Telling Our Stories in New Mediums Tourism, Internet, Radio, Videos

Presentation byDeborah McLaren

American Indian and Alaska Native Tourism Association Conference 2008 Couere D’Alene, ID

The power of repackaging

Wild Rice

Re-packaging the wild rice story through new opportunities and

technologies

The sacred manoomin

• Wild rice is a central part of Anishinaabe culture & tradition.

The Story

Sacred wild rice is part of a subsistence way of life and cottage industry for many Native people in the upper Midwest. Wild Rice is under threat because of scientists and corporations that want to patent our rice, turn it into frank-en-rice, and change its DNA for

economic purposes. Those of us who depend on it and honor it are telling our story in order to preserve the wild rice, our economy,

and our culture and traditions.

Telling the wild rice storyThrough internet action campaigns

tourism

radio

microeconomic enterprise development

the internet / websites / pod casts / YouTube

video documentaries

The White Earth Land Recovery Project’s wild rice campaign

• Works to prevent the taking of the essence of the wild rice by the paddy rice industry; leaving the Native Americans who have been the stewards of this resource for many centuries with nothing.

Components of the Campaign

• Protecting the intellectual property rights of the Anishinaabe.

• Opposing genetic modification & contamination of wild rice.

• Promoting a fair trade for traditionally hand harvested natural lake wild rice.

• Educating on the tradition & culture surrounding wild rice.

Establish a website

http://www.savewildrice.org/

Use good photos and graphics

Well Planned Presentation = Great Resultsadvocacy, fundraising, education, action

Main Menu Home

Culture and History Cultivated Wild Rice

Genetic Engineering and Patenting ACTION

Resources and Articles Buy Wild Rice

Tribal and Coalition Resources Contact Login

Restoration of Traditional Food Knowledge

A network of organizations and people where together we are broadening and enriching our discussions related

to traditional foods, diabetes and community food systems.

www.protectseeds.org

Why the internet?

• Internet assists people in rural and isolated places.

• More tourists and others seek information on the internet.

• Story can be added to existing websites.

• Free websites available.

• Videos can be uploaded.

Earl and Kathy Hoglund, White Earth elders and teachers about the wild rice

Storytelling through Native Radio

http://www.superiorbroadcast.org/Gifts.htm

Harvesting wild rice under turquoise skies on crisp autumn days has become a way of life with "niijii's", friends and neighbors of the Ojibwa Native Americans.

Click Here to listen to this radio story and see a few more pictures.

TO LISTEN ONLINE......

DOWNLOAD SOFTWARE.

Links to software for streaming:

http://www.windowsmedia.com/download

http://www.winamp.com/player

http://www.real.com

WOJB PODCASTING !

WOJB is proud to offer podcasts to our listeners featuring cultural and historical interviews with Tribal Elders, local and national Native news makers, musicians, environmentalists, politicans, lawmakers, writers and other guests appearing on our local programs. Click on WOJB PODCAST to download the latest from WOJB and return often to listen to new material.

We enjoy hearing from our listeners, so please email us at wojbfm@wojb.org or call us at 715-634-2100.

Miigwech!

A podcast is an audio or video recording that you broadcast to others over the internet. You’ll need:

Computer Internet connection Microphone

Audacity is available free for Mac, PC, and Linux computers. If you use Audacity, you'll also need to install LAME in order to convert the sound file to MP3 format. Mac owners can also record audio with Garage Band, while Windows users have Sound Recorder

YouTube - Danbury Wild Rice HarvestViews: 705. Manoomin: Michigan teens, American Indians ...1 min 30 sec -

Rated 5.0 out of 5.0

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kcw-12YrAqE

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kcw-12YrAqE

RADIO - NPR: Ricing Time: Harvesting on the Lakes of White EarthListen Now: [7 min 39 sec]Real Media|Windows MediaExplain these links *Two members of the Ojibwe tribe in a canoe venture into tall grasses to harvest wild rice.*Winona LaDuke, founding director of the White Earth Land Recovery Project, stands behind reservation elder Margaret Smith

Hear from LaDuke

* Listen: On How Wild Rice Brought Her Parents Together Real Media|Windows

* Nov. 12, 2004 Wild Rice Stuffing and Other Recipes from Native Harvest

Winona LaDuke and Margaret Smith (seated)

Winona LaDuke, founding director of the White Earth Land Recovery Project, stands behind reservation elder Margaret Smith. Courtesy WELRP Hear from LaDuke

* Listen: On How Wild Rice Brought Her Parents Together Real Media|Windows * Listen: On Her Father's Pragmatic View on Philosophy & Corn Real Media|Windows * Listen: On Preserving Native Wild Rice Real Media|Windows * Listen: On the Ancestral Links Between Windmills and Her Family's Work Real Media|Windows * Listen: On How Generations of Native Americans Continue to Wrestle with the Same Issues Real Media|Windows

Tribal Stories

Hear Paul Schultz, Ojibwe tribal elder:

* Listen: On the Role Elders Play in the Rice Harvest Real Media|Windows * Listen: On Tribal Beliefs and Traditions Surrounding the Rice Harvest Real Media|Windows * Listen: On the Relationship Between Rice and People Real Media|Windows

Production Notes

Produced by The Kitchen Sisters (Davia Nelson & Nikki Silva), with Jay Allison, Laura Folger, Kate Volkman, Melissa Robbins, Viki Merrick, Sydney Lewis, Chelsea Merz, and Joyce & Roger Gentzler. Mixed by Andrew Roth, Earwax Productions.

Morning Edition, November 12, 2004 · Each fall, the Ojibwe tribes of northern Minnesota harvest wild rice by hand. It's a long process that begins with families in canoes venturing into the tall grasses, where rice is poled and gently brushed with knockers into the bed of the canoe. We journey to the rice lakes of White Earth Reservation to investigate how one tribe is supporting itself and changing the diet of its people through community kitchen projects.

Story Notes

We saw Winona LaDuke and Margaret Smith speak at the International Slow Food Congress, where their group, the White Earth Land Recovery Project, was recognized for its work to preserve wild rice and restore local food systems on the reservation. They were inspiring and intriguing. We told Winona about the Hidden Kitchens project, and she told us to come for the reservation's wild rice harvest in August. So we did.

Through its Native Harvest label, WELRP produces and sells an array of traditional foods -- wild rice, chokecherry jelly, raspberry preserves, fry bread mix, buffalo sausage, hominy and a selection of beautiful handmade crafts. Healthy foods support a healthy community. Visit Native Harvest online to learn more and help support them by enjoying their traditional foods and crafts.

Heritage Foods USA is working to expand the markets for and increase the revenues of native groups throughout the country, including Native Harvest in northern Minnesota. Through thoughtful globalization, these endangered foods and stories can be saved.

-- The Kitchen Sisters

Special thanks to: Winona LaDuke; Ron Chilton; Pat Wichern; Sarah Alexander; Ed Barnett; Florence Goodman; Paul Schultz of Native Radio; Aaron Price; Becky Niemi; Pat Wichern; the team at the ricing shed; Native Harvest and the White Earth Land Recovery Project. About the Music

This story features the song "One Piece at a Time," from the album The Many Sides of Johnny Cash.

The Power of PartneringStrengthening our Wild Rice Story

On our own terms: partners can include universities, colleges, nonprofits, tribal agencies and departments, radio,

television, documentaries, food agencies, the slow foods movement, festivals, tourism and more

Tourism Opportunities

Can help educate, promote, create advocates, celebrate, and

even recruit volunteers to preserve wild rice.

Journeys with First Nations Green Route at White Earth

www.journeys.greenroutes.org

Journeys Destinations promote wild rice

• Anishinaabe Cultural Center• Native Harvest Distribution Center Tours• WELRP sustainable tours• Sakatay Indigenous Preservation Society seasonal camps• WETCC wild foods summit• Minwajige’ Café• Real Wild Rice• Tamarack Wildlife Refuge• Itasca State Forest/Mississippi Headwaters• Historic Holmes Theater

Native Harvest’s Minwajige Café’ on White Earth Reservation specializes in traditional foods like bison, berries, and wild rice. They offer slow foods dinners, serve community events like powwows, and accommodate tourists.

Volunteer Tours at Bad River, WI

Wild Rice Cultural Awareness and Ecological Restoration Project

http://www.madison.k12.wi.us/tnl/titlevii/wildrice/index.html

Educational programs through schools and tours keep our story going strong

Oral traditions pass down our stories. There is no way to replicate that. However there are new technologies and opportunities that help create

advocates for our traditional way of life and culture.

Our wild rice creates micro-enterprise and supports local people

Wild Rice story on the shelves of Minnesota grocery stores - getting the the story out to thousands of shoppers.

Books help reach more readers

Documentaries

Mino-Bimadiziwin: The Good Life is a new documentary about contemporary wild rice harvesting on the White Earth Reservation.

Red Eye Video is a Minnesota/Dakota based video production company that produces documentaries for public television,

museums, and education. Our DVDs about American Indians have been screened on PBS, in national and international film

festivals at the Smithsonian, the Minneapolis Institute of the Arts, the Buffalo Bill Cody Museum, and Natural History Museum of

New York, as well as in countless classrooms in schools, colleges, and universities.

Of the four sacred colors RED stands for Native people.It is the color of blood ties passion,

anger and love.EyE

EYE is for how we look at things, our individual vision, and also our cultural world view.

Manoomin (Wild Rice):Ojibwe Spirit Food

Up North Films

http://www.upnorthfilms.org/manoomin.html

Student Filmmakers

• Up North Films is a non-profit institute at Northern Michigan University, a state-supported liberal arts university in Michigan's Upper Peninsula - the U.P. as it is called by natives.

• NMU students, past and present, do much of our work including videography, sound recording, editing, script and log development, as well as management, accounting, and marketing of Up North Films' productions.

Funding

• Great Lakes Aquatic Habitat and Network Fund Grant - Project: Manoomin ...  

• Project Title: Manoomin Ogitchidaag (Defending the Rice) through video documentation and distribution.Project Grant Award: $3,000Project Summary: The purpose of this project is to protect the sacred Anishinaabeg wild rice from genetic manipulation and issues of bio-diversity. Specifically, the funding will support the creation and distribution of a wild rice documentary video that will explore the background and context in which the current situation has evolved and to full understand and address the complexity of the wild rice campaign.

http://www.northernlightsfilmfest.org/

Independent and Indigenous Film Festival in Minnesota

Film festivals not only connect the local community that creates them, they also invite outside visitors to come and enjoy the festivities, who in turn contribute greatly to the revenue of the festival’s host city or town

Native Report #205

On this edition of Native Report we’ll focus on wild rice.This summer the restoration and preservation of wild rice beds took center stage at a conference that drew peoplefrom three states for a common cause. Activist WinonaLaDuke talks about current political and environmentalchallenges with regard to wild rice. And the Bois ForteOjibwe introduce us to their successful effort to reinvigoratenatural stands of wild rice on Nett Lake. We’ll also visitwith the elders and learn something new about Indian Countrytoday on Native Report.

www.nativereport.org

It’s never the end!

What is your story?

Who are your partners?

How can you repackage your story?

How can you develop tours to support your story?

For more information contact

Deborah McLaren

E-mail: Deborah@mm.com

Cell 651-983-9880

travelmomma.wordpress.com