Another season of N.W.T. morel mushroom picking begins

The year's first wave of wild mushroom pickers have their boots on the ground in the Northwest Territories.

While it's too soon to say how hearty the 2016 harvest could be, prices are expected to remain low for the second summer in a row.

"There's a lot of product, a lot of mushroom in North America," says Joe Salvo, owner of Ponderosa Mushrooms in Port Coquitlam, B.C.

In the last two months Salvo has purchased mushrooms in the United States, mainly Oregon, and more recently in British Columbia. Prices so far have ranged from $5 to $7, below the $10 to $14 prices seen in 2014.

"There had been three years of high pricing in the market. Last year thankfully a good correction," says Salvo, pointing to a surge of wildfires in the United States and British Columbia last summer. Ashy terrain is a breeding ground for mushrooms.

2015 harvest was worth $15M

According to a newly released report prepared for the N.W.T. government, around 3,000 local and visiting harvestors picked an estimated 40,000 pounds of flash-dried morels last summer in the NWT, with a market value of $15 million.

"We do have people up already looking to pick," says Mike Maher with the N.W.T.'s Department of Industry, Tourism and Investment. "We probably won't see the level as we did last year."

Last year saw the second worst fire season on record in the N.W.T., with 241 fires burning nearly 6,300 square kilometres of land.

"With big fires in Saskatchewan last year, B.C. and the United States, it will probably spread the pickers out a lot more," says Maher of this year.

As result the department is only holding morel harvesting information sessions by request. Around 1700 Northerners and 300 visitors participated in the sessions last summer.

"It's a total roll of the dice in any given year,"  Brendan Matthews, the co-owner (along with his brother) of Yellowknife's Canadian Arctic Morels.

But if the conditions are just right the harvest could be promising for local and visiting pickers in the N.WT.

While the Dehcho region of the territory is already very dry, officials with the Department of Environment and Natural Resources say indicators show, in some areas, the amount of precipitation — another ingredient that's key to the sprouting of morels — might be more than last year.

"I would say the quietly optimistic approach is the best one to take in any year," said Matthews, who has been harvesting and buying northern mushrooms for the last five years.

"That being said even if the price is a bit lower the quality could be significant higher. For pickers it could be a great season."

Michelle Freeland is already pleased she's seeing mushrooms sprout from the ashy burns.

Freeland and her husband temporarily left their jobs in Alberta's stagnant oilsands to hunt for morels.They've set up a small camp along Highway 3 between Behchoko and Fort Providence.

"We just started seeing them in the last few days" says Freeland.

"It's hard to take steps without stepping on mushrooms in some patches."

The couple hopes, once the prime picking season starts, to yield a few hundred pounds a day, and plans to stay until the mushrooms dry up.