Learn how to forage wild food and medicine right here in beautiful and abundant Tiohtià:ke/”Montreal.” nico (they/them) will lead guided foraging tours in different areas of the city and teach participants how to identify plants, fruits, and even mushrooms. This beginner course is designed to teach you how to become a safe, ethical, and confident forager. You will learn how to: identify, dry, process, cook, and how to prepare foragables into medicine.
Prerequisites: This is a beginners course, no prior knowledge necessary.
Foraging is one way for urban folks to connect to nature, food systems, and build pathways towards resilient food sovereignty. In this course, we will take field trips to different locations around Tiohtià:ke/”Montreal.” Each class we will take a guided foraging tour to identify plants, fruits, and mushrooms. Each class will involve a hands-on activity such as: making simple syrups, tea, drawing or recording info about the goodies we find, making medicinal oxymels, tinctures, and skin care products. nico will also provide participants one foragable recipe once a week. Join us this summer to learn important foraging tips for harvesting plants like burdock, plantain, yarrow, purslane, ground ivy, bee balm, valerian, nettles, and more! Free for all Indigenous people. All class locations are accessible by public transit and we will travel by bus together to the Morgan Arboretum.
Week 1 – Start at the farm and forage in surrounding area
Activity: Familiarize ourselves with plant families, visual characteristics, and properties.
Recipe: simple syrups & violet lemonade.
Week 2 – Mt Royal foraging field trip
Activity: Make your first tincture
Recipe: “weeds” pesto
Week 3 – Parc Maisonneuve foraging field trip
Activity: Discuss pollutants, your guidebooks, and draw or record info about plants.
Recipe: spruce tip syrup.
Week 4 – Field trip to the Morgan Arboretum in Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue
Activity: Guidebook anatomy circle beforehand & forage mushrooms
Recipe: lion’s mane crab cakes & generally “how to cook mushrooms”
Week 5 – Wrap up at the farm
Activity: Potluck and make herbal body care products together.
Recipe: burdock & lambsquarters dip
Purchase one mushroom/plant foraging identification book, depending on your preference… Or bring one you already own. Must be region specific, look for “in Quebec” or “Eastern Canada” when selecting a guide book. We will refer to these guides each week, to better become comfortable with the species that grow around us as well as their benefits and ways of processing.
Suggestions:
$250 per person, 25ppl max
This course is free for Indigenous people.
If cost is a barrier; we offer adjusted community rates for members. Make an Affordability Rate Request.
5 Saturdays 3-5pm
May 24, 31, June 7, 14, 21 2025.
nico schutte (they/them) is a co-founding member of co-op CultivAction and is an avid forager. They have been urban foraging for the past five years and have taught foraging workshops throughout Tiohtià:ke/”Montreal” since 2023. At co-op CultivAction they are our Loyola farm manager, herbal program coordinator, and gourmet mushroom cultivator.
nico has led foraging workshops for Co-op CultivAction, Concordia Mycology Society, and Éco-quartier Ville-Marie de Peter-McGill. They conduct foraging and mushroom educational programming for Fungi Fest Montreal, the Concordia Greenhouse, the Concordia Food Coalition, Concordia Mycology Society, CUTEA, and Le Dépôt NDG.
English (Canada) 
Français du Canada