SaskatchewanMushroom lovers, known as mycolophiles, share their appreciation of mushrooms’ healing properties and versatility in the Saskatchewan Mushroom Picking Facebook group.CBC’s Blue Sky explores the benefits and joys of mushroomsCBC News · Posted: Aug 24, 2025 6:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: 31 minutes agoChristian Douan got into foraging mushroom years ago, but only more recently did he start a business dedicated to selling mushrooms and mushroom growing kits. (Submitted by Christian Douan)By day, he’s a mechanic. But at night, Christian Douan hits the ground digging. The 28-year-old is a mycophile — a person who loves mushrooms and fungi — and he’s turned that passion into a side hustle, selling mushrooms and gourmet mushroom growing kits at farmers’ markets. “It’s not necessarily easy, but I just have a passion for mushrooms and it’s what I want to work toward doing full time,” said Douan, whose business is called Saskuatch Farms. He believes his customers appreciate mushrooms for proven health benefits from boosting brain function to reducing inflammation and pain.Thousands of people in Saskatchewan share Douan’s appreciation for fungi, with the Saskatchewan Mushroom Picking Facebook group having sprouted to nearly 11,000 members.LISTEN: CBC’s Blue Sky roots into the reason mushrooms are so popular in Saskatchewan: Blue SkyMuch ado about mushroomsIt’s mushroom season and today we spoke with Saskies who are passionate about picking and growing these fascinating fungi. We also learned about the community of mushroom lovers who have popped up in the province.Mushroom expert Donovan Theisson started the group, which he said wasn’t initially intended to identify mushrooms safe for eating, but rather to allow people to share their appreciation for these fungi.”I think they’re beautiful.”Donovan Theisson started a Facebook group for fellow avid mushroom lovers like himself. (Submitted by Donovan Theisson)He and Nicole Sanderson, another member of the group, point to several edible mushrooms that people can find not just in fields and forests, but within backyards, such as the fairy ring mushroom or shaggy mane — the latter of which should start blanketing cities come fall, Theisson said.For Sanderson, it’s a small but mighty gift from the earth that is delicious.”Initially I was with a friend and we picked some oyster mushrooms and she cooked them up for me. And I was blown away by how delicious they were,” she said, adding they were like nothing else she’d tasted, with a meaty and savoury flavour. “There’s not very many things in nature other than meat that you can get those flavours from.”Nicole Sanderson shows off a big mushroom haul, following a harvest. (Submitted by Nicole Sanderson)Douan agrees, noting it’s easy to barbecue mushrooms, and they only need a few minutes of drying out before being cooked with just a little bit of salt and oil added to give them flavour.While mushroom hunting might sounds fun, these enthusiasts share a word of caution. Beyond ensuring mushrooms are not toxic, they suggest people may want to exercise restraint harvesting some mushrooms like chaga, which grows as a fungus on birch trees. “The tree, even if it has chaga on it, it can live for very, very many years infected with that fungus,” Sanderson said. “But if you don’t harvest it correctly, you can kill that tree quicker.”She also doesn’t recommend harvesting chaga willy-nilly, because it is considered a sacred medicine by some Indigenous peoples.”It’s always exciting to find it in the wild, but … consider other people that maybe use this mushroom for ceremony,” she said.Mushroom lovers may also be excited to know that the science-based group Sask Mycology is currently working on a DNA project to collect species found in this province to send away for DNA sequencing.”So we can actually finally build a species list in the province, because that’s something that we don’t have at the moment. It’s really neat,” Theisson said.with files from CBC’s Blue Sky and Nichole Huck
From brain boosting to pain-killing properties, Sask. mushroom lovers say this fungi is a blooming marvel
