Ever wander through the forest only to be stopped at the sight of a new and exciting mushroom poking up through the moss?
The upcoming Forest of Fungi event being held in the Beaver Lodge Lands on Sept. 23 will help demystify the various species of mushrooms growing amongst the trees. The event will be part of National Forest Week, a public outreach and education week held across the country to help expand people’s knowledge about forests.
“This year’s theme is supporting biological diversity,” said Heather Soo from the Canadian Institute of Forestry.
That theme fits nicely with Soo’s other interest: mushrooms.
“I think the treasure hunt is the best,” she said. “I’m a bit of a novelty seeker, I’m always trying to find things I haven’t found before, but I just think it’s a pretty interesting topic all around. It’s one of those things where you can go out and still discover new species or new species for your area.”
”Everything would build up and nothing would ever decay if we didn’t have fungus,” she said.
Soo has been hosting fungal walks in the Beaver Lodge Lands for a few years now. Over the years she’s had quite the variance in numbers of attendees, ranging from two to at least 40. Soo said she’ll go into the trails before the event to find some interesting fungi to show off.
“We’ll be able to feel some excitement around hunting for mushrooms, and just a bit better knowledge of what to look for,” she said. Part of it will be about “what it means in terms of forest ecology and the fungus’s role in the forest and just how myriad that is.
”I’ll try and find a few samples before we go out so people have an idea what to look for and what we’re going to be looking at, as far as mushroom morphology goes,” she said.
“There is at least one mushroom growing in the Beaver Lodge that is on the list of rare fungi for the West Coast - the Mountain polypore (Bondarzewia occidentalis),” Soo added. “Maybe we will find it growing while on our walk, if we’re lucky!”
The event will be from 10 a.m. until noon. People are asked to sign up before the event so Soo can have an idea of how many amateur mycologists to expect. The sign up for the event is available at eventbrite.com.
Foraging mushrooms is discouraged in the Beaver Lodge Lands, as is the commercial picking of any kind.
Soo will also be taking part in the Cumberland Fungus Festival, which will be the week after the Campbell River event.
”If people are excited about the prospect of doing mushroom walk here, maybe it’ll just be a little taste to get them interested in the bigger festival,” she said.
More details for that event are available online.
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