I brought my Northwest plant guide along; we talk about foraging – how this book will be my bible – and the importance of learning the plant families. 

A week later, Jane has agreed to hunt mushrooms with me.  Because mushroom hunters are so secretive about the whereabouts of their hunting grounds, I have no guide and no clue about where to start.  All I know is that chanterelles fruit in September, after warm rains.  I know that they exist both in the Cascades, to the east of Portland, and the west, within the coastal range.  I know that they prefer mixed woodlands, and I know that mushroom hunters will have collected any relatively easy-to-get to place long before I would likely chance by.

We take off on a brilliant autumn day with the goal of losing ourselves in the windy roads between the main routes to the coast.

This place is all Douglas firs and leftover oaks from ages of Spanish ships and coonskin caps.  We follow the banks of a dimly lit forest river, small fish dart underneath the black surface, ferns and moss and fallen trees lunge at the water and shore.

A crayfish in the stream, bright and pink.  This is the first Pacific Crayfish I have ever seen.  It is an incredibly important find for me, because I know that coastal Indians traveled upriver to harvest these crayfish.  I put my hand in the water, and I touch the crayfish.  Technically, because I have a crustacean permit, I can take him.  But part of my Oregon Testament project rules are that I must adapt old world culture to Oregon; I am unclear on how to interpret the Old Testament laws against crustaceans.  I leave the beautiful clawed animal and we continue in the woods.

Along the riverbank, I find a hefty mushroom hidden under ferns.  Its exterior is a brownish-gray, but its underside is bright milky yellow.  I think it is edible, so I remove it and put it in my pack.

Jane finds a large mushroom, white and tall, under the leaf litter.  We sift for more; and if they look possibly edible, we put them in our sacks.   

With a few specimens in the backpacks, we move on and find ourselves in the Nehalem Valley, which features a river between coastal ranges northwest of Portland.  We are intentionally driving to get lost; a disorganized way to get somewhere the mushroom hunters would never have thought to go. 

We stop along the road where a tree-stump is covered in a thick display of bright mushroom shelves; brilliant orange on their tops and citrus yellow underneath.  With my elbow, I break a pound and a half of the rubbery meat off the stump, and place it in the sack.

We continue up a dirt road, and park in some lot for horse-riders.  From here, we walk on a horse path through a parched wood.  Almost immediately, we spot these golden trumpets shooting through the dark brown earth.

The excitement of our first chanterelles is overwhelming.  Jane remains skeptical, insisting these are no chanterelles.  I am ecstatic at how quickly we have achieved success.  I put a few mushrooms in my knapsack and we hustle along.  The idea is to get off trails and to walk in a direction no other human would think to walk.  The idea is that the chanterelle lives in a certain sort of place; and part of being a mushroom hunter is to instinctively learn what that place is.

Under some majestic burly conifers, we find more mushrooms; gray, white, brown.  Satisfied, we return home.