BC or bust: October 17-21

We left Vancouver this afternoon after a 5-night stay with Andre’s friend, Danda.  She insisted on treating us to sushi on the night of our arrival, which wasn’t too difficult given that we hadn’t eaten sushi since long before we left LA. The following morning, we went to explore the mountains just north of the city.  The ground, covered in a thick blanket of moss and duff, was moist from the recent rain.  My feet sank deep into the forest floor, rarely actually touching the earth, as I went from one tree to the next looking on dead logs for the oysters I hoped to find.  Although our foraging efforts were unsuccessful, we did enjoy a lovely picnic protected from the rain under the shelter of a huge tree.  What a luxury it is to have forests of this magnitude and age.  Those who support the mass removal of our giant trees from public forests in the name of jobs and money don’t seem to fully understand their value.  Trees are the lungs of our planet.  Small ones do not replace large ones in their capacity to sequester carbon. Beyond that, trees are part of the hydrologic cycle—transpiration, like evaporation, makes rain.  Seattle went 82 days without rain until just over a week ago.  Vancouver had the driest summer in 150 years.  We need rain.  These giant trees house animals and fungus and those little ones simply cannot compete with their elders.  They help to ensure biodiversity, which if you don’t know why you should care about biodiversity, just remind yourself that bees = food.  But, beyond what our forests do to help maintain life as we know it, only those who are fortunate enough to stand amongst the giants can fully understand the satisfaction and comfort their canopy provides.  Happily snacking on the cheese we traded for back in Leavenworth, I was filled with gratitude.  What a gift it is to be cared for by the trees.

Chilled from the rain and cool weather, we returned to Danda’s where I threw together a big pot of vegetable soup and baked a loaf of seeded bread.  Yanis was coming for dinner and I couldn’t wait to meet him! 

Yanis is a picker—not like Troy, the urban picker we met in LA who makes his living selling things others toss in the garbage, but a wild mushroom picker who sells his finds to buyers, middle men if you will.  He spends most of the summer months camped out in the Yukon Territory of northern Canada.  The wild north.  He told stories of people becoming sick from mosquito bites, their faces swelling from the thirsty little blood suckers, and the strategies people developed in hopes of keeping them away.  He swore by olive oil, which makes one or two stick to the skin, buzzing like mad as if to warn others from latching on.  I was skeptical, but I imagine I’d try anything under similar circumstances.  Yanis works hard, like I imagine most pickers do.  He scours the forests for mushrooms, some days harvesting only a few pounds, while having to carry hundreds of pounds for miles on other days.  Since buyers don’t pay much, the big patches are what they’re hoping for.  It’s easy to romanticize the life of a picker.  Working hard for only a few months, traveling on the money earned during rest of the year.  Eating gourmet mushrooms every day.  Camping under the stars in remote places.  But it’s hard work, picking mushrooms.  I know, I’ve been doing it… and my forage voyage is luxury living compared to the conditions in the Yukon… luxury living compared to most any conditions for that matter.

Most of our time in the city was spent doing city things.  The highlights – seeing David Byrne from Talking Heads in concert followed by dancing at the Work Less Party party.  The real highlight, though, was a hike on our last full day in Canada.  Feeling the call of the forest, Andre and I slipped away to hike in the rain.  I wasn’t very hopeful that we’d find mushrooms, but made a wish that the forest would give me a cauliflower mushroom.  I’ve been wanting one of those beauties for a while, but have been making a lot of wishes lately so I knew I was pressing my luck.  First, the oysters, then lion’s mane, lobsters, matsutake, and, most recently, the icicle.  All wished for and delivered—usually that same day.  No joke.  Illusory correlations… or (and) the world is just getting weird.  So after Andre spotted something white at the base of a living tree about an hour into our hike, I knew I better not make any more wishes for a while.  Lucky again.  The forest just keeps on giving… deliciousness.