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The fifth annual Nova Scotia Mushroom Foray took place at The Deanery,Ship Harbour on the weekend of September 21-23rd on Nova Scotia's beautiful,if a bit foggy,Eastern Shore.
On hand to guide us through the process were some wonderful,entertaining and very knowledgeable people.
Amongst them were;
Dr David Boyle,of the Nova Scotia Agricultural College in Truro. Dr Gavin Kernaghan,professor at Mt St Vincent University
in Halifax.Dr Scott Cunningham who has a doctorate in molecular biology. Mr Gary Gilbert a wild food enthuiast who has
gathered wild edible & medicinal plants and mushrooms in the Maritimes for over 30 years. I was pleased and honoured to
be part of the faculty myself this year which I greatly enjoyed.
Adding to the mushroom interest this year was Ms Frances Anderson a well known provincial Lichenologist.
Last but certainly not least,Catherine Pross, an accomplished amateur mycologist and photographer who has been the official
photographer of the Mycological Society since the founding of the society in 2008.
As in previous years we had a good turnout of interesting and curious people with all levels of mushroom knowledge. We
thought that it was going to be a case of deja vu as the heavens threatened to open up on us again, as was the case last year
as we got caught in the tail end of a hurricane. Fortunately the weather co-operated during daylight hours,but it did come
down pretty heavy during Saturday night.
As was the case in previous years there were several trails to pick from. Some more physically demanding than others,they
were;
- Gibraltar Rock,being a fairly rugged trail with a lot of hemlock.
- The Straw House, being a looping trail and probably the least physically demanding which was of a mixed forest type.
- Tangier River,which was a mixed coastal forest.
- Taylor Head Provincial Park,which was a coastal loop and probably the most physically demanding.
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| Menu with flair |
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| Our enterprising and talented chef. |
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| Helpful and cheerful staff. |
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On Saturday morning we were all treated to a hearty "stick to your ribs breakfast" concocted by our imaginative and resourceful
chef. If you can't read the ingredients from the menu,here they are in their entirety;buckwheat,groats,oats,flaxmeal,raisins,date
paste,fresh fruit and cinnamon, and you thought the muesli you were having at home for breakfast was healthy??
The trail that I was assigned to lead along with Dr David Boyle was the straw house trail which the owner was kind enough to show us around.
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| Straw House at Ship Harbour. |
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| Starting our foray at the straw house. |
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As we exited the straw house we hadn't gone more than fifty feet and we found three species of mushrooms. This called
for lot's of discussion and questions as to how we were to going to fill out the field notes and bag our collections. After
spending several hours in the woods collecting mushrooms we decided that it was time we made our way back to the head of the
trail.
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| Mushrooms for the table? |
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| Whatalotwegot! |
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| Time for coffee. |
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Identification of the mushrooms began when we arrived back from the various trails we had been exploring. The identification
process went on until early evening but then it was time to put the books away and enjoy some social time and an
evening meal followed by a ceilidh.
The identification process was resumed the following sunday morning and went on until late sunday afternoon, by which
time we had managed to identify approximately 100 species.
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