Maine Fungi Festival

Good evening, friends,

This past weekend I travelled up to Standish, Maine and the banks of Sebago Lake where the Maine Fungi Festival convened in the comfortable confines of St. Joseph’s College. With its green lawns bordered by dorms and academic buildings, split by bifurcating paths, St. Joe’s is an example of the quintessential American college campus. The small, Catholic, liberal arts college might seem like an unlikely setting for a mushroom festival, but the school exceeded all expectations.

I got dropped off and I was apprehensive about not having transportation during the festival, but everything we needed all weekend was just a short walk away. Participants had the option to sleep in one of the dorms or camp in the quad (I opted for the latter months before the weather report was available). Meals were served in the campus cafeteria (college buffet-style, baby) and most activities occurred in the academic building between the camping quad and the cafeteria. We were living large as far as mushroom festivals go.

An image that might look familiar: an encampment erected on the quad of a college campus. This time for fungi.

Not Your Father’s Mushroom Festival

An interesting aspect of this festival (and one I immediately noticed when I first saw the schedule) was the absence of forays. No scheduled mushroom walks. None. I thought the time of the year for the festival was peculiar when I signed up. It’s still fairly early for fleshy fungi in Maine and I wondered why they wouldn’t run it sometime August through October.

Well, after talking to some of the other attendees early on, I realized that this festival focused on a certain variety of fleshy fungi more than others: magic mushrooms.

Also of note, there was a large veteran presence and the festival provided a good bit of veteran-specific programming. The two veterans I talked to during the weekend spoke very highly of psychedelic mushrooms and their experience with them. Hopefully I’ll be able to follow up with a couple of their stories later in the year.

Alan Rockefeller’s talk “Decoding the Forest Floor: the Art of Mushroom Recognition”.

Friday

I got up there Friday morning at 11AM which right when check-in for the festival was scheduled to open. In typical mushroom festival fashion, that turned out to be about an hour and a half before somebody was actually ready to check anyone in. Nonetheless, that gave me time to pick out a spot to camp.

Coincidentally, the first folks I saw when I got dropped off were friends from Mycofest. Roberta Trentin, a Brooklyn-based artist and mushroom paper presser, and Becca Kelan, an artist and end of life doula from CT, were also incredibly punctual to the mushroom festival. The three of us formed a nice, little crew to navigate the weekend.

There wasn’t much classroom-based programming on Friday, in fact one of the main workshops was bumped to Sunday because Alan Rockefeller’s flight got delayed (he became the latest victim of the Newark airport). The weather was pleasant Friday so it was nice to hang by the lake and even jump in there for a few minutes. I wouldn’t describe the water as warm.

Friday night’s sunset over Sebago Lake.

The cross over the door during the Friday evening keynote speaker on polyamory was quite the juxtaposition. Quizzically, the keynote was delivered in the cafeteria during dinner — undoubtedly a tough spot for the presenter, Jaime Grant. She had to compete for people’s attention with mushroom pizza, tacos, mozzarella sticks, and ice cream — an uphill battle every time.

The keynote was followed by a prohibition-themed party across the street in the “stone barn” — a tastefully refurbished barn that was technically part of campus but felt more like a wedding venue. There was a seven piece swing band to keep with the theme and a cash bar. The organizers weren’t afraid to pull out all the stops on the first night. After the party people hung around a campfire, played instruments, and exchanged stories.

The scene at the stone barn.

Saturday

It basically rained all morning which made the decision to be inside an easy one. I will say that what this festival may have lacked in forays, it more than made up for in every other facet of programming. Each of the three, seventy-five minute time slots had seven to ten different talks/workshops/activities to choose from. We did not lack options.

I went to "Fungi of China" and "Ecology of Consciousness" during the two morning sessions. One idea that arose during our discussion in the latter was how the human experience is analogous to hyphal strands of mycelium. The hyphal strands can act as individuals, they go out and find food on their own, but they are connected and ultimately comprise one being. We may think or feel that we’re unique individuals, but we’re all part of a larger oneness. It was that kind of festival.

A bunch of wellness practitioners set up free massages, reiki, and energy healing services in the common room of the main building as well. You could grab a massage in between a talk on iboga and a monotub cultivation workshop.

Different styles of paper Roberta has pressed from different species of mushrooms.

In the afternoon I caught a couple more talks — one from Alan Rockefeller and the other from Gordon Walker (both mycologists with robust online followings). Roberta led a paper making workshop that afternoon so we helped her prep and clean up from that. I even got to lay in a sound bath which ushered in nap time.

Late in the afternoon the rain tapered off and we finally got into the woods to participate in our own impromptu foray. The campus had a nice trail system which attracted everyone from dog walkers to mountain bikers. While there weren’t too many large, fleshy fungi, the recent rain did bring forth a lot of fun jelly fungi. Here’s some of the finds from that afternoon and the rest of the weekend:

North American Porcupine (Erethizon dorsatum)

My favorite encounter of the weekend. I’d never seen a porcupine before and had a (respectfully) close encounter while unsuccessfully looking for mushrooms.

Smoked Oysterling (Resupinatus sp.)

Roberta found these tiny, oyster-like mushrooms when she went to use a branch as support and it snapped at the slightest touch. These were growing right above where the branch broke.

Witch’s Butter (Tremella mesenterica)

This yellow jelly fungus is a parasite on the greyish purple crust fungus visible on the underside of the branch.

Seaweed of the Woods (Phaeotremella frondosa)

This jelly fungus is also a parasite. Tbe fungus feeds on the myelium of the other mushroom you see on the branch, crowded parchment (Stereum complicatum). A fungus digesting a fungus digesting a branch.

Gilled polypore (Trametes betulina)

This mushroom was of note because it appeared to grow out of a tinder hoof polypore (Fomes excavatus) that was attached to a downed birch. I’d heard that T. betulina was parasitic on turkey tail (Trametes versicolor), but here it seemed like it was growing from the wood (or mycelium inside the wood). It’s unclear what was truly going on here, and I’m not even sure the mushroom is definitely T. betulina.

A lot of fungus on fungus action out in the woods up there. After our Saturday foray we had dinner and then took in the musical acts that night which were bumped from the lakeside to the cafeteria because of inclement weather. The rain continued on our parade by extinguishing any possibility of a campfire that evening, but I was happy to hit the hay at that point.

I could tell when I woke up on Sunday that it was going to be the best day of the festival, certainly weather-wise, but unfortunately I had to head out around 11am. The cons of the carpool. They even moved the portable sauna down to the lakeside just as I was leaving — what a tease.

As a Whole

This was the the third year of the festival and the first year at this location. The Saturday rain definitely had an impact on how people were able to gather and communicate, and I can’t imagine the vendors saw much foot traffic that day which is a bummer. It felt like the cafeteria was the common mixing ground, but I imagine the outdoor stage would’ve been the place to be if the weather held up. Regardless, they have the college booked again for next year and I would go back if I wasn’t planning on hiking the Appalachian Trail.

I am excited to see how the connections that were made this weekend grow. It’s fascinating and inspiring to see how others interact with mushrooms, and how fungi can transform lives. I’ll do my best to get you some of these stories soon. This festival was a healthy step outside the scientific and ecological realms I typically inhabit, an opportunity to learn about what mushrooms can do outside of the woods.

Hope you’re inspired to look for a local mushroom festival in your area and maybe I’ll see you there,

Aubrey