By Abigail Popple, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, RMG
Dunster resident Terry Winkler is looking forward to the first-ever Robson Valley Mushroom Festival, being held at the Dunster Schoolhouse from September 27th to September 29th.
As one of the festival organizers, Winkler hopes to sow the seeds – or spread the spores, in this case – for more appreciation and study of the variety of mushrooms that live in the Robson Valley.
“The festival is aimed at the layman who likes to go out on the landscape, wants to learn a bit more about mushrooms – how to identify them, how to pick which ones are safe to eat. And we want to find out a bit more about the diversity [of mushrooms] in our area,” Winkler told The Goat.
To that end, the festival includes a number of educational workshops on topics such as how to create a logbook to keep track of the mushrooms you discover, how to cook with mushrooms, and how to use iNaturalist, an app which allows people to upload photos and observations on local flora, fauna and fungi.
Alongside the workshops are forays into areas east and west of Dunster, where participants can forage for mushrooms with qualified guides. Attendees will be split up into two groups, Winkler said: one group will stay behind to do workshops on Saturday while the other is doing the foray, then the two groups will swap places on Sunday.
While Winkler’s primary goal for the festival is to give residents a chance to learn more about local mushrooms, it also presents an opportunity to contribute to research on Robson Valley mushrooms. Participants can use iNaturalist to contribute to a crowdsourced database of mushroom species in the area, and Winkler has been in touch with a scientist who has offered to analyze the DNA of any unique specimens that festival goers find, he told The Goat.
“We’ve applied for a research permit for Mount Robson, so we’ll be doing some collection in Mount Robson Provincial Park, in Jackman Flats, and potentially in the Ancient Forest as well,” Winkler added. “BC Parks was really interested in it, too, because they don’t have a lot of information on the mushrooms that are growing in their landscape, and they’d love to have the info as a baseline of data.”
All 50 tickets for the full festival – which include access to every workshop and a day-long foray – are sold out. However, tickets for one day of workshops are still available for $25, Winkler said. Those tickets include a two to three-hour guided walk near the Dunster Schoolhouse and access to a day of workshops and presentations.
Additionally, $25 tickets to the dinner on Saturday the 28th will be available until September 15th. The dinner will feature mushroom-themed cooking from a local chef, Julian Randall.
“It’ll be a really fun event, and I think people will really enjoy learning more about mushrooms around them. When you go for a walk, you see a gazillion mushrooms, but we don’t know an awful lot about the different varieties of mushrooms here,” Winkler said. “It’ll be interesting to be out in the field and doing the workshops, and it’ll be just interesting hanging out with a bunch of mushroom nerds for the weekend.”
