'The pickers have moved on': 2016 morel season quiet in N.W.T.

Low prices, southern competition, andrainhave made 2016 a difficult season for morel pickers in the Northwest Territories, and a territorial government representative says it's possible next year could be even worse for the commercial harvest.

After a 2015 season that produced $15 million worth of the valuable mushrooms, which grow in areas burned by wildfires, expectations were cautiously optimistic for 2016, though officials said they didn't expect the numbers they saw last year.

• IN DEPTH |Another season of N.W.T. morel mushroom picking begins

"I would say it's quite a bit less people than we saw last year," said Mike Mahar, a business and petroleum advisor for the territory's department of Industry, Tourism and Investment. "And we kind of expected that, because there were big fires in Saskatchewan, there were fires in Alberta and B.C. A little less expensive to travel to those areas."

Some pickers did make the trip north, said Mahar many settled in the South Slave area near Enterprise or Kakisa, or near Behchokoin the North Slave. However, rainy weather and depressed prices have meant that many have headed south for more bountiful pastures.

"In the South Slave... most of the pickers have moved on at this point," said Mahar. "We've had quite a bit of rain... in the last several weeks, so the pricing went down a bit, and the quality. So the buyers left, and the pickers left as well."

'There aren't a ton right now'

The territorial government invested significant resources into promoting the N.W.T. as a destination for morels in 2015, creating a new harvesting guide and conducting workshops around the territory.

The strategy caused some backlash, as southern buyers touted the government's potential prices as "misinformation"and pickers wound up upset by low prices caused by a higher southern supply.

• N.W.T. morel pickers disappointed by season's low prices

However, Mahar says that the resources invested by the government educated the local population, leading to an increase in Northern pickers finding the mushrooms for their own use.

"There's more of an interest now," he said. "I know a lot of local people went out for their own use.

"A lot of people, the last time was the first time they ever tried a morel. Local people are getting them for themselves and their friends, and stuff like that."

Mahar also said that the territory has had interest from other jurisdictions, including the province of Saskatchewan, which reached out after a big 2015 wildfire season in an attempt to capitalize on a coming mushroom boom.

"They got ahold of us, and were interested in the information we produced last year, and trying to recreate it for their own citizens," he said.

Though the summer of 2016 isn't over yet, Mahar said that a number of southern wildfires, combined with a relatively average wildfire season in the territory, could mean that the commercial harvest in 2017 is even smaller than this year.

"There aren't a ton right now," he said. "I would think, next year, it's probably going to be more personal use than anything."