The Whistler Naturalists would like to thank volunteers and participants who joined our 20th annual Fungus Among Us Mushroom Festival.
We started with presentations and mushroom walks to 26 classes (more than 600 students!). We were excited to include for the first time four classes from Xet’ólacw Community School in Mount Currie along with return visits to Spring Creek and Myrtle Philip. It was great to see so many students excited about mushrooms. Thanks to school presenters Andy MacKinnon, Kevin Trim, Paul Kroeger, David Walde, Kem Luther, Kevin Trim, Enid Martin, Bill Weir, Ben Hircock, Shayn McAskin and Daniel Winkler.
We’d also like to thank our “Talks with Gurus” presenters: Thom O’Dell for his talk on “Why mushrooms are important” and Veronica Woodruff for her talk on “Mushrooms you should know.”
Congratulations to winners of the Fantastic Fungi Foto Contest in each category: Adam Smith for Captivating Colour; Nicole McHugh for Weird and Wonderful; Magali Legault for Gorgeous Gills; Sally Dant for Tiny Toadstools; and Johanna Aldred for Fungal Fun. Thank you to our lead judge Joern Rohde for his difficult task in choosing winning photos. These and other photos from the event can be viewed on our website: whistlernaturalists.ca.
Fungus fans have no doubt noticed the historic drought has turned our forests into mushroom deserts. We were therefore delighted when our gurus brought back so many different species from the Saturday walks, enough to fill the display tables almost as much as in our usual rainy weather. We are still counting and expect at least 120 of the usual 160 plus species, even though the volume of mushrooms was certainly less than one per cent of normal. We even documented some species for the first time, maybe because of the weird weather.
Our popular Forest to Table lunch wouldn’t have been possible without the great expertise and wonderful creativity of Chef Bruce Worden.
Finally, the Whistler Naturalists would also like to thank our key sponsors: The Whistler Community Foundation, AWARE and the Resort Municipality of Whistler. Thanks also to wonderful support from Milestones, Nesters Market, Legends Hotel, Whistler Bike Co., Avalanche Pizza, Whistler Cooks, Whistler Museum, Whistler Library, Pasta Lupino, Toad Hall Studios, Joern Rohde Photography, and the Whistler Biodiversity Project.
See you next year, as always, the weekend after Thanksgiving.
