James Whetung is claiming his Indigenous right to cultivate wild rice on Ontario's Pigeon Lake, but local homeowners are furious about large-scale changes in the waterways.

“It was four years ago,” says Drew Hayden Taylor, “that I first put pen to paper to write my play Cottagers and Indians, which has now been adapted into a new documentary of the same name. Both explore the heated fight occurring off the shallow shores of my reserve, Curve Lake First Nation.

“Growing up in Ontario's Kawartha Lakes region, I had an inherent love of the land and an appreciation of the lakes that surrounded it. I had heard of wild rice — or manoomin, as we call it — and had eaten quite a bit of it. But I had not seen it grow in its natural environment, even though this area of the province has been described, ironically enough, as the breadbasket of Anishinaabe manoomin.

“Because of several different factors, most notably boat traffic, log booms churning up the water, pollution and the introduction of invasive species (both plants and animals), manoomin almost went extinct around my community. That's when James Whetung, an Indigenous man from my reserve, sprang into action. Seeing the reintroduction of manoomin as both a matter of food sovereignty and cultural health, he has now spent a good chunk of his life cultivating it in the area's shallow and warm lakes.

“Unfortunately, manoomin, when grown, sprouts a good two feet out of the water. This limits boating, fishing and swimming, and some full-time residents and cottagers claim it brings down property values. Whetung and his supporters feel that's a small price to pay for the reestablishment of a traditional mainstay and way of life. The result of these differing perspectives has been a decades-long disagreement, resulting in a growing sense of acrimony between both parties.”

Cottagers & Indians is a CBC POV documentary by Drew Hayden Taylor, currently streaming on CBC Gem. CBC will be re-broadcasting Cottagers and Indians this coming summer.