in northern Minnesota in 1915 for harvesting, processing, and selling wild rice; the MacGregor family's participation in its commercial development through their general store in Aitkin; and the character of the industry in the 1960s.
;...we saunter on down to the edge of the lake for a look out over the rice fields. It is a large but shallow lake some three miles long and nearly as wide. It is almost entirely covered with rice. Waving gently in the light breeze, the rice glistens in the noonday sun like a vast sea of golden wheat...
from
F.R MacGregor, "The Story of Wild Rice" (Minnesota Historical Society Manuscripts Notebooks, P90).