FOR THE LOVE OF FORAGING
Roots, leaves, fungi all there, just outside your door
Curtis Reid has been a tree planter for most of his life, and is well set up for living off the grid in remote northern areas.
About a decade ago, he says, he started paying attention to all the life in the forest, near his home in Big River and further afield.
“What grows on the ground is different than what grows through the canopy of the tree. They’re two different worlds and they support all different kinds of animals and flora. It’s really incredible.”
A fellow tree planter taught him how to forage for chaga.
The mushroom, which in Saskatchewan grows on paper birch trees in the boreal forest, has been gaining popularity for a range of health benefits. Chaga is purported to help support the immune system, lower cholesterol, blood pressure and blood sugar, and slow aging.
Chaga’s not the only thing Reid finds in the forest. He’s harvested and sold Labrador tea, fireweed leaves, yarrow, wild sarsaparilla root, valerian roots, balm of gilead buds and wild mushrooms.
“Foraging is a very fluid thing,” he says. “You have to be open to change, as not everything is available all the time.”
Robert Rogers’s The Fungal
Pharmacy is Reid’s foraging bible.
“So much of what he talks about is right out the back door here in Big River. Once you start to pay attention to how everything works together in this natural environment, it’s quite astounding.”
Find Reid’s foraged chaga, complete with tea steeping instructions, at the Wandering
Market in Moose Jaw and inquire there about bringing in his other foraged goods if you’re interested. (Visit thewanderingmarket.com to place an online order, with delivery throughout the province.) The Wandering Market also sells a delicious and nourishing tea that combines Reid’s chaga with wild nettles, dandelions and raw honey.
Foraging is a very fluid thing. You have to be open to change, as not everything is available all the time.
You also can find Reid’s chaga at Soul Foods and Three Treasures in Saskatoon.