Feburary 2000 Newsletter

Morel Mushroom Hunting Club

Fire Burn Morels. by Chris Matherly, ( Story and photos by: Randy Marchand)

Fire Burn Morels Drying

Close-up of a fire burn morel, Morchella atromentosa

        Few people have experienced the thrill of finding Morels in a fire burn area. Stories of seeing so many morels that you cannot walk without stepping on them have circulated around for years. But are the tall tales true? YES! I believe that they are attracted to the trapped "sap" that are in the roots of the dead trees, similar to them growing under a dead elm tree. Why is the elm tree dead? Because it contracted Dutch-elm disease. After it dies, the sap is trapped in the roots. This is what the Morels feed on. They like "sweet" things. I once heard of a man that would pour 5lbs of sugar in an area that may contain Morels, and the following spring the results were staggering. Maybe this is also why they like apple trees. The apples fall off the trees, and rot, and this too could be "sweet" to the morel.

You can search for your own areas that recently had a burn by going to this website:

Wild Land Fires at this site :    http://vwww.vita.org/disaster/wildfire/

A little bit of rest before "back to picking". Note that I didn't call it "back to hunting"!

Very Beautiful Country up there!

Fire Burn Morels often clump.

(All above photos by Randy Marchand)

Burnt Ridge, Story by: Randy Marchand

The pack on my back was heavy and the pack straps were digging deeply into my shoulders. I had a tump line across my forehead that came from the top of the pack and had my name Randy Marchand printed in black letters. It was made from a yellow leather belt given to me by my cousin in England. This tump line had become synonymous with me and my reputation as a morel mushroom picker.

I was working my way towards a high strip of burned ridges about one and a half kilometers to the north east. It was heavy going with the pack I had to carry. The pack consisted of five, five kilo mushroom baskets and lids tied on with bunji cords to the wooden pack board. The pack now weighed about 75 to 80 lbs. The ground was strewn with fallen burned spruce trees that we call or should I say, curse as blow-down. These trees are black, criss-crossed, clutching horrible devils that can tear you up in a hurry if you accidentally slip or are not careful. They will rip and tear your flesh and clothes and make cross-country travel very hard and dangerous.

I looked up towards the ridge system I was working towards and tried to pick out the best route. I was trying to stay to the areas of partially burned trees as here the way would be easier going and I could scout for morel mushroom that now filled the baskets on my pack. About three hundred yards ahead there was a long stretch of orange tinged half burned trees that still had some of the needles on the trees. The ground was covered with a orange carpet of needles. This is what we call a needle zone and a great place to find morels. It took me about twenty five minutes of steady hiking to get to the needle zone and by that time I am hot and sweaty ready for a break.

As I reach the needle zone I looked for somewhere to take my pack off and have a rest. The ground is covered with morels I can see they are just every where, big blond beautiful fire morels. I am very excited as I take of my pack and look around. My god, I say out loud, there is at least fifty baskets or more here. My heart is just pumping now as I look around planning how I will pick and get all these morels out of here before some other picker finds them.

I know that I still had allot of hard work cut out for me to get back to camp but the adrenaline of the mush rush in pumping in my veins. I pick up my pack and just threw it up and onto my shoulders as if it was now light. I start off just cruising the needle zone scouting out to see how many morels there are. There are even more profuse than I first guessed, and they are every where. It was hard not to step on them especially the baby ones just coming up. I was making great time towards the ridge through the needle zone. The mushroom fever was just speeding me along and I had forgot about the weight of the pack on my back.

The sun was hot and the sky was totally free of clouds. The temperature was a stifling 103F. The drone of hungry mosquitoes was the only sounds to be heard. There would be the occasional ruckus from some annoying bird perched atop a burnt tree screaming a call similar to a killdeer, but much louder and more annoying. I was soon climbing the first of the ledges up to the ridge top that I was trying to reach and the pack was now beginning to get very heavy. It was now one foot in front of the other with each up hill step a grab purchase and push the leg straight.

The sweat was running down my face and dripping off my nose and getting in my eyes. Every time I rubbed the sweat from my face I would spread more black charcoal from all the burned organic material standing and laying about. No matter how careful you are the black somehow seems to get on you making you appear like you have just come up from a coal mine. After an hour or two in the burn your face is very black and the whites of your eyes are pronounce and you appear very humorous.

The last few ledges are about 100 feet high and quite steep and was very hard to finish. I almost gave up and had a rest but I became stubborn and endured to the top. The view was enlightening and I could see our camp about three miles to the east. The going back to camp would be quite easy as the trees here were very small and the terrain was mostly down hill.

I took advantage of my lookout and surveyed the burn that ran to the south and west of the ridge I was now standing on. The burn was from a forest fire that burned through here last year. It had burned in a long fingers consisting of over 23,000 hectares. The fire had burned very hot on the south side of the ridge system where the trees were bigger. On the north side where the trees were smaller it had flash burned.

Depending on the weather the best flush of morels may come in the hot burn or in the flash burn. If it is a wet spring then the hot burn will produce more morels, but if its dry sometimes the flash burn will produce the best. Nature will determine where and how the morels will flush. One must always remember to keep an open mind, as nature will through you a surprise when you think you have it all figured out.

Off to the south there were a few small lakes that were surrounded by needle zones, which I logged in my memory. I took a compass reading of the lakes from the ridge top and made a few quick notes in the notebook that I always carried with me. I also took a few sketches and made a rough map of the lay of the land with notes to help with future explorations. I made a note of the morels that I had seen in the burned needle zone that I had followed on my way up to this ridge top.

After a bite of food and a liter of water I choose my route to camp, picked up my pack and was on my way. I made very good time on my way back to camp with it being down hill and no blow downs to contend with. In just over one hour I came puffing and sweating into camp to a Chorus of you loaded again from my four boys that had come on this trip to the Yukon.

My son Dave rushed to help me take off the heavy pack groaning as he felt the weight. I collapsed to the ground and laid back and just let my body recover some of the energy that I had used in the grueling hike and pick of over 12 miles, over hard ground littered with blow down and muskeg swamps. My other son Chris fills up the metal bucket with clean water and put it on the propane burner so I could have a well-earned shower. Ah it feels great to be back in camp and just relax.

It was 2:30 a.m. and we were all sitting outdoors around a fire under the darkening sky with a wonderful prolonged sunset. The colors from the setting sun enhanced our surrounding with and orange glow for the last few hours. The sparks from the fire floated up into the air to burn out adding even more color to the majestic scene before us. The affect of the scene had an enchanting feel that had us all under its spell. This was added to with a crescent moon rising in the southern sky behind the silhouette of some burned spruce trees.

The boys were joking and teasing each other about who would carry the most morels tomorrow when we would start to pick then needle zone that I had found that afternoon. Suddenly there was a loud howl of a wolf, off to the south, from somewhere on the ridge system. The wolf never receive an answer from his own kind, but the boys joined in with the wolf howling at the rising moon, which made us all break out in laughter.

I left the fireside and went to check the generator and fill it up with gas. When I had finished I went to check on the morels that we had put out to dry under a plastic covered two by four shed. The plastic ends were rolled up to allow free airflow through the shed and speed up the dehydration process. I spread out the last remaining morels from the days pick on our wood framed wire racks, and lowering the rolled ends of plastic incase the weather changed during the night.

Then I went to the finishing dryer and stoked up the wood burner that was our heat source and checked to see how the morels that were in there were coming along. They were doing just fine and should would be just about finished by the morning. This was the last stage where we could get the heat up to 130F to 150F while finishing the morels and bring them to about 95 to 98% dry.

Contrary to what some say, that you should not to dry them too much but to leave them a rubbery texture. I believe that this is very dangerous as this leaves the morels in a state where they are susceptible to mold and bacteria also they will be much heavier and the cost of shipping from remote areas is a huge consideration. Some will say that the flavor will be compromised but I believe that the opposite is true. When the morels are dried the flavor is enhanced and preferred by many chefs.

When I had checked everything and was satisfied I went back to the fire and garbed one last beer before heading for bed to try to get a few hours sleep. Our routine would soon change to where we would work through the night and sleep in the day, now that we were into the full flush of the morel harvest.

In the morning we were all up very early as the boys were very excited. We had our breakfast and then prepared our packs and gear to be ready a heavy day of picking and packing. My oldest son Chris had lost the draw after breakfast and had to stay in camp and work on drying morels watching camp, plus have dinner ready for us when we get back around 12 midnight. We would be working at least 18-hour days, if not more, and 7 days a week. This would be our schedule until all the harvest was done.

The four of us started off full of vigor and with a spring in our steps. We picked a route close to the way that I had used yesterday on my return to camp. We each had lots water, food, and six empty mushroom baskets with lids on our pack boards. It took us a little more than one and a half hours to get over the ridge and make the beginning of the needle zone.

The boys were very excited when they saw all the morels standing there in such abundance. I could see that the morels had grown over night and the volume had increased while I had been in camp. We picked a shady spot to made a place for our packs to help keep the mushrooms we picked from heating up in the sun. We took off our packs and set out to pick with great fervor. Within two hours we each had filled all our baskets and had them bunji strapped onto our pack boards.

After a well earned break for some food and water we started the climb back up the ridge with six baskets each bunjied onto our pack boards. The weight was staggering and must have top the scale at over 95lbs. The hill was grueling and soon had us all puffing and sweating. Mike said last one to the top has to stay in camp tomorrow. Well the boys exploded up the hill racing each other and were soon way ahead of me. I just kept my pace and was last to the top so I guess I will just have to stay in camp tomorrow.

I smiled at the boys and said thanks, pick on an old man eh? And they replied you have earned it as usual. We made three round trips that day but carried only four baskets each on the last trip. We had picked and packed out 64 basket totaling 950lbs., of morels. It was a record breaking day, and we still had one third of the needle zone left to pick.

When we came into camp that night with the last load, Chris had already spread out our previous loads. The air dryers were almost full and there was only a few racks left, this last load would run us into overload. We all were really tired and beat but glowing and totally pumped. When all the days work was done and we had rehydrated with coffee and beer we sat around the fire and talked about the load that we had harvested that day.

We decided that we had to change our plan of attack now that we had picked the needle zone once. We decided that we would take some plastic and wire screening back to the needle zone and set up a long pre-dryer to save time and use the days hot sunny hours to our best advantage. This would mean that we would cut the weight we had to carry to a portion of what we now were carrying. With this procedure a days pick would have lost about three- quarters of its weight and shrank in size by at least fifty percent. We would then be able to reach farther out into the burn and attempt to get to and pick the little lakes that I had on my map that I made from the top of the ridge.

Late the next day the boys came into camp with seven baskets of morels each that were 75% dried. They were only able to pick for a few hours that day as they had to build the field pre-dryer before picking any morels. It had been a hot windy day and just perfect for pre-drying. Over the next few days we worked like mad and even spent a few days and nights non stop sleeping in our clothes right on the burn. We had continued to pick the needle zone every second day and had reached the little lakes where we had found morels every where in the needle zones. Some shifts would run into thirty to forty hours and we were getting touchy and very burned out.

It was getting time for a Dawson City trip to unwind and recuperate some of our energy. I brought it up with the boys who immediately let out a whoop and we all agreed to leave as soon as possible. We were on our way to Dawson with-in five hours and our spirits were already lifting. We had left camp with a fellow picker and trusted friend. It would be his job to Finnish drying the morels there and guard camp.

As soon as we hit the first town, I searched out a telephone and phoned my friends Nancy and Haine at the Midnight Sun hotel in Dawson. I booked the log cabin that they rent sometimes rent out. This cabin dates back to the Klondike gold rush of 1898. It has three double beds and would be just perfect for us. Nancy was happy to hear from me and was very accommodating on the phone and had every thing all arranged when we arrived in Dawson.

Dawson was just what we needed. The service and the atmosphere of the Midnight sun was great as were the rooms, bar, cabaret, restaurant and of coarse the music. The atmosphere in Dawson is very spirited and has a very Klondike gold rush feel to it and had us all ready for round two of mushroom picking within a few days. It was with sad farewells that we left Dawson and headed back for camp a mere 600 miles away.

When once again we were within sight of our camp it felt like we were coming home and it was good to be back Tim the fellow picker we had hired to stay and watch camp for us while we were away was standing by the dryer with a big smile on his face. The camp and guard were fine and was happy to see us but the first thing he asked was did you remember the beer? We just opened the back of the cube van and his eyes light up as he seen the pile of beer boxes.

After we had unloaded our new supplies we all sat around the fire to discuss the rest of the season and talked about how we would spend our money and how much we liked Dawson City. I told the boys that we should hold onto our money till after the Pine mushroom season was finished, and that Dawson is fun in the summer but that I thought that the winter would be totally different experience.

It was one of them warm nights with a warm breeze blowing. We went to bed and awoke wholesomely refreshed the following morning. The next day we went back to the needle zone across the ridge and found that the morels were ready to pick again but the volume had fallen off quite alot. We only made one trip that day and it took the whole day to get our five baskets that we had taken with us that morning. The next few days were similar as we traveled to the little lakes and back. we settled into the slower pace that the flush gave us with a bit of a increase in yield a few days after a heavy rain storm.

We knew that we had about two more weeks of our harvest before we cleaned up our camp and left the burn to head back on the long drive back to British Columbia. The season was over ten days later and we decide to just hang about for a few days, to just camp and fish as we slowly took down our camp and drying operation. It had been a very good morel season and a great time here in the Yukon. It was with mixed emotions we loaded our vehicles and started for home. As we hit the Yukon - BC border we shouted out of the vans windows; see you next year, to the forest that was speeding by.