The 5th Annual Cumberland Fungus Fest – an interdisciplinary exploration
October 3-5, 2024
Walks, talks, workshops, presentations, panels, conversation circles, specimen tables, kids activities, Thursday evening Fungus Science Pub, Friday Fungus Market & Fungus Bazaar, Saturday Fungus Feast and more!
Family Fun All Weekend
Admission ($40 for adults and $20 for 18 & under)
Includes exclusive access to register for guided walks as of September 19th!
Forest Feast is a separately ticketed event. FIND TICKETS
Thursday Oct 3
2 – 4:30 pm
Harmonic Arts
AFTER-SCHOOL FUNGUS FUN – FREE! NO FUNGUS PASS NEEDED
2-4 pm Clay-it-Forward: Magnificent Morels with Rootz Join Nature Educator Rootz in making some colourful Morel Mushroom pendants. Drop-in’s welcome!
2:45 – 4:30 pm Outdoor Tent Adventure Daycare is bringing the fun-gus! Educators will start the activity with reading a nature-based story then lead kids and families in a collaborative art piece – making mushrooms on a forested landscape. Drop-in’s welcome!
Science Pub!
Join us for the kick off event for the 5th Annual Cumberland Fungus Fest! We’ll settle in with some locally crafted beers and other on theme beverages and take in some highly stimulating and often amusing presentations from our guest experts all about their passion for fungus and forests. From forest fire ecology to slime molds and from zombie bugs to mycelium we’ll cover the gamut of fun fungus facts and fancies and get you all warmed up for the weekend.
Additional Registration Required (pass holders will be emailed registration links, walk up registration available if space allows). Please no dogs on walks.
3:30pm
Guided WALK with Andy MacKinnon
Join Andy for a wander through the wonderful world of the Cumberland Forest, exploring forest ecology, fungus and the wonders of this mature second growth ecosystem.
5pm
Guided WALK with Ecosystem Decoder Erik Piikkila
Discover the clues on the land that help us understand what has happened or changed in a forest over the decades and centuries.
Friday Oct 4
1pm
Outside Tent
Medicinal Mushrooms and Local Herbs to Keep you Healthy with Phillipa Joly
Join community/clinical herbalist Philippa Joly for a talk and hands on workshop exploring the medicinal uses of local fungi and their plant and lichen neighbours. Learn who can help keep you and your loved ones healthy through the winter months. We will meet some of these mushrooms and make a tea to sample.
2-4pm
Outside Tent
Vanessa Sharkey and Cory Cliff have created a powerhouse of a venture that both revives indigenous traditional medicines and allows others to accompany them and learn how to harvest, process and create these medicines in sustainable and respectful ways. They share their knowledge everywhere we go. Meet them at their tent next to the “Big Tent”.
2:30pm
Lower Cultural Centre
Natural Burial – A Research Project
Join Robert Pritchard for an overview of his Natural Burial Research Project for the Cumberland Community Forest Society as his Practicum in Environmental Practice at Royal Road University.
Robert will share a background of the history of end-of-life practices and services followed by an examination of how a forest based natural burial site may provide the people of Cumberland with a holistic approach to death and end-of-life care and a space to process loss and celebrate the lives of community members communally. There will be opportunity for discussion and feedback to support Robert’s final paper.
2:45pm
Harmonic Arts
Cumberland Forest After School Crafts – FREE FOR THE COMMUNITY
2:45 – 4:30 Join the Cumberland Forest & friends for some fungus themed hands on creativity for kids of all ages facilitated by our friends at Adventure Daycare!
3:30 – Listen to the Trees (ages 5-11) – FREE FOR THE COMMUNITY
Did you know that trees have mothers and that mycelium plays an important role in their survival? This 1.5 hour workshop with Renee Baron, an experienced outdoor educator and fungophile, includes storytelling, games, and song geared towards primary-aged children to help them understand the importance of our forest community and how everything is interconnected. Meet under the trees in front of the Cumberland Cultural Center
Renee Baron is owner of both DV8 Education and Shift Adventure and Wellness. The common thread is that they are nature focussed and empowering through experiential learning.
Additional Registration Required
(pass holders will be emailed registration links)
10am-Noon
Cedar Walk
Join knowledge holders and storytellers as we explore the cedar groves of the Cumberland Forest and connect with each other in discussion about the cultural, ecological and climate significance of these special trees. Special Guests Andy MacKinnon, Jordan Benner, Ross Reid, Cory Cliff and more…
1pm
Forest Walk with Andy MacKinnon
Discover the wonders of fungus and forest ecology in the Cumberland Forest.
2pm
NERDY ABOUT NATURE – Get lost with Ross Reid.
Stumble on the often glanced-over beauty of the ecosystems we play in – the resilient twists and turns of a tree, the formation of silt deposits and erosion, the persistence of moss on a decaying log…the little things.
2pm
DEATH MEDITATION WALK with Serena
Walking Meditation centered on death and decay. Join Serena Oliveira for this guided meditation where we can connect to nature using all our senses and contemplate transition, change, death, and dying in a gentle nature-based space
3:30pm
Lower Cultural Centre
Fungi and Forest Ecology with Andy MacKinnon
Explore the wild and wonderful world of fungi with one of BC’s premier fungus experts! Andy will share his vast knowledge about fungus and its relationship with forest ecology and share some of his favourite aspects of the fabulous world of fungi.
4pm
Outside Tent
Restoring power of Fungi
Join Erik Hrabovsky and explore how we can partner with fungi to improve ecological health and purify our waters restore habitats, combat drought, clean water, cycle nutrients, build soil, remove pollutants, and introduce symbiotic relations for other life.
4:30-6:30 pm
Harmonic Arts
Death Cafe
Making the most of our finite lives. At a Death Cafe people, often strangers, gather to eat cake, drink tea and discuss death. Supported by the Comox Hospice Society, long time volunteers Rhianna and Richard have been hosting our local monthly Death Cafe for the past 2 years. Our objective is ‘to increase awareness of death with a view to helping people make the most of their (finite) lives’. A Death Cafe is a group directed discussion of death with no agenda, objectives or themes. It is a discussion group rather than a grief support or counseling session.
4:30-6pm
Lower Cultural Centre
Medicine Basket with Andi Grace Rose
Medicine Basket is an exploration of local fungi who can be easily identified and foraged from your back-yard or local forest. This workshop will explore how familiar fungi can be transformed into tinctures or food, and used to support you and the well being of your family and community.
5pm
Outside Tent
NERDY ABOUT NATURE – Presentation
Ross Reid of Nerdy About Nature shared fun facts & deep thoughts for a better tomorrow and explores how we can all help educate and activate community toward caring for the forests, water and the planet!
Additional Registration Required
(pass holders will be emailed registration links)
3pm
Fungal diversity in the Cumberland Community Forest
The Good, the Bad, & the Weird: Join Kent Brothers for a walk along one of the trails in the CCF to see what fungi are fruiting & talk about the roles of fungi in the forest and how to forage safely.
3pm
THE WILD SIDE WALK with Dawn Copeman
Take a walk on the wild side with Cumberland Forest “Observationist in Residence” Dawn Copeman and explore the the wild and wonderful forest floor (inlcluding her passion – slime molds!).
4pm
Guided WALK with Heather Soo
Underfoot & Underground: How Mushrooms Mold our Carbon Future. Ever stepped over a patch of mushrooms and wondered about the world beneath? Beneath our feet lies an intricate web of life, rich with secrets and stories. Join us on a journey where we’ll dive deep into the hidden universe of fungi and unravel their pivotal role in shaping our planet’s carbon destiny. Discover the silent assistants of carbon capture, the mycelial magic, and the incredible ways in which fungi fortify our soils. As we stroll amidst the Community Forest’s beauty, we’ll illuminate the unsung heroes beneath us, revealing how every step we take is supported by the fungi’s diligent dance with carbon. This isn’t just a walk; it’s a deep dive into the very fabric of our forest’s future. Come, tread lightly and listen closely. The future of carbon is underfoot & underground!”
4pm
Guided WALK with Ecosystem Decoder Erik Piikkila
Discover the clues on the land that help us understand what has happened or changed in a forest over the decades and centuries.
7-8:30pm
Under the Stars
Psyilocybin Discussion with Adrian Oberg
Around the fire with Adrian Oberg, community consultant, counselor and co-founder of the Victoria Association for Psychedelic Studies
7:15-8:30 pm
Harmonic Arts
I’m Lichen The Mossome Art: Artist Presentation and Video Screening with Natasha Lavdovsky
In addition to a screening of her conceptual documentary video, Bryosphere, and giving an artist talk, artist/amateur lichenologist, Natasha Lavdovsky, will present a preview of Music for Lichens, a sound/noise/video art project funded by the Canada Council for the Arts. Music for Lichens is a soundscape and video series based on lichen chemical data analysis and inspired by lichens’ magical response to hydration. The video Bryosphere documents the process of moving mosses, the soft bryophyte ground cover that drapes and carpets the architecture of the forest, asking us to question the boundary between an act of harm and an act of care.
8:30-10pm
Under the Stars
Fianna Tales
Join musician and storyteller Kester Reid around the fire for stores and sharing. “We live by stories. By stories we understand the world, and ourselves. Each culture has its cosmology: an understanding of how its many stories fit together, the big “Why?”
Core Fungus Fest Program
(included with weekend pass)
7-11pm
Lower Cultural Centre
Fungus Bazaar
Tonight we celebrate the fabulous world of fungi! Join us for this fun filled fungus and forest themed artisan market, live music and more!
Walk ups can attend without pass for a $10-$20 donation to CCFS
Saturday Oct 5
9am
Lower Cultural Centre
“So, You Want to Eat Wild Mushrooms…”
An excellent primer with Kent Brothers
9am
Big Tent
Fungus Lino Printing with Dawn Copeman
Learn to make your own lino block with a fungus fest theme and print away! Drop in Activity
10am-Noon
Lower Cultural Centre
Paradox of Invasives with Juliana
An invasive plant is defined by context. A plant considered a noxious weed for someone, can be medicine, weaving material or pigment for another. In many cases, plants considered invasive respond to opportunities created by human changes to the environment and end up outcompeting native species. But calling a plant “invasive” or “noxious” can limit us from discovering the gifts intrinsic to its existence, eliminating the possibility for a relational exchange. Using plants that are abundant, that need to be kept in check, and putting them to good use would allow us to access what those plants have and want to give, including medicine, food, fibre, colour and more.
10am-Noon
Harmonic Arts
Cumberland Forest Family Crafts
Join the Cumberland Forest community for some fungus themed hands on creativity for kids (and kids at heart). Water colour painting, collage and mushroom wood and yarn creations! Facilitated by the Comox Valley Early Years Collaborative.
12 – 1 pm Big Tent
Mushroom Story Time with Heather!
Join Cumberland Forest Program Coordinator Heather Thomson for a fun filled story time for kids and families! Come snuggle in under the big tent.
11am
Big Tent
Interacting with the Forest and Fungi
Join Heather Scott to explore how the forest ecosystem and and our fungal friends interact with(in) it. As more of us are drawn to foraging, its of utmost importance that we nurture an appreciation and understanding of the lands that provide for us.
Additional Registration Required
(pass holders will be emailed registration links)
9am
FUNGUS-OOLERY FORAY with RootZ and Andy MacKinnon
Join Andy and RootZ on a forest field trip. Fungus detectives of all ages are welcome to join us as we seek out who fruits amongst Step Moss and Sword Fern. Delight in the mysterious world of mushrooms, and learn alongside a pair of foolish field-guides. Arrive ready to get messy, ask questions, sing songs and soak in the fruitfulness of the fungi kingdom! Meet at the Chinatown Pavilion at 9
Kids 6 and under attend free!
10am
Guided WALK with Ecosystem Decoder Erik Piikkila
Discover the clues on the land that help us understand what has happened or changed in a forest over the decades and centuries.
10am
Guided WALK with Heather Soo
Underfoot & Underground: How Mushrooms Mold our Carbon Future. Ever stepped over a patch of mushrooms and wondered about the world beneath? Beneath our feet lies an intricate web of life, rich with secrets and stories. Join us on a journey where we’ll dive deep into the hidden universe of fungi and unravel their pivotal role in shaping our planet’s carbon destiny. Discover the silent assistants of carbon capture, the mycelial magic, and the incredible ways in which fungi fortify our soils. As we stroll amidst the Community Forest’s beauty, we’ll illuminate the unsung heroes beneath us, revealing how every step we take is supported by the fungi’s diligent dance with carbon. This isn’t just a walk; it’s a deep dive into the very fabric of our forest’s future. Come, tread lightly and listen closely. The future of carbon is underfoot & underground!”
11am
NERDY ABOUT NATURE
Get lost with Ross Reid. Stumble on the often glanced-over beauty of the ecosystems we play in – the resilient twists and turns of a tree, the formation of silt deposits and erosion, the persistence of moss on a decaying log…the little things.
12pm
Harmonic Arts
Foraging Ethics – Panel & Participant Discussion
What do we need to consider when we forage for fungus? What impact do we have on forest ecology? What are the cultural considerations? How do we ensure right relationships with the forest, the fungi, indigenous peoples and each other?
12pm
Lower Cultural Centre
CEDAR with Jordan Benner
Jordan is a professional forester and forest ecologist with a PhD from Simon Fraser. Through his role as an advisor with the Nanwakolas Council over the past decade, Jordan provides technical and strategic support to member First Nations. Much of this work focuses on generating knowledge about the status, trends, and distributions of culturally important forest resources in the member First Nations’ territories and then using this information to develop stewardship strategies. Jordan was born and raised on Quadra Island but currently lives in Cumberland. He also loves picking and eating mushrooms!
1pm
Lower Cultural Centre
Welcome to the new Mid Island Mycological Society
Do you have a mushroom-shaped hole in your life?
Come for a brief presentation on our new chapter of the South Vancouver Island Mycological Society, the Mid Island Mycological Society, or MIMS! Find out about membership and our goals for the new society. Let’s talk about how we can build the mid-island mycological community with forays, workshops, and fun!
1-3pm
Big Tent
Dignify the Vilified: Weaving Experiments with Broom
Decolonizing the Land through Stewardship, Creative Practice and Restoring Kinship in this Process
Join community-engaged environmental artist Juliana Bedoya to experiment with Scotch broom and other plants considered invasive in our bioregion as materials and creative collaborators for basketmaking and other weaving techniques.
By connecting and creating with these abundant plants that need to be kept in check, the artist invites participants to establish new relationships with them while also deepening their understanding of native plants and their environmental, cultural and spiritual significance to Indigenous peoples on this territory.
2pm
Harmonic Arts
Psilocybin Therapy Discussion Circle with Adrian Oberg
Adrian is a community consultant, counselor and co founder of the Victoria Association for Psychedelic Studies. Come and learn how new approaches to end of life and trauma therapy connect with the secret super powers of fungus.
2:30-4pm
Lower Cultural Centre
FUNGAL MAGIC, MYSTERY AND STORYTELLING with Andy MacKinnon and RootZ
Do you believe in fairies, pixies, gnomes and elves? And in the magical (often unseen) world of connection that roots above and below our feet? Then here’s a trip in navigating the wild and wondrous world of mycelium and fabulous fungal fructifications. Join Rootz and Andy as they explore their personal fungal fascinations, featuring a healthy dose of silly playfulness alongside the learning. An accessible and lively slideshow presentation will be enriched by storytelling, jokes, curious questions and visitors.
3pm
Big Tent
RESTORATION ECOLOGY PANEL DISCUSSION
How do we restore ecological balance in the highly altered forest landscapes of Vancouver Island? Where do we intervene and where do we stand back? What role can fungus play? Featuring Erik Piikkila, Ross Reid and Erik Hrabovsky and Heather Soo.
3pm
Harmonic Arts
DEATH, COMPOSITION AND FUNCTION OF FUNGUS – with Adrian, Robert, Sarah Hoffmann
Let’s talk green burial, returning to the earth and what it means for individuals, community, culture and the environment.
4:30pm
Big Tent
Presenters and attendees gather round the specimen table for a fun-filled, sometimes musical, often hilarious, Fungus Fest Round Up and a review of all the things we found and all the things we learned! This is an awesome way to celebrate our weekend together with laughter, learning and connection!
Additional Registration Required
(pass holders will be emailed registration links)
12pm
Family-Friendly Mushroom Walk with Jenn Laing
Bring your little mushroom fans to explore the fantastic fungus in the forest. Child paced walk over uneven terrain.
12pm
Guided WALK with Andy MacKinnon
Join Andy MacKinnon for a foray through the Cumberland Forest forest and discover what wonders await us on the forest floor and right in front of our eyes!
1pm
Fungal diversity in the Cumberland Community Forest
The Good, the Bad, & the Weird: Join Kent Brothers for a walk along one of the trails in the CCF to see what fungi are fruiting & talk about the roles of fungi in the forest and how to forage safely.
1pm
THE WILD SIDE WALK with Dawn Copeman
Take a walk on the wild side with Cumberland Forest “Observationist in Residence” Dawn Copeman and explore the the wild and wonderful forest floor (inlcluding her passion – slime molds!).
2pm
JOIN THE LICHEN CULT! with Natasha Lavdovsky
Join the Lichen Cult with artist/amateur lichenologist, Natasha Lavdovsky, and become more familiar with local macrolichens. Natasha will be guiding participants on an easy route through a nearby green space to learn introductory lichen identification and ecology through an artist’s lens.
Join us as a part of 2024 Fungus Fest Programming for a screening of 'First We Eat'
Doors at 6:30 show at 7:00
Entrance by donation
Bring Cash for popcorn and snacks
Weird Church (1st and Penrith)
Weird Cinema “First We Eat”
Putting food security to the test in the far North of Canada – filmmaker Suzanne Crocker, living just 300 km from the Arctic Circle, removes absolutely all grocery store food from her house. For one year she feeds her family of five only food that can be hunted, fished, gathered, grown, or raised around Dawson City, Yukon. Add three skeptical teenagers, one reluctant husband, no salt, no caffeine, no sugar and -40 temperatures. Ultimately the story becomes a celebration of community and the surprising bounty of food that even a tiny community in the far North can provide. After all, “First we eat, then we do everything else.” (MFK Fisher).
We will also be showing two short films about Fungus to open the evening: ‘Those Wild Mushrooms’ – NFB Short, and ‘Up Close: Mushrooms’ – Fox & Bee
6:30pm doors, bar and auction
7- 10pm event
Lower Cultural Centre
CUMBERLAND FOREST FEAST!
Join the Cumberland Forest, The Farmers’ Kitchen, and Lush Valley for the annual Cumberland Forest Feast on Saturday October 5th at Buchanan Hall in Cumberland.
This locally sourced and skillfully prepared multi-course feast celebrates nature, farmers, growers, foragers, local bounty and community connection. The feast is omnivore but there are plenty of options for the vegetarians to enjoy!
The Cumberland Forest Feast is held on the final night of the 5th Annual Cumberland Fungus Fest and features music, an on-theme bar, and a silent auction in support of the stewardship work of the Cumberland Forest Society.
Tickets are $80 pp. You can also book a 1/2 table (4 guests) or full table (8 guests). Doors open at 6:30 pm.