McCloud’s 21st Annual Mushroom, Wine, Music and Artisan Festival

The population of McCloud almost doubled over the weekend of May 24th and 25th as over 12,000 people came from as far as New Mexico to attend the 21st Annual Mushroom, Wine, Music, and Artisan Festival.

There were 16 different workshops and guided tours held hourly over the weekend by expert mycologists covering many aspects of the world of mushrooms and fungi, including introduction to the world of mushrooms, photography of mushrooms, DNA sequencing, cloning, cultivation of wild species, identifying and hunting for local fungi, along with mushroom arts and crafts. Presenters ranged from world-renowned mycologist Noah Siegel, who has written books on mycology, to Allan Rockefeller from El Cerrito, who has been coming up annually since 2007 to give presentations. Other experts included Andrew Classsen, who has identified 132 different species of mushrooms in Siskiyou County over the past five years; local mycologist Chris Farley; Angelic Garza; William Padilla Brown; Rhea Alexander; David Gardner; Dylan Goldfine-Middleton; and comedian Dillion Delucca, who introduced the speakers and brought people to laughter throughout the two-day festival.

There were different mushroom vendors to choose from, all selling a variety of wild and locally sourced fresh mushrooms. Because of the huge crowd this year, some varieties of mushrooms were sold out by the end of the festival. A popular booth was the Mushroom Petting Zoo from the Mount Shasta Mycological Society that had a large display of a variety of fresh mushrooms for people to handle.

Of the 123 booths that lined the streets throughout the downtown area of McCloud, many booths sold mushroom-related crafts, jewelry, clothing, and art, while other booths held activities for children, sold live plants, and offered other one-of-a-kind handmade crafts.

There were a handful of wine tasting booths from different local wineries. And when people got hungry, there were eleven different kinds of food booths to choose from. This does not include the specialty handmade food items like jams, olives, honey, baked goods, kettle corn, or dried foods that some booths had for people to take home to enjoy.

Since more people each year come dressed up in costumes to celebrate in mushroom and fairy fashion, this year featured a parade on Saturday for the first time for those to strut their stuff.

This year’s bands included Amber Mae, The Junebugs, Allison Scull and Victor Martin, Hook, and Secret Society Handshake. On the far side of the festival, musician and solo artist Dan Nogchi’s Happy Wave Music New Creations played classic songs from the ’70s and ’80s.

Kristen Cunningham not only provided space in the McCloud Dance Hall for speakers and workshops, but the annual mushroom dinner and the ’80s After Party were also held there in the massive building.

McCloud Chamber Executive Director Shari Rouiller said, “This was the biggest Mushroom festival yet. It was great fun for my first major event as executive director. I want to thank our sponsors: the McCloud Mercantile, McCloud Market, and Pella Doors and Windows Norcal-Jeff Roullier. I also want to thank Kristen Cunningham for bringing in some of the speakers and providing space for the workshops. Also, I want to thank David Reynolds for his work as DJ, Magan Demilio who chaired our first parade which was a success, Steve and Skip for putting up the tents, getting ice, picking up the trash, and helping everyone out. And I really appreciate all our volunteers that worked so hard to make all this happen. We had over 75 volunteers.”

There are many more festivals throughout the season that the McCloud Chamber of Commerce and the McCloud Community Recreation Council put on. For more information about McCloud events, go to www.mccloudchamber.com.

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