According to a local buyer, the chanterelle mushroom harvest has been slow so far this summer, but he said it’s starting to look up.
Randy Johns, Boreal Heartland’s general manager, said the harvest was slow earlier in the year due to the hot and dry climate in the La Ronge area.
“It’s not like it was last year,” he said. “Last year was a bumper crop. This year started kind of slow because of the hot weather but some have come in and now, with this wet weather that we’re having, we think that there’s going to be more.”
He said he’s grateful that recent wildfires south of La Ronge on Highway 2 didn’t take out the entire area where chanterelle mushrooms grow.
“The fires went close to chanterelle country down by the Creighton turn-off but I don’t think too much of it got burned,” he said. “I haven’t really had anybody say that they’re totally burnt out from the areas that they usually pick. So, we got kind of lucky. It came really close.”
Although the harvest is average, Johns said Boreal Heartland isn’t getting as many sellers as usual since they aren’t going out in the field to buy.
To entice sellers, they upped the price they’ll pay for mushrooms from $6 to $6.50 per pound.
“There’s a couple of buyers that are out there in the field and I think they’re getting all the mushrooms right now so we haven’t really taken any in for a little bit,” he said “But, we just raised our price so we’re hoping that encourages people to bring us mushrooms here in town.”
(PHOTO: The chanterelle mushroom harvest was above average last year due to wet conditions. File photo.)