Film reveals the traditional practices of planting rice, boat building, harvesting, parching, dancing, winnowing, cooking and finally eating wild rice at a feast. Opening sequence records the late Spiritual Elder (Niigaanosh) Archiie McGeshick, Sr, planting and managing the wild rice beds, The film explores the variety of threats to the continuance of these indigenous wild rice beds.

Presenter Bio: Michael Loukinen is Professor Emeritus from Northern Michigan University. He earned his PhD in Sociology from Michigan State University (MSU) and, had a University of Michigan Post-doctoral fellowship, where he studied oral history and the cultural anthropology of aging.  Loukinen began his career publishing original research on Finnish Americans and on rural community social support networks. This led to his first film, “Finnish American Lives,” 1982. He held a Fulbright Fellowship at the University of Turku in 1983. He has completed 24 documentaries, most on ethnic traditions in the Upper Midwest including Finnish Americans, Ojibwe, Menominee, Ottawa and Serbs. He has recorded the traditional occupational cultures of trappers, loggers and commercial fishers in the U.P.  Up North Films is a non-profit documentary film production company at Northern Michigan University, Marquette, Michigan. www.upnorthfilms.com