As the boat weaves through the twisting river leading out to Lake Superior in the northernmost reaches of Wisconsin, Blanchard takes out a small bag of loose tobacco. Pinching a tuft, he scatters it off the side — an offering to the Great Spirit, he explains, to ask for a safe and satisfactory harvest.

As we turn another corner, we see the site of the harvest: the Kakagon Sloughs. Swaths of golden grass jut several feet out of the shallow water, the stalks gracefully bending backward and forward in the wind.