Mike W. Bryant
Northern News Services

NNSL (Jun 16/99) - For several entrepreneurs -- from within the NWT and elsewhere -- the North has another valuable resource that has yet to be fully realized or exploited. It is not another precious metal or gemstone, nor timber product or fish and furs.

According to Randy Marchand, an entrepreneur from Victoria, B.C., there are mushrooms in them thar hills, or more precisely, morels -- one of nature's more sought- after fungal delicacies.

"There's a world shortage right now," said Marchand, the self-professed king of morels. "The Yukon is usually my first choice to go to pick them, but after I talked to (a local picker) and he told me about the huge potential for harvesting morels out at Tibbet Lake, I had to check it out."

Joachim Obst is a local man who has been a hobby mushroom picker for the last 30 years. Last August, he began testing the market in the feasibility of creating a mushroom and morel harvesting industry in the NWT.

"I first began making proposals to the federal government and the GNWT last December," Obst said. "First Nations groups like the Yellowknives Dene Community were very interested in establishing a mushroom- harvesting industry. The GNWT has been a little hesitant but the doors seem to be opening."

Obst started looking for buyers from all across Canada, when he came across Marchand and his partner, Gerrard Olivotto, who conducted a morel harvesting project in the Yukon with the Selkirk First Nation Community that was an immediate success. After checking their references, Obst decided that they would be a perfect choice to help them implement their own harvesting project in the NWT.

Olivotto explains how the elusive morels can be found and harvested.

"They generally only grow the first year after a forest fire," Olivotto said. "We make plans to find them using satellite images on maps that show us where the morels likely will be and the most easily accessible.

"The season only lasts about six weeks, starting in early summer, so we have to move quickly. We then have a set-up period where we construct a mushroom dryer and then dry them."

The process of drying morels first starts under the sun, where careful precautions are taken not to get them wet with rain. The morels are then taken to a covered shelter to dry to about 75 per cent, after which they are place inside a flash dryer that heats between 140 to 148 F until they are finally ready for the market. Fresh morels are also sold, but quickly, as they do not have a long shelf-life.

As for Walter Brown, who just started picking morels this spring -- besides the obvious financial gains to be made -- he will be happy to have a larder of morels to feast on.

"They have a deep, rich smoky flavour," Brown said. "Really yummy."