Saturday Nov. 4th Schedule
Introduction to Fascinating Fungi
Mushrooms of the Southern Oregon Coast
Mushrooms of the Southern Oregon Coast
Jon Sommer
Saturday, Nov. 4 - 11:00-11:45 - $20 (incl. $5 general admission)
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One of our most popular festival speakers, Jon Sommer, returns to the Wild Rivers Mushroom Festival in 2023 to once again teach beginners the ins and outs of mushroom identification.
Jon holds a bachelor’s degree in botany from Humboldt State University and master’s degrees in botany and plant pathology from the University of California, Davis. He has studied mushroom identification with notable mycologists including Drs. David Largent, Orson Miller, Harry D. Thiers, and Daniel Stuntz.
Jon has led mushroom forays and taught classes on mushroom identification across the U.S. for more than 45 years. He has been a member of the Colorado Mycological Society since 1993 and currently serves as their President. In addition, Jon also holds memberships in the Cascade Mycological Society and the Humboldt Bay Mycological Society.
Note: We're offering this wonderful beginner's mushroom ID class at the start of the festival (Saturday, 11/4, ONLY) so everyone who wants to can first learn the basics from Jon!
Mushrooms of the Southern Oregon Coast
Mushrooms of the Southern Oregon Coast
Mushrooms of the Southern Oregon Coast
Noah Siegel
Saturday, Nov. 4 - 12:15-1:00 - $20 (incl. $5 general admission)
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Noah Siegel’s field mycology skills are extensive – he has spent over three decades seeking, photographing, identifying, and furthering his knowledge about all aspects of macrofungi. He has hunted for mushrooms throughout the United States and Canada, as well as on multiple expeditions to New Zealand, Australia and Cameroon.
Noah is one of the premier mushroom photographers in the nation, having won numerous awards from the North American Mycological Association (NAMA) photography contest. His technique and attention to detail are unrivaled, arising from a philosophy of maximizing utility for identification purposes while maintaining a high degree of aesthetic appeal. His photographs have appeared on the covers and have been featured in articles of multiple issues of FUNGI Magazine, the primary mushroom enthusiast magazines in the United States, numerous mushroom books, as well as many club publications.
Noah authored, along with Christian Schwarz, Mushrooms of the Redwood Coast, a Comprehensive Guide to the Fungi of Coastal Northern California and A Field Guide to the Rare Fungi of California's National Forests. The duo are currently working on Mushrooms of Cascadia, a Comprehensive Guide to Fungi of the Pacific Northwest.
Noah travels and lectures extensively across America, following the mushrooms from coast to coast, and everywhere in between.
Cooking Your Catch - Mushrooms in Your Kitchen
Cooking Your Catch - Mushrooms in Your Kitchen
Cooking Your Catch - Mushrooms in Your Kitchen
Chad Hyatt
Saturday, Nov. 4 - 1:30-3:00 - $20 (incl. $5 general admission)
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We are thrilled to have Chad Hyatt, a classically trained chef and the author of The Mushroom Hunter's Kitchen, back with us again! His 2022 mushroom cooking workshop was sold out, so if you missed it last November, here's your chance this year to learn from the best!
Chad has spent the last decade working in restaurants and private clubs around the San Francisco Bay Area, where he frequently demonstrates and teaches wild mushroom cookery at private and public events.
Chad spends his free time hunting for and learning about mushrooms, along with seeking out new techniques and traditional ethnic recipes to apply to them. He will be demonstrating some of his favorite wild mushroom cooking techniques, followed by a tasting, Q&A and book signing.
Workshop: Introduction to Fungi and Lichen Dye
Cooking Your Catch - Mushrooms in Your Kitchen
Cooking Your Catch - Mushrooms in Your Kitchen
Sara Gibson
Saturday, Nov. 4 - $30 per workshop (incl. all materials & $5 general admission)
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TWO Options: 10:00-12:00 or 1:15-3:15 - NOTE: each workshop limited to 15 participants
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Join Sara Gibson for an introduction to dying fiber with west coast fungi and lichens. This class will cover types of west coast fungi and lichens used to produce color on protein based fibers.
There will be a dye demo and an opportunity to dye a silk scarf to take home. The lesson includes how to prepare fibers for the dye pot and how to use and store mushrooms for dying.
Sara has been a forager of wild edible things for many years. As much as she loves learning about the world around her, she loves sharing the wonders of mushrooms and fiber arts. She has led forays for outdoor schools, Oregon State Parks, mushroom camps, and school groups.
She has been dying with fungi for over a decade and loves teaching workshops on all facets of mushroom related fiber arts. She lives on the Central Oregon Coast with her family and is currently a School Garden Coordinator where she sneaks in mushroom education as part of healthy soils and healthy bodies.
Sunday Nov. 5th schedule
Fungal Fruits of the Forest
40 Years of Discovery: New Species, New Insights, New Directions
40 Years of Discovery: New Species, New Insights, New Directions
Daniel Winkler
Sunday, Nov. 5 - 11:00-11:45 - $20 (incl. $5 general admission)
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Daniel Winkler is the author of various field guides: his newest is Fruits of the Forest: A Field Guide to the Pacific Northwest Edible Mushrooms. Previous publications include Edible Mushrooms of the Pacific Northwest and Edible Mushrooms of California (both Harbour Publishing, 2011 and 2012), and co-authored publications "MycoCards" Boletes of Western North America (2021), Amazon Mushrooms (2014, Spanish version 2023), as well as Field Guide to Medicinal Mushrooms of North America (2018).
Daniel grew up collecting and eating wild mushrooms in the Alps and has been foraging for over 25 years in the Pacific Northwest and beyond. His presentations combine his stunning photography with an often funny blend of entertaining stories and scientific information, which he likes to refer to as "edutainment".
Daniel managed to bend his career as an ecologist and geographer focused on High Asia towards researching rural Tibet's enormous fungal economy. In the last decade Daniel has been exploring neotropical fungi. His Cordyceps research has been featured in The Economist, National Geographic, New York Times, Washington Post, NPR, BBC World Service.
Since 2007 his travel agency, MushRoaming, has organized mushroom focused eco-adventures to Bhutan, Tibet, the Amazon, Colombia, the Austrian Alps and the Pacific Northwest.
40 Years of Discovery: New Species, New Insights, New Directions
40 Years of Discovery: New Species, New Insights, New Directions
40 Years of Discovery: New Species, New Insights, New Directions
Dennis Desjardin
Sunday, Nov. 5 - 12:15-1:00 - $20 (incl. $5 general admission)
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Dr. Dennis E. Desjardin is Professor Emeritus of Biology/Mycology at San Francisco State University. Born and raised in Del Norte County, CA, Dr. Desjardin developed his love of fungi collecting mushrooms from the age of three with his immigrant grandparents. He retired from San Francisco State University in 2021 after 31 years as Professor in the Department of Biology, and Director and Curator of the H.D. Thiers Herbarium.
During his career he supervised 29 graduate students, who now represent a new generation of mycologists. His field work throughout the world was focused on documenting the diversity of fungi from under-explored tropical forests of Indonesia, Micronesia, Southeast Asia, Brazil, Hawaii and West Africa. The Mycological Society of America has awarded him several honors including the Weston Teaching Award for outstanding mycological teaching. He is a Fellow of the California Academy of Sciences and the Mycological Society of America.
Dr. Desjardin will discuss exciting new species that he has discovered during his travels that have both changed our understanding of mushroom evolution and ecology and embraced the ‘fun’ in fungi. He currently serves as the Chief Mycologist at Sempera Organics and he will touch on the impact of functional fungi in Sempera's goal to feed and heal the world.
Dr. Desjardin has published over 150 refereed scientific papers and described over 300 new species and seven new genera of mushrooms. He has co-authored two popular field guides: Mushrooms of Hawaii (Ten Speed Press) and California Mushrooms (Timber Press).
Making Tinctures and Extracts from Medicinal Mushrooms
Making Tinctures and Extracts from Medicinal Mushrooms
Making Tinctures and Extracts from Medicinal Mushrooms
Trent & Kristen Blizzard
Sunday, Nov. 5 - 1:30-3:00 - $20 (incl. $5 general admission)
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Get ready to fall in love with wild medicinal mushrooms! Trent and Kristen Blizzard, owners of ModernForager.com and authors of Wild Mushrooms: A Cookbook and Foraging Guide, will share their knowledge and best practices for creating medicinal tinctures and extracts, using some of the same wild mushrooms that can be found in the forests and fields right outside our back door.
Medicinal mushroom tinctures are all the rage these days, and with good reason - they're easy to make, and are a great way to get mushrooms into our bodies on a daily basis. And while culinary wild mushrooms are usually quite tasty, medicinal wild mushrooms just aren't. That's where tinctures and extracts enter the picture - as a way to get the most from the mushrooms that are good for you, but not necessarily good TASTING...
The Blizzards are self proclaimed "mushroom geeks" and are heavily involved in the national fungi community. (Trent is the current president of NAMA - North American Mycological Association.) These days they split their time between Reedsport, Oregon and Cable, Wisconsin, and they've been trekking the woods, mostly with mushrooms in mind, for just over 10 years now. A favorite pastime is sharing what they've discovered with other like-minded "geeks"!
Workshop: Make a Chanterelle Ornament
Making Tinctures and Extracts from Medicinal Mushrooms
Making Tinctures and Extracts from Medicinal Mushrooms
Sandy Patton
Sunday, Nov. 5 - $30 per workshop (incl. all materials & $5 general admission)
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TWO Options: 10:00-12:00 or 1:15-3:15 - NOTE: each workshop limited to 12 participants
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Learn how to make realistic mushrooms from air dry clay with Sandy Patton from the Cascade Mycological Society. These are fun to make and give as gifts. Each participant will make and go home with a Chanterelle ornament, along with the paint, paint brushes, and polyurethane to finish their ornament. Sandy will also demonstrate how to sculpt other mushrooms like Morels and King Boletes.
Her clay mushroom crafting started 10 years ago when she volunteered to help make Mushroom Centerpieces for the 2013 CMS Fungal Feast. After this first attempt at working with clay, she tried making mushroom earrings that were more detailed and taxonomically correct. She found it was fun and decided to make it a winter time hobby. But she did not want to sell them and soon ran out of mushroom friends to give them to. So, she decided to donate them to CMS to sell online and at festivals. Over the years she expanded into making ornaments, magnets, and wine charms; all benefiting CMS Grants and Scholarships. She also makes a wide variety of mushroom models for educational purposes.