Amazing Mushrooms

Member-Only Spring Mushroom Walk with Vail Paterson

Sunday, March 22, 1:00 - 3:00 pm

Vail Paterson is a highly-popular Salt Spring naturalist with a contagious enthusiasm for all things related to mushrooms/fungi. His mushroom walks are always popular and guaranteed to draw out your curiosity and wonder. He’s a fun guy for learning about fungi!

This year, Nature Salt Spring is fortunate to have Vail lead us on an exploration of Spring Mushrooms on March 22. The walk is open only to NSS members, and will be limited to 20 participants.

During this walk you will learn some of the basics of mushroom identification. Vail will discuss the environmental impacts of mushroom picking; point out edible and potentially toxic mushrooms of concern;  and talk about resources available for future study. “Mostly ... we'll just get out on the trail ... explore the forest... and see what we find ... in a safe, supportive, and enjoyable way.”

Vail’s walks are extremely popular and this walk is likely to fill up. If you’d like to register, please email us using this link. We’ll provide further information regarding location and other details.  Once the walk is filled, we will keep an alternatives list in case registered participants need to drop out. Please remember to get your NSS membership before or at the time you register for the Mushroom Walk.

Vail Paterson is a mushroom enthusiast and identification expert  living on Salt Spring who works with the Pacific Coast mycologist community to locate and document fungal diversity. So far, he has found and identified over 300 species of mushrooms on SSI … including 10 species not previously observed. 

He frequently leads mushroom walks and biodiversity studies on Vancouver Island and Salt Spring and serves as a "group expert" for several other Pacific Northwest mushroom groups.