In search of Wisconsin Moonstone

A new field opened west of Wausau this year, allowing folks to pick their own.

Emi Oshima, otherwise known as Moonstone Emi, holds a pair of moonstones from the field she and others co-own where you can pick your own.

Driving west on Highway U, my eyes keep searching for a sign I’d seen via email - one that signaled something rather unusual for the area - a place where one can pick their own Wisconsin Moonstone, run by a woman originally from Tokyo, Japan.

I found the white sign that led off of Highway U onto a grassy parking lot and a big open field. A little, colorful shed adorns the outer edges of the field, and a picnic table full of gems, paper and other necessities.

Emi Oshima greets me warmly with a smile and a big sun hat, but her eyes go wide when I ask her, in Japanese, if she is in fact Japanese.

Oshima is delighted, she tells me, since she hadn’t yet found a single person in town who speaks even a little Japanese. ¹

As we sit down, I mention that I heard Wisconsin Moonstone is big in Japan. She smiles “I did that. That was me,” she explains with a smile. Oshima fell in love with Wisconsin Moonstone and quickly spread it to Japan, turning it into a popular gem in the country, she says.

She’s had a wholesale service selling Wisconsin Moonstone for some time, and it’s become a passion of hers. But she and her partners — Trent and Shana Rebeck, and Austin and Jennifer Gausmann — started talking about how they could share the joys of Wisconsin Moonstone more with the public, and one day they decided to start a pick-your-own field. Thus began the first pick-your-own Wisconsin Moonstone site in the whole state. “This is a unique experience,” Oshima, known colloquially as Moonstone Emi, says at the site.

How does it work? Basically, customers pay $35, get a bucket, rent some tools, and then are sent into the field to look for moonstone.

It’s not hard to find on the site - the moonstone is everywhere. Customers are able to harvest up to 20 pounds of moonstone, which fills a pretty sizable bucket. The site officially opened May 15, and Oshima says they get 60-70 people per day picking moonstone.

Oshima carries a spray bottle with her, and demonstrates how raw moonstone really comes to life when you spray it with water - the colors and vibrancy really shine under the gleam of the water.

The luminance of Wisconsin Moonstone even comes out in its raw form to a degree, but it really shines a brilliant blue when polished, and that’s made it a favorite for jewelry or just for having around on a shelf.

The site is unique, Oshima says, because the field is filled with moonstone. “They’re so surprised,” Oshima says of first-time customers. “It’s everywhere.”

The site is open Wednesdays and Sundays 10 am to 4 pm, with Saturdays by special appointment. There are special discounts for seniors and youth, and those who pick more than 20 pounds pay $2 per pound extra.

Find more on the Wisconsin Moonstone website and on the Moonstone’s Instagram page.

Want to read more? Check out our interview with the Wausau dermatologist who is changing the medical business model.

1. I would call my Japanese fluency level barely conversational - especially since I rarely use it any more. That’s also how I would describe my Spanish abilities, though it took far less time in Spanish to get to that point. We definitely did NOT conduct the interview in Japanese. But we did share some brief conversation snippets.