The thick, green carpet of rustling stalks blanketing Pokegama Bay looks just like a field of wheat, but it’s actually all wild rice, or manoomin. Ten years ago, there were just a few sad strands of wild rice growing on the bay, nothing like today’s rich field. It will take years to fully test Omdahl’s hypothesis, challenging current beliefs that muskrats are bad for wild rice. They still need to map changes in areas of wild rice and compare it to the muskrat’s complicated lives. Both muskrats and wild rice are extremely important to Ojibwe people, Omdahl said.