In Search of Wild Rice and Cranberries

Today is Saturday and we decide to take a day off from our grueling book editing (me) and trout fishing (Jack) and do a little sightseeing and souvenir hunting. Two quintessential Wisconsin products are wild rice and cranberries, and I want to purchase some healthy souvenirs to take back home with us. We haven’t been seeing any “Wild Rice for Sale” signs here, like we did further north up by Lake Superior. When I asked some of the folks around here where I might purchase some local wild rice, everybody told me to go up to “Mole Lake” and ask around up there, on the Chippewa reservation. So that’s one destination for our outing today. I also searched on the internet for nearby cranberry marshes that might be harvesting their cranberries, and found one north of Mole Lake, near a town called Eagle River, so that becomes our Saturday itinerary.

But first things first. We get up early and Jack puts his waders on and goes bravely back out on the misty Wolf River to see if he can catch his elusive trout. He’s caught several other fish here on various flies, but no trout yet. We think maybe the trout have all flown south for the winter. Again, no trout this morning, sigh. (He’s still going to check this river off his list since he did catch fish from it on his fly rod.)

Next we walk across the street to the local bar/diner for breakfast of eggs and pancakes. This place has a lot of neon and beer signs on the outside, and a very small, very weatherbeaten handpainted sign behind some overgrown shrubbery that says “FINE FOOD.” Several people are already sitting at the bar drinking. Folks, it’s 9:30 am… REALLY?? However, the cook is good and the pancakes are delicious. We pass on the morning beer.

On the road about 10 am, heading toward Mole Lake, on a quest for wild rice. We know we’re on the Chippewa reservation when we see the spiffy casino and hotel. We stop at the casino and I go in and ask the nice lady behind the money desk if she can tell me where to find some local wild rice to purchase. She sends me another half mile down the road to a convenience store/gas station that she assures me will be able to hook us up with a wild rice dealer (!). 

At the gas station (where we buy gas at the cheapest price we’ve seen yet in Wisconsin, $3.39), I ask the two guys behind the cash register if they have any local wild rice to sell. They tell me that they don’t have any right now, but they immediately start working the phones. Unfortunately, they can’t get any of their rice contacts on the phone—must be all out on the lake. We start to leave, disappointed, but then the big guy comes after us—“Wait—these guys have some rice to sell!” pointing at the two older fellows who just pulled up to the pump in their pickup. They were Edmund and Emmanuel, and they had been harvesting wild rice the day before, getting ready to go out again today. They had two LARGE bags in the truck with them, but it’s not cleaned up and separated into pound bags yet. So we follow them to Edmund’s house down the road, where they had the rice nicely cleaned and bagged, in pound bags. I bought 5 pounds. Feels kind of like a drug deal, but this is some nutritious stuff we’re buying, and not illegal (at least not as far as we know…they did seem a little nervous when Jack took their photo!)

Me, Emmanuel, and Edmund

As it turns out, this lake (which is next to Mole Lake and named, appropriately, Rice Lake) is one of the few spots in Wisconsin where wild rice has been harvested by the Chippewa continuously in the traditional way for hundreds of years, so our souvenir purchase feels kind of special.

Rice Lake

We continue on back roads towards Eagle River, now on Quest, Part 2, for cranberries. I really want to see a cranberry marsh with red berries floating on it, like the commercial on TV with the guys standing in the cranberry water. I love cranberries and they’re one of the highest-level antioxidant fruits, so I plan to stock up, if we can find the cranberry marsh. I got an address off the internet for the cranberry farm nearest to us, Lake Nokomis Cranberries, but for some reason the GPS won’t take the address. Fooey. Oh well, we figure we’ll just ask someone when we get to Eagle River.

The scenery is getting more and more beautiful as we drive—it seems that the fall foliage is turning brighter and more colorful right before our eyes. There are lots of orange and red maples here, as well as the beautiful yellow aspens, mixed with evergreens—lake and rivers everywhere—a feast for the eyes!

We get to Eagle River and stop at a convenience store. The lady behind the counter is clueless about cranberries. She starts to send us to another town where “maybe there might be a marsh.” We move on to a sporting/fishing store, thinking maybe they’ll know something. No such luck. But we do end up buying some nice sunglasses that I’ve been trying to find (after the salesman in the store tells us they don’t have them—fortunately Jack kept looking on the rack and spotted them!). This guy is clueless about cranberries as well as sunglasses, but he does give us directions to the town center so we head there. Fortunately, we drive past the town Visitor’s Center and I run in. The young girl manning the counter is very knowledgeable and fixes us up with maps and directions to Nokomis Cranberry Farms, about 10 miles away, down more scenic roads.

When we finally get there, a little before 2 pm, we find that the last tour has already gone and they’re getting ready to close their gift shop at 2. So we hurriedly make our souvenir selections—lots of interesting stuff out for sampling, which helps in our decision-making: cranberry wine, salsa, jelly, lotion, chutney, chocolate-covered cranberries, plus a 3-pound bag of fresh cranberries ($1/pound). I was worried that we might not get to see floating cranberries since we missed the tour, but the gift shop lady was gracious and told us to drive the van down the dirt road and we could see the flooded cranberry beds with the floating berries. She also gave me a brief rundown on how cranberry farming works. Too cool! So we had our own private self-guided tour and got up close and personal with the berries… it was a real thrill.

Cranberries waiting to be harvested

Floating berries!

The basics: cranberries grow on low vines in lowered beds (in dirt, not in water, see pic at top). When ready for harvest in September (how convenient) the farmer goes through the beds with a long rake on a tractor and loosens the berries from the vines. Then the beds are flooded with irrigation water. The berries have air chambers in them so they all float to the surface of the water. Then a big machine with a pump and hose comes around and sucks the berries into big rolling bins. After some cleaning, they are pumped into a big semi truck and hauled off to the receiving plant. OceanSpray is one of the biggest customers for Lake Nokomis cranberries.

The big pumping machine that sucks the cranberries out of the marsh and into rolling bins.

A really fun and interesting day! We ate a late lunch/early supper at a restaurant in Eagle River and then made our way home, in the rain. Looks like our perfect sunny weather has disappeared for the time being…