Learn how to forage wild food and medicine right here in beautiful and abundant Tiohtià:ke/”Montreal.” Every Saturday in June, nico (they/them) will lead a guided foraging tour in different areas of the city and teach participants how to identify plants, fruits, and even mushrooms. This course is designed to teach you how to become a safe, ethical, and confident forager. You will learn how to: identify, dry and process, cook with foragables, and how to prepare foragables into medicine. If you are Indigenous and wish to enroll in this course, please let us know, we offer adjusted community rates.
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 Saturday we will take a guided foraging tour to identify plants, fruits, and mushrooms. Every week will involve a hands-on activity such as: making simple syrups, tea, drawing and/or recording info about the plants/mushrooms 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! If you are Indigenous and wish to enroll in this course, please let us know, we offer adjusted community rates.
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 – Parc Maisonneuve foraging field trip
Activity: Discuss pollutants, discuss your guidebooks, draw and/or record info about plants
Recipe: Weeds Pesto
Week 3 – Mt Royal foraging field trip
Recipe/activity: Make your first tincture & oxymel
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: Make a foraged dish and herbal body care products.
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:
$175 per person
If you are Indigenous to Tiohtià:ke / the surrounding area and qualify for the reduced course price, your course participation is fully covered and thus no payment necessary.
5 Saturdays 3-5pm
June 1, 8, 15, 22, 29
This is a beginners course, no prior knowledge necessary.
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 four years and have taught foraging workshops throughout the city. At co-op CultivAction they are a vegetable farmer, herbal program coordinator, and our gourmet mushroom cultivator.
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