As a child, Stefan Himmer picked edible mushrooms with his parents before he could even speak.
Together they’d walk im wald (German word for ‘forest’), collecting chanterelles, parasols, porcinis, red caps, and birch mushrooms.
In Germany, where he was born, Stefan says, “Mushroom picking is a national pastime… Everybody goes for walks in the fall and picks mushrooms, and no one’s afraid of eating them.”
When Stefan was four, his family immigrated to Ottawa, Ontario. They brought the tradition with them.
“It was like Easter egg hunting,” Stefan remembers. “In Ottawa we picked chantarelles, shaggy manes, puff balls and honey mushrooms.”
In his twenties, Stefan moved to British Columbia and began picking commercially. He chased prized pine mushrooms in Tweedsmuir Park and mapped out where morels might appear after wildfires swept through forests the year before. Mushroom picking remained a side gig throughout his career.
Recently, Stefan retired from commercial picking and from his main job as a wildlife biologist—a 40-year career, including 30 years working with grizzly bears. His work took him from Bella Coola, B.C., to the Northwest Territories, Alberta, and Alaska, giving him the chance to search out carnivores, and mushrooms, in a wide range of landscapes.
“I used to go picking for at least four to six weeks every May, and find out where the best morels were after burns… It’s quite lucrative when conditions and prices are right and supply is good. You can make $1,000 a day.”
A close-up of wild mushrooms, echoing the early foraging adventures that shaped Stefan’s lifelong passion (Photo courtesy of Louis Bockner).
Seeing the Forests for the Mushrooms
Stefan worked hard and was good at what he did, but over time, his respect for the fungal kingdom grew into something deeper than family tradition or income.
“People should care about mushrooms,” Stefan says. “Mushrooms are a way of measuring ecological health. They convert nutrients and help with chemical and hormonal communication for plants.”
Ecological means relating to how living things (plants, animals, people) interact with each other and with their surroundings. Pickers like Stefan know firsthand that mushrooms and other fungi have long played an essential role in keeping forests healthy and functioning.
Although mushrooms are best known as food, fungi are everywhere—from forests and grasslands to beneath roads and cities—and they quietly contribute to seasonal conditions. Fungi pull carbon from the atmosphere and store it in the soil, while their decomposition abilities regulate the release of carbon pollution. This makes them key players in Earth’s weather system.
But B.C.’s fungi are increasingly at risk as soil is disturbed or destroyed by agriculture, development, deforestation, and other industries. Stefan says he has seen the impacts.
He is aware that logging in prime pine mushroom patches happens.
“Pine mushrooms grow in old groves or mature forests of cedar, Douglas fir and hemlock… but that is also where some of the best timber is. So there has been conflict… Timber values will always outweigh mushroom values.”
A triumphant Stefan and his mushrooms: everyday treasures that reveal just how vital fungi are to healthy, functioning forests (photo submitted).
Flushed and Frustrated
Now that snow has fallen, Stefan has time to reflect on the mushroom picking this fall on his land. Stefan has noticed real changes in the mushrooms there.
“We have a chanterelle patch that my wife, Eva, and I have picked for 10 or 15 years, and we’re guaranteed to get between 30 and 40 pounds for our own consumption. But the patches are getting smaller, and the mushrooms are drier every year. This is the second year in a row that we’ve had drought conditions.”
He has also noticed that some of the older trees on his property are struggling—he believes due to increasingly dry conditions.
“The trend is drier… our snow pack is reduced because fall is later, and snow comes later and then melts earlier in the spring, so that the actual period of time when there’s snow accumulation is much shorter,” says Stefan. “We used to get huge dumps of snow… and we have drier springs.”
Typically, the spring after a wildfire brings a flush of morels. This year, Stefan was waiting to pick at a nearby burn site from the previous summer.
“We kept waiting for moisture from spring rain, and it never happened. The mushrooms never flushed (fruited). And then when they did, there were a whole bunch of worms in the mushrooms because it had been so dry… They had no value to sell. (I was) frustrated.”
He says the amount of water reaching his area through rainstorms and winter snowfall is shifting, and the difference is noticeable.
With all the changes unfolding around him, Stefan worries about how long he’ll be able to keep doing his favourite thing—hunting mushrooms in the forests he loves (photo submitted).
Still Falling for Mushrooms
Even in retirement, Stefan still loves giving mushroom advice—friends regularly send him photos to confirm whether a mushroom is safe—and his favourite way to spend time outdoors remains picking mushrooms, including on his acreage in Krestova, B.C.
Stefan says many poisonous mushrooms are unpalatable, offering natural protection to people, while the many edible species are incredibly flavourful and worth the effort of getting outside to find. He recommends picking with knowledgeable locals and consulting reliable mushroom guidebooks, along with the abundant digital resources available, to help identify which varieties are edible and which are unpalatable or poisonous.
His favourites are chanterelles, which he says freeze beautifully.
“You can sauté them just a little bit, just half cook them and then freeze them. And you take them out of the freezer in the winter and eat them. They’re just great.”
Stefan has trail cameras set up to monitor the wildlife on his land. He is also a backcountry skier and horseback rider, and he and his wife used to do a lot of horse packing in the mountains.
“I still go out on our property here. I love the (mushroom) hunting the spots. I know where they come up and the approximate timing… I just love being outdoors.”
In his retirement, Stefan wants to keep encouraging people to protect forests and reduce carbon pollution, so mushroom picking can continue for generations. He hopes others will enjoy it with their families, just as he did with his parents.
At the end of the day, Stefan hopes mushroom picking remains both a cherished hobby and a source of sustenance for generations to come (photo submitted).
