Bryan Karolsky (Baker City) has been a mushroom buyer for eleven years, a picker for almost fifteen. Though often guarded, the mushroom harvest tradition is steeped in lore.
Bio
Bryan Karolsky moved from his Idaho home of twenty years to Northeast Oregon, drawn by the earnings potential in the mushroom trade. Karolski has now been a mushroom buyer for 11 years and a mushroom picker for almost 15. He has watched the mushroom commodity business grow over time, from the buying and selling of one type of mushroom, to the buying and selling of three dozen different types of mushrooms each year. Each species of mushroom has its own likes and dislikes, including ground quality and temperature. For example, natural morels appear in the early spring and thrive in 40 to 60 degree temperature—40 at night, 60 during the day. Several weeks later, in the fire areas from the previous fall, conica morels begin to start. By mid-May, the boletes are coming up along with the river bottom blonde morels. The snow capped mushrooms and cadbury mushrooms will soon follow. The mushroom picking tradition—where best to pick, at what times, how frequently—is steeped in lore and often carefully guarded. “You see family generations come here...I have everywhere from 95-year-old men to six-year-old kids in the same family that have passed that knowledge of those mushrooms down for the last 100 years.” Pickers are also drawn internationally from Asia and Latin America. In the two counties he serves, Karolski likens the generational ties found among the local mushroom pickers in the area to those found among the ranching families. “It’s really truly a family scenario.”
