When the syrup is at the right consistency children took small amounts of syrup and poured it onto the snow covered ground. The snow quickly cooled the syrup into a hard candy which was a favorite treat for the young and old alike. Syrup was boiled down further to create a sugar that was easily stored throughout the year for use in cooking. To get one gallon of syrup a Dakota would have to collect forty gallons of sap!

In the early fall, just after the crops were dried and packed away for the winter the Dakota packed up their tipi and head for Forest Lake and the Rice Creek chain of lakes to collect psin (wild rice). Once the village was settled at camp the rice was collected. Teams of ricers would take their boats onto the lake. While one person was in charge of pushing the boat through the rice field, the other was in charge of knocking the rice grains into the boat. Once the boats were full of rice, the Dakota would empty the boats on shore.

The rice had to be dried before it is stored. The Dakota parched the rice by laying out a thin layer to be dried by the sun or in a large kettle over a small fire. Then grain had to be separated from the hull (outer covering). The younger people in the village put on clean moccasins and danced over the rice to loosen the hull from the grain. Then the grain was winnowed to separate the broken hulls from the edible grain. Rice camp lasted for nearly three weeks and thousands of pounds of rice would be prepared and stored for use over the winter months.

Learn more about Wild Rice by visiting the following pages at the
Minnesota Department of National Resources website:
Wild Rice Facts
Minnesota Wild Rice Management
Wild Rice Pictures and Description

Photographs of wild rice by Paul Red Elk