SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
Renée Rocher always came from a family of Yellowknife entrepreneurs, but it was morels where she staked her own claim.

Renée Rocher sits with a basket of her morels in the park in front of city hall. Rocher started selling the mushrooms at the Yellowknife Farmers Market to earn more money. - Karen K. Ho/NNSL photo

The granddaughter of Lou Rocher, the man behind the city's infamous Ragged Ass Road, recently returned to the city to try her hand at picking the highly popular wild mushroom located in the burn areas nearby.

"I think one of the first days I was picking it was snowing," she told Yellowknifer. "My fingers were completely frozen."

It wasn't her first experience with the city's cold. Rocher lived in Yellowknife on Ragged Ass Road until the age of nine, when her family left for Ottawa. She currently lives in Montreal and had previously only visited the city for funerals.

However, her experience working in a small boutique in Montreal, her connections to many of that city's well-known up-and-coming chefs, as well as the support of her family in Yellowknife provided the perfect opportunity for Rocher to try morel picking this year.

Rocher has fully embraced her new life dealing with bugs and occasionally nights sleeping in her $10,000 pickup she's dubbed her "mushroom truck."

"I really like being able to wake up when I want, pick when and where I want and sell how I want," she said.

Dismayed by the $7 per pound being offered by buyers and the three-hour long drives from Edzo to meet them in Fort Providence, Rocher has switched to selling direct to customers, including a stall at the Yellowknife Farmers Market. "It was closer for me to drive to the market," she said.

At $10 for a a bag of "nice, generous handful" or approximately a quarter of a pound of fresh-picked mushrooms, Rocher estimated last Tuesday she made four times the amount of money she would have received from a typical buyer for her full five-gallon pail. "Which is crazy for an hour and half to two hours of work," she said, estimating gas for her truck costs about $30 to $40 each way. "And no one complained about the price."

Rocher has also sold larger amounts directly to interested individual buyers, at about $40 for a pound of fresh mushrooms and $150 for a pound of dried morels.

Still, there have definitely been challenges in Rocher's new life as an entrepreneur. She originally came with a friend who ended up leaving early. She had no other business experience beyond working retail at the boutique and at the high-end clothing store Aritzia. She had never really sold food before. The work was hard and she got a lot of bug bites. The heat has caused many of the morels to die. There weren't a lot of other women who were also out picking. And she ran into a bear while eating a Clif bar.

But Rocher was able to find a dehydrator for $40 at Canadian Tire, borrowed another one from a friend, and received help from her dad to purchase the slate-grey pickup truck from Calgary she now calls crucial to her entire operation.

"Yellowknife is a great place to do this. There's enough money here and and I heard there was definitely demand for it at the Farmers Market," she said."I definitely want to take advantage while it's unregulated."

Now Rocher plans on picking for at least another week and she's not in a huge rush to get back to Montreal. When she does return, Rocher hopes to set up bulk orders from local restaurants for next year's picking season, find another kind of mushroom in the fall and gather up a potential team of new people. "I'm already planning to pick chanterelles (another variety of mushrooms), market NWT mushrooms and maybe come up with a crew of friends," she said.

"I would be the boss," she said with a laugh.

Even her bright, neon green hair has become an advantage, helping her easily be spotted in the bush and catching the eye of potential customers at the farmers market.

Rocher plans on waking up extra early today to pick an extra-large, fresh amount to sell at the Farmers Market today, Canada Day. As the "budding gardener" there, she'll also be offering dried mushrooms as well.

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