Sagen Lily Quale, Manoominike Ikwe, is a citizen of the Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Ojibwe and is currently a graduate student pursuing her degree in the Agroecology program at UW-Madison. She has also received her Bachelor’s degree from UW-Madison, with a double major in Community and Environmental Sociology, Environmental Studies and a Certificate in Food Systems. Sagen grew up most of her life in the Ceded Territory of Northern WI with her mom, sister and grandma and grandpa. Her work since being in college has been food systems focused, having had internships on organic farms as a crew member, with the USDA-NRCS learning how entities as such can better support Tribal producers, along with summers on the Manoomin (wild rice) beds monitoring different populations surrounding the Lac du Flambeau Tribal Nation. Today, her work is all things Manoomin, as her masters thesis focuses on the human relationship to this plant relative. She has been able to interview both Native and non-Native people that hold a relationship to Manoomin in hopes to use those stories to guide the current and future stewardship of this plant relative.

TSN Conference 2026

January 23rd, 2026 (Friday) // 1:50 pm – 2:15 pm // Room 103 // Seeding Relationships, Stewarding Stories: The Reciprocal Nature of Manoomin // Manoomin, the good berry, is the Ojibwe word for wild rice. Tribal Nations of WI have held a relationship with Manoonin since time immemorial. Manoomin for Ojibwe people and other Indigenous people of WI has been core to Tribal food sovereignty practices. That relationship and a Tribal Nation’s ability to rely on Manoomin as a food source has been attacked by violent settler colonial forces, including land theft and alteration for the industrialization of larger society. Conducting social science interview research with those people who hold a relationship to Manoomin can shine light on stewardship practices, community connection to place and plants, as well as present Ojibwe cultural ways of being. By having conversations with both Indigenous, Ojibwe people and non-Indigenous people within the Ceded Territory of Northern WI, one can understand and uplift the stories regarding the past and present in hopes to integrate those conversations into future practices of Manoomin stewardship.