Wild rice soaked in lake water smells pungent, especially hundreds of pounds of it.

The odor is so earthy it’s almost muddy, even a bit reminiscent of barnyard manure.

Yet that smell was no matter to the Bay Mills Indian Community’s Biological Services workers and volunteers who spent two consecutive mornings in mid-September slinging handfuls of the rice into either Spectacle Lake on the tribe’s reservation, or into Waishkey Bay on Lake Superior.

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