Wild Greens, Morels & Woodticks

In Manitoba, it is morel season. Unlike the Midwest USA, in states like Wisconsin, Michigan and Minnesota, morel season starts a little later in the spring.

Conventional understanding of morel growth is that they require almost even sunlight and darkness – spring and the third week of March -- to poke through the woodland mulch. In Manitoba’s Interlake, the picking season doesn’t begin until the frost is out of the ground and the overnight air is above freezing. That generally does not occur until late April (at the earliest) to  late May. And in the short distance of a hundred miles, the season can be delayed by a further three weeks. Hecla Island, for example, sees morel picking commence in early June and end at the end of the month, while for the Oak Point to Gimli area, picking starts in early May and ends in late May to early June. By that time, we are at nearly twelve hours of sunlight, but the frost has only retreated from the forest soil by early May.

Morels are finicky, closer to their cousins, truffles, than to their other relatives like summer or fall mushrooms. Without the right timing of good moisture, warm air and enough sunlight, the season may be lost. But in the Interlake, good seasons are more common than bad ones for these tasty side dishes, and bountiful seasons are occurring with regularity. Yet, finding them can be tricky.

Long-time area residents have dozens of personal theories as to where morels can be found, and they should know. In fact, so popular is morel hunting for locals that they have erected a statue to the brown delicacy in Meleb, on Highway 8. Some swear that they grow where areas have experienced a recent fire. And it is true that morels do grow there often, and are easier to spot. Others claim that the shady side of rotted logs are the best places, and, like other fungi & mushrooms, morels can be found there. Many claim that mushrooms grow best in areas where leaf mulch has decayed. Many of my best finds are precisely in those locations, but because the morel blends in so well with a dry or decaying leaf patch, it often is very tough to locate.

One thing is certain: the timing of the season coincides with other great picking seasons and some not so great. Fiddlehead greens, burdock, dandelion greens and a host of other edible plants (including cattail shoots) are in their finest condition for eating just at the same time as the morel season is peaking or closing out. Indeed, it is the proliferation of new greenery that ensures the demise of morel season, as sunlight is blocked from reaching them.  

However, as the song states, “along with the sunshine comes a little rain.” In the Interlake, wood ticks are one of our most aggressive “wildlife.” Just as is the case with our famous non-venomous red-sided garter snake, we can count on our ticks to be the non-poisonous black-legged or dog ticks, rather than the lyme-disease carrying deer tick (that is changing, however). Wood ticks are everywhere, and, contrary to their usual name are not usually found on trees. Instead, these ticks hang out on “blood trails” where other wildlife has passed by. Rabbit trails, deer runs or human pathways are common buffet stops. Look closely at taller blades of grass and you can see ticks hanging on to a leaf of grass with a couple of legs, waving the others like a hitchhiker thumbing a ride. That is exactly what they are doing: hitching a ride. As soon as a warm-blooded animal brushes by, the tick releases from the blade of grass and latches on to the ride. The hairier the better. Fur is great and easy to grasp, but so is the bare hairy leg of a morel-hunter foolish enough to wear shorts in the bush before early summer heat beats back these pests.

How prolific are wood ticks? If a lawn is maintained in short-grass condition, they rarely are found, unless you have a wandering dog or cat. But wherever grass grows taller, they lurk. While working on our yurt, my son and I often worked in and around taller meadow grass near the bush line. In one particularly brutal day, I had sixty-one wood ticks while my son had fifty-three. That got our competitive juices flowing, and the count was on. Over the next three weeks, I accumulated six hundred and one ticks, of which only five had bitten into their lunch – my skin.

In fairness, though, the tick haul was well worth it, since the morel haul that spring far exceeded the tick catch. By season’s end, we had picked, cleaned and preserved more than twelve shopping bags of morels, and had left far more behind than we picked, for future seasons. On balance, we got to eat far more, and far better than the half-dozen dog ticks who munched on us.

Beaches on the shores of Lake Agassiz

Imagine living beneath 213 metres (650 feet) of frigid lake water. If the city of Winnipeg – less than 90 minutes south of Red Rock Ranch in Oak Point, Manitoba – had existed 9,500 years ago, residents would have found themselves that far beneath the surface of Lake Agassiz, which covered 90% of Manitoba and Northern Ontario, along with parts of North Dakota and Minnesota. Agassiz actually was the meltwater from the Agassiz glacier, which dominated the geography of North America during the last Ice Age. Evidence of this massive event abounds throughout Manitoba’s Interlake.

Perhaps the most pronounced of these natural “artifacts” are the three major lakes in the province: Lakes Winnipeg, Winnipegosis and Lake Manitoba.

Oak Point is a small hamlet approximately seventy miles north of Winnipeg, but a mere four miles from Lake Manitoba. Many of the local residents count on fishing – both commercial and recreational – to supplement their farming incomes. These include a small number of non-Metis, non-First Nations fishers. 

As Agassiz’ glaciers (up to four kilometers, or 2.5 miles deep at times) retreated, the land, which had been depressed by the enormous weight of the ice sheet or scoured and scraped down to bedrock, developed pockets in which some of the melting waters remained. Fed by rivers from the west, east and south, the three Manitoba lakes were formed. Today, the three lakes drain, ultimately, to the north, in the direction of the retreated ice sheet. Indeed, Agassiz left an important legacy for the province, as almost all of the electrical power that the province generates and sells to its neighbours comes from hydroelectric power, generated on rivers that feed into or drain the lakes, and, in particular, Lake Winnipeg.

But Lake Manitoba offers a challenge. Shallow – at its deepest it is only 23 feet – the lake freezes deep in winter. However, with only nominal outlet drainage, flooding is a concern. In the spring of 2011, excessive moisture flowing in could not be vacated quickly enough and hundreds of homes and cottages were lost. Each year, west and northwest winds threaten the southeast beaches in the fall, and, regularly, mounds of ice, like land borne icebergs, pile up on those east sandy shores. It is not uncommon to see twenty-foot frozen mounds well into late April and early May.

Cottagers, though, see the miles of sandy shores and forgive the lake for its nastier wintry side. And its shallow lines mean that the beaches extend hundreds of meters into the lake. It is not uncommon to see children wading in waist-deep water nearly a quarter of a mile from shore.

Oddly, both Lake Winnipegosis (57 feet) and Lake Winnipeg (116 feet)  are deeper than Lake Manitoba, yet it is Lake Manitoba where folk tales claim that the province’s version of the Loch Ness monster, Manipogo, lives. Perhaps it is the unpredictable behavior of the lake, driven by winds from the west and north, that stir up odd, unexplained events. Or it could be the spiritual nature of the half dozen First Nations reserves that rub shoulders with the lake. Or even the untamed wilderness that surrounds the lakes northern shores. Whatever the explanation, Lake Manitoba, born in our last Ice Age, holds many stories, some of which are yet to be told. The tales are not frozen in the eons-old ice, but are fluid, evolving and waiting to be heard.