In a parking lot by a trailhead on Cypress Mountain, a group of about 20 strangers stands in a large circle. As they introduce themselves and say where they’re from, they each also answer a less common question: what do mushrooms mean to you?

At the centre of the circle is Willoughby Arevalo, a Vancouver-based mycologist and the author of “DIY Mushroom Cultivation: Growing Mushrooms at Home for Food, Medicine, and Soil.”

Arevalo developed an interest in mushrooms as a child, growing up in the redwood forests of Arcata, California. By the time he was a teenager, he could confidently identify many species of mushrooms, and he went on to study mycology while majoring in art at Humboldt State University.

Having followed the love of his life to Vancouver, Arevalo now leads mycology tours in and around the Lower Mainland, and together with his wife Isabelle Kirouac, leads art & fungi workshops in North Vancouver.

Arevalo’s interest in mushrooms is not just for their culinary or medicinal properties, but for the deeper relationship of reciprocity and inter-species community they represent.

“If can get people excited about mushrooms because they’re delicious,” Arevalo says, “Maybe I can encourage them to think more deeply about reciprocity, and consider their own role in this natural world we belong to as well.”

Willoughby Arevalo is a Vancouver-based mycologist and the author of “DIY Mushroom Cultivation: Growing Mushrooms at Home for Food, Medicine, and Soil.” Aside from book sales, he makes a living by leading mycology tours and fungi-based art workshops in Vancouver and the surrounding areas. This tour, through North Vancouver Recreation Centre, took place during October 2024’s atmospheric river.

Willoughby holds a UV flashlight to a mushroom so tour participants can see its bioluminescence. While there are over 125 bioluminescent fungi species worldwide, most aren’t visible to the human eye, but a UV flashlight reveals their glow. “They’re about $10 on Amazon, great little tool for a forest walk.”

Willoughby holds up a small heart-shaped puffball mushroom, which he says are edible, but can harbour spores from poisonous mushrooms, so you always need to cut them open before consuming them. “Or is it butt-shaped?”

Willoughby stands next to his wife, Isabelle Kirouac, who co-leads fungi-based art workshops at the North Vancouver Recreation Centre with him. They share a laugh with Kade, who has been coming to every one of their workshops since they presented in his high school a few years ago.

Isabelle looks on in the distance as Willoughby shows off a mushroom to workshop participants.

A workshop participant looks on as Willoughby holds a mushroom to his ear to listen to its spores, which emit a faint crackling sound if you listen closely.

A russula mushroom plugged into PlantWave, a device that translates biodata from organic materials into sounds. Willoughby is good friends with Tarun Nayar, who performs under the name Modern Biology, and puts on concerts with ambient music made entirely from the electrical data from mushrooms and plants.

Willoughby, Isabelle, and Kade hold hands to form an ubroken circle with the other tour participants. Willoughby’s left hand is touching a mushroom which is plugged into the PlantWave, so the workshop participants and the mushroom are creating an organic song together.

Willoughby and Isabelle closing up shop at the end of the art & fungi workshop.

Willoughby lead a mushroom walk in Stanley Park, hosted by the Stanley Park Ecological Society, in the week leading up to Halloween. The tour took place as night fell and focused on deadly mushrooms, death, decay, and rebirth.

At the end of the Stanley Park Halloween tour as participants were leaving, Willoughby suddenly spotted some small mushrooms on a log. “I don’t need a lot of light to find a mushroom.”

One of Willoughby’s gigs is hosting edible mushroom tours through Swallow Tail Culinary Adventures. This tour took place on Cypress Mountain in early October, 2024.

The Swallow Tail tour had around 20 participants.

The North Vancouver Recreation Centre hosts two of Willoughby and Isabelle’s workshops: the art & fungi workshop, and the mushroom felting workshop, where participants learn to do some basic felting inspired by mushrooms.

Willoughby and Isabelle show off their wool, which they dyed themselves using mushroom dyes. The more colourful wool on the table was purchased. “We love Baaad Anna’s on Hastings if anyone wants to get their own supplies.”

Workshops participants look over the table of mushrooms and mushroom pictures for felting inspiration.

One of the workshop participants felts a turkey tail mushroom. She had never felted before, nor had any particular interest in mushrooms, she’s just on the mailing list for the rec centre and “thought this sounded interesting.”

Willoughby helps the youngest felting participant label his mushroom. While there is usually at least one child at each of Willoughby’s tours and workshops, the majority of participants are adults.

Willoughby hugs Kade at the end of the felting workshop. Though they have a significant age gap and only know each other through the workshops, Willoughby doesn’t hesitate to introduce Kade as his friend.