Recent rains could make for a bumper crop of fungi fans at a major mushroom festival this Sunday in Devon.
About 1,700 people from across Alberta will be at the Devon Community Centre (20 Haven Ave., Devon) Aug. 17 for the 2025 Wild Mushroom Expo. Organized by the Alberta Mycological Society, this event serves as a fundraiser for the society and a showcase of the magic of Alberta’s mushrooms.
“It’s the greatest show from Earth!” said society secretary Martin Osis, quoting the event’s tagline.
Osis said event organizers will fan out across the greater Edmonton region on Aug. 16 to collect fresh samples to display at the expo. Many of the edible ones will end up in the hands of chefs Zach Eaton, Alyssa Paron, Holly Holt, and Joseph Forest, who will transform them into mushroom soups, drinks, and desserts.
Guests will get to check out a huge variety of edible, medicinal, and poisonous mushrooms at the expo and bring in mushrooms of their own for identification, Osis said. The expo will also have displays of mushroom-themed art and talks on edible and medicinal mushrooms.
Good year for 'shrooms
Mushrooms are the fruits of fungi, which are microscopic creatures that typically live out of sight in the air, water, and soil. Osis said mushrooms are about 90 per cent water, which is why they favour wet conditions.
Fungi break down detritus and often exchange nutrients with other plants in a symbiotic relationship, Osis said. When conditions are right, they reproduce through spores distributed by mushrooms. Stand anywhere in a typical forest, and you can probably find about 50 species of fungi around you.
“They are in every ecological niche,” he said of fungi, and all fruit under different conditions.
“Some [specifically the enoki mushroom] actually pop out on warm days in winter.”
St. Albert mushroom fan and city councillor Natalie Joly said this has been a great year so far for mushrooms everywhere but St. Albert, which thus far has been pretty dry. She has found plenty of brain-like morels near Morinville, and more recently has started spotting red caps and those white, weeping-willow-like hericiums in the city. She has also been growing her own blue, pink, and yellow oyster mushrooms in her garden.
Sturgeon County mushroom fan Elizabeth Lakeman said St. Albert residents can find mushrooms in any green space, but will have the most luck in mixed forests.
“Almost all mushrooms are symbiotic with a particular tree,” she noted, so the more trees you have, the more mushrooms you can find.
Lakeman said foragers should never eat wild mushrooms unless they are absolutely certain as to their identity. (Some are poisonous.) Anyone who brings a mushroom to this weekend’s expo for identification should take note of where they found it and what it was growing on, and to dig up the entire stem intact, as experts may need this information.
Osis said there are so many mushrooms out there that he still finds ones he’s never seen before after 40 years of forays.
“You never know when you’re going to come across these.”
The expo runs from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Aug. 17. Tickets are $10 or free for kids under 10. Visit albertamushrooms.ca/event/wild-mushroom-expo-2025 for details.
