77th World’s Largest Wild Rice Festival July 10th, 11th, and 12th

For more than 70 years, the Deer River area has celebrated the World’s Largest Wild Rice Festival. Originally, the festival was established to bring the community together to celebrate the abundance of one of the area’s natural staples, wild rice. Though wild rice still grows abundantly in some of the area lakes and rivers, the advent of “paddy rice” which is grown commercially and harvested mechanically, has made the once regional product a national available commodity.