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If you missed the FORAY at North River,Cape Breton, you missed a wonderful day in the company of some expert mycologists
and some really interesting and funny people.A great time was had by all.
Below in pictures and words is a time line of how the day progressed.
Approximately 75 mycophiles gathered at the North River Community Hall,Cape Breton on Saturday 19th September
2009.
The first item on the agenda was an introduction by Dr David Boyle who gave a short intro on the various identifying
characteristics of fungi,along with a warning that there are edible,poisonous and also deadly mushrooms in the Province.
The 75 would be split in to five groups and each group would be accompanied by an guide with local knowledge and a mushroom
expert(mycologist).The five trails were;
- French River.
- North River.
- Red Island.
- Gaelic College.
- Chanterelle Inn.
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| Picture 1. |
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| Brendan Hemens greets everyone. |
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| Picture 2. |
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| David Boyle talks about typical mushroom cap shapes. |
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| Picture 3. |
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| David Boyle warning of poisonous mushrooms. |
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After the introduction to fungi was over we all left the hall and assembled outside to be formed in to five groups of
approximately 15 people depending on the TRAIL preference that the individuals had indicated. The 5 trails,
demanded various levels of physical fitness, from easy walking to some fairly steep hill climbing.
The pictures below(pictures 4,5 and 6) show people beginning to assemble in to the various TRAIL groups.
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| Picture 4. |
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| Picture 5. |
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| Picture 6. |
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I had opted for the Gaelic College trail. We formed ourselves in to informal car pools and headed off for the short drive(10
minutes) to the Gaelic College which is where we would all park our vehicles before heading off in to the woods.
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| Picture 7. |
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| Gaelic College. |
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| Picture 8. |
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| "Beth", our local guide, explains safety first. |
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| Picture 9. |
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| Dr Scott Cunningham and Dr David Boyle in foreground. |
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At Last!
We enter the woods and start the search for some interesting specimens.
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| Picture 10. |
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| Shooting a young Cortinarius,before the gills have expanded. |
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| Picture 11. |
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| Cortinarius with the remnants of the cortina still covering the immature gills. |
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| Picture 12. |
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| We stop for lunch and discuss some of our "finds" so far. |
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After several hours in the woods and with several baskets loaded with specimens we deliver the fruits of our labours
back to the North River Community Hall. This is where all the other groups had delivered their finds to add to a magnificent total
of fungi.
CLICK ON ANY OF THE THREE IMAGES BELOW TO ENLARGE.
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| Picture 13. |
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| Picture 14. |
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| Picture 15. |
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After spending some considerable time sorting and identifying the mushrooms we had collected it was then time for supper
in the form of a barbeque.
Unfortunately I did not take any pictures of the barbeque because I was too busy eating! I can report that no-one went
away hungry!
After supper we were treated to a talk by a visiting Finnish mycologist, Dr Tuulu Niskanen who spoke on the genus Cortinarius.
Andrus Voitk from Newfoundland,spoke on the genus Tomentella.
At the end of the day we managed to find and identify over 120 species of mushrooms. Wonderful!
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| Picture 16. |
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| Kare Liimatainen,a visiting Finnish mycologist. |
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| Picture 17. |
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| Tuula Niskanen,a visiting Finnish mycologist with Brendan Hemens. |
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| Picture 18. |
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| Andrus Voitk,a visiting mycologist from Newfoundland. |
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