Ashes swallowed my hiking boots as I climbed a forested ridge north of Fairbanks. Blackened branches clawed at the sky — the ridge burned last year in the Grapefruit Complex fire — and the air still tasted like smoke. Our boots rhythmically crushed debris as we searched the forest floor.
I was there with Justin Whittaker, who sells wild mushrooms through his business, Taiga Forest Provisions. After meandering through the wildfire scar for an hour, his bucket was still empty.
Then I noticed a wrinkly, gray lump right where I was about to take my next step.
“Hey, good job,” Whittaker said. “You found the first morel of the day.”
Whittaker flicked out a pocket knife, sliced off the cap, and plunked it in his bucket. Farther ahead, in a barbequed meadow, we had even better luck. Clusters of button-sized morels poked out from the ash.
This summer, Interior Alaska mushroom enthusiasts like Whittaker have enjoyed a rich morel harvest. That’s due, at least in part, to last year’s wildfires. Fires burned close to Fairbanks this summer, too, so morel enthusiasts expect the delicacies will pop up from the ashes again next year. And Fairbanksans will be waiting for them. Local mushroom hunters say that enthusiasm for morels is spreading, and fires close to town have made them a lot easier to reach.
A coveted treat sprouts out of scorched earth
Morels are a type of edible mushroom with a dark, pockmarked cap. They have a gentle earthy flavor, a slightly springy texture, and they sell for a lot. Some subspecies like to grow in burned-over areas — and the wildfire-prone Interior has a lot of those.
“They'll fruit where it burnt down to the mineral soil,” Whittaker told me. “And then later, you'll find them popping up.”
Whittaker’s blue heeler mix, Trinity, led the way out of the forest. She darted ahead, serving as our lookout for bears. There’s a network of tasty and valuable fungi hidden under all that ash, and they’re treasured by locals.
Still, it’s a lot of work to bring in a good morel harvest, which can retail between $5 and $80 per pound. Crews of mushroom hunters will spend days clearing paths to promising spots.
“There's definitely secrets,” Whittaker said. “Like, especially if your crew puts in a bunch of work to put a trail in, it’s nice to keep that trail a secret so other people don't come pick your spot.”
Morel interest is spreading like wildfire
But for the most part, Whittaker said, the local morel hunting community doesn’t gatekeep the newbies.
Take Fairbanksans Sveta and Igor Pasternak, a married couple who are big-time morel evangelists. They started a Facebook page, Alaska Morels and other Mushroom Madness, that now has almost 14,000 members. Members talk about things like mushroom identification, best picking spots, and preservation methods.
The Pasternaks also teach classes and workshops about morels — including at the fourth annual Fairbanks Fungi Festival, which kicks off on Aug. 22.
The Pasternaks said their passion for mushroom hunting is rooted in their culture. Igor is from Ukraine, and Sveta is from Belarus. Sveta says it’s a popular pastime across Eastern Europe and Russia. She even wrote her dissertation on the subject.
“In Chukotka, the region right across the Bering Strait from Alaska, during the mushroom season, the villages’ obsession with fungi borders on fetishism,” she said. “And it's true, all the way through like two-thirds of the Eurasian continent, and all the way into our birthlands.”
But their passion for morels came later in life. They said when they came to Fairbanks in the ‘90s, they didn’t get what the big deal was.
Igor said old Soviet cookbooks and mushroom guides rated morels poorly. That could have arisen from confusion over false morels, which can make people sick, but Igor thinks there might also have been some cultural chauvinism at play. Morels were valued more highly in Western European countries, like France and Italy.
“It was communism,” Igor said. “It was not our way. It was like, all of the fat capitalists eating those mushrooms.”
But as they got into the local mushroom hunting scene, the Pasternaks learned about the morel’s flavor and versatility.
“You can go savory, you can go creamy,” Sveta said. “Like, whatever — cheese and sausage stuffing. I mean, just really endless possibilities. They're so culinarily inviting and forgiving.”
Sveta says there’s a bittersweetness about them, too, because they like to grow on land that has been touched by fire. Just this year, dozens of buildings burned in wildfires near Healy. And Fairbanksans had a close call, with two major fires threatening neighborhoods — including the one where the Pasternaks live.
“There are very real hazards and nuisances and health concerns the fires create,” Sveta said. “At the same time, you know, there’s the positive, rewarding relationship with a post-burn landscape.”
On the bright side, she expects a morel bonanza close to town next summer.
“It’s going to be awesome,” she said.
Back at the wildfire scar, Whittaker and I ended the day looking like we had just crawled out of a coal mine, but I had a pocketful of morels as consolation. Sautéed with a shallot, they made a pretty serviceable risotto.
I could just barely taste the smoke from last year’s fires. I swear it’s not because I burned it.
