On a November evening in Campbell River, a club only two years old opens its doors to the public, a small reminder that the human appetite for understanding the hidden kingdom beneath our feet tends to grow in the same places where people gather in common cause. The Mid Island Mycological Symbionts, known as MIMSY, was born in 2024 from enthusiasts across the middle of Vancouver Island, with the quiet backing of an older regional society, and it now offers academic-level talks to people who simply want to know more. Across two evenings and one forest walk, its speakers turn toward the question
Mid Island mushroom group MIMSY launches fall lecture series on AI identification and fungal medicine
"It's a total escape from reality. It's therapy for me."
Mark
Why does a small mushroom club's lecture series merit attention?
Mimi
It's a young group, founded in 2024, stepping into public programming. And the topics are timely: chatbots for identification, and fungi in medicine.
Mark
Amanda Johnston calls foraging therapy. What's the draw?
Mimi
Mostly the escape. She says you rarely have cell service, so no notifications. Plus the thrill of finding something rare, like a pine mushroom.
Luke
The AI talk is the one people will fixate on. What do we actually know about how well it works?
Mimi
Only that Brothers says collaborative sessions successfully identified four local species in the Comox Valley. That's his account of it.
Luke
Four species isn't much of a track record, and we don't know how many attempts it took or what failures there were. I'd treat it as a talking point, not proof.
Mark
And the unnamed species through MycoMap-BC?
Mimi
Johnston says contributors have found micro fungi without names that will be new species. The broader context is that only eight per cent of an estimated 3.8 million species are named.
Luke
Worth noting that 3.8 million is a scientists' estimate, and the new-species claim is her expectation, not a published result.
Mark
Who can attend?
Mimi
The talks are public. The Nov. 7 foray in Snowden Demonstration Forest is for members, who pay $25 a year through SVIMS.
Der Puls
- A young club moves from private meetings into its first public series, and the stakes of getting it right feel real.
- Artificial intelligence is being tested against the stubborn, error-prone task of identifying wild mushrooms in the Comox Valley.
- Pharmaceutical researchers and foragers are drawing on the same fungal world, turning curiosity into potential medicine.
- Members-only forays and a $25 membership are shaping who gets to step into the woods and who watches from afar.
- Citizen scientists are sending DNA samples into a project that may reveal species no one has yet named.
On a November evening in Campbell River, a club only two years old opens its doors to the public, a small reminder that the human appetite for understanding the hidden kingdom beneath our feet tends to grow in the same places where people gather in common cause. The Mid Island Mycological Symbionts, known as MIMSY, was born in 2024 from enthusiasts across the middle of Vancouver Island, with the quiet backing of an older regional society, and it now offers academic-level talks to people who simply want to know more. Across two evenings and one forest walk, its speakers turn toward the questions that fungi have always posed: how we recognize them, what they might heal, and how much of their living diversity remains unnamed. The series marks a first step outward from a volunteer circle into a wider public conversation.
On the evening of Nov. 5, room C250 at North Island College's Campbell River campus opens its doors for the first of several public talks about fungi. The host is the Mid Island Mycological Symbionts, MIMSY, a mushroom club less than two years old.
The group was founded in 2024 by enthusiasts from Campbell River to Qualicum Beach, with backing from the South Vancouver Island Mycological Society. Its volunteer membership has grown enough that it can now offer academic-level presentations to the general public.
The opening speaker is Dr. Kent Brothers, a field mycologist with more than thirty years in the Pacific Northwest. He will talk about using AI chatbots to identify mushrooms, drawing on sessions in which the tools correctly named four local species in the Comox Valley. The next evening, Victoria biochemist Branden Walle addresses how fungal compounds contribute to drug development, and on Nov. 7 he leads a members-only forage in the Snowden Demonstration Forest.
Member Amanda Johnston, who began foraging in 2021, describes the hunt as an adult treasure hunt and the lack of cell service as a kind of therapy. Her advice to newcomers is simple: buy a good field guide, join a community, and never go out alone. Members also contribute DNA samples to MycoMap-BC, where amateur finds may reveal species that have not yet been named.
On the evening of Nov. 5, room C250 at North Island College's Campbell River campus will open its doors at 6:30 p.m. for the first of a short run of public talks about fungi. The host is the Mid Island Mycological Symbionts, a mushroom club that goes by MIMSY and is less than two years old.
The group was founded in 2024, when mushroom enthusiasts from Campbell River to Qualicum Beach banded together with backing from the South Vancouver Island Mycological Society, known as SVIMS. The name came from SVIMS president Andy MacKinnon, co-author of Mushrooms of BC. Since then MIMSY has held monthly meetings at the Campbell River campus, along with local forays and workshops. Its volunteer membership has grown enough, organizers say, that the club can now offer academic-level presentations to the general public.
The first speaker is Dr. Kent Brothers, an amateur mycologist with more than 30 years of field experience in the Pacific Northwest and a former president of the Vancouver Mycological Society. His talk, which starts at 7 p.m., is about using artificial intelligence chatbots to help identify mushrooms. He plans to share lessons from collaborative identification sessions in which AI tools successfully identified four local species in the Comox Valley.
The next evening, same campus, Victoria-based biochemist Branden Walle takes the stage to discuss fungal natural products and their part in pharmaceutical drug development and medicine. Doors open at 5 p.m. and the presentation begins at 6:30 p.m. Walle holds an honours degree in biochemistry from the University of Victoria and specializes in bioprospecting and the medicinal uses of fungi. His work has been featured in Canadian Geographic.
On Nov. 7 at 9:30 a.m., Walle will lead an outdoor foray in the Snowden Demonstration Forest. That one is for registered MIMSY members only. Annual memberships are sold through SVIMS for $25 and cover planned forays and workshops through the year. Member Amanda Johnston recommends the fee even for foragers living outside the Mid Island, since members receive a weekly e-newsletter, all monthly meetings are streamed on Zoom, and past meetings can be watched in the archive.
Johnston began foraging on the Island in 2021 and describes it as part hike, part hunt. "When you're looking for mushrooms, it's like an adult treasure hunt," she said, adding that finding a rare cauliflower mushroom or pine mushroom makes you giddy. She also values the lack of cell service most of the time: "It's a total escape from reality. It's therapy for me." She taught herself with a pocket field guide and online identification groups, working alongside her boyfriend, before a local society existed. Her advice to newcomers is to buy a good field guide, join a community, and not go out alone.
Members also take part in citizen science, including MycoMap-BC, which uses DNA sequencing to identify specimens submitted by amateur collectors. Johnston recently joined the project. She says contributors have found micro fungi that don't yet have names and are likely to be new species. Scientists estimate there are 3.8 million fungal species worldwide, only eight per cent of them formally named.
The membership is varied, including foragers, nature photographers and artisans who use mushrooms and lichens as natural textile dyes. The November talks are the club's first public series of this kind, and the Nov. 5 session will show how well AI tools hold up in identifying local mushrooms.
Bemerkenswerte Zitate
When you're looking for mushrooms, it's like an adult treasure hunt.— Amanda Johnston, MIMSY member
MycoMap contributors have found micro fungi that we don't even have names for.— Amanda Johnston, MIMSY member
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