Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/728142
14 BCA A .COM FALL 2016 Barb Sligl, Tourism Vernon/Steve Austin DESTINATIONS Northern Harvest "Wilderness is a state of being and a state of mind," says Charles Ruechel, reading a quote from a tattered photocopy he carries in his backpack. It's a golden mid-September morning, and we're looking for wild mushrooms on Grassy Gnome Acres, his sister's farm in the Lumby Valley, just east of Vernon. Here in the North Okanagan, it seems that everyone embraces this credo wholeheartedly. Go outside. Partake of nature's bounty. Forage and harvest. From the north edge of Armstrong to the tip of Kalamalka Lake, south of Vernon, there's something happening, growing, brewing and bubbling. Ruechel is director and lead instructor with Elements Adventure Company, a Vernon outfit that offers wild mushroom tours. He stops at a fallen poplar log and points out a cluster of oyster mushrooms, telling me to lean down and inhale. I marvel at the simple-yet-seductive scent – rich yet mellow, musky yet soft – and make a mental note to pick some of these on my next forest walk. While you can't harvest mushrooms on Ruechel's tours (to keep the area stocked for the next group), he provides the basics for recognizing edible varieties and foraging for your own. He says he remembers riding on horseback with his father in search of King Bolete mushrooms – a meaty variety with a nutty flavour, known as porcini by Italians and cèpes by the French – and returning with a saddlebag-full. Like many here, he has a long relationship with the land, having grown up on an organic cattle and sheep ranch in Lumby (his parents started farming here in 1975). These stories abound in the North Okanagan: a new generation, building on a rich agricultural heritage to create a new legacy. At Davison Orchards, a fourth- generation Vernon apple farm, I learn how to properly pick the fruit. Tom Davison demonstrates: palm the apple and turn it upside down or "eye to the sky" to release the stem from the branch. I pluck my own and bite into an Aurora, "the best apple you don't know of," says Davison. He's right. It's crisp and sweet – almost tropical – and the juice dribbles down my chin. Davison works on the farm with his father, known as Grandpa Bob, and his son Lance. That's three generations cooperating to grow and harvest more than 20 varieties of apples, from McIntosh to Mutsu. The farm has also become a destination for visitors and locals alike, with a country-themed café onsite, and a shop selling seasonal produce, pies and preserves. Across town, I sample the branch-to-bottle results of another grower, BX Press Cidery and Orchard. Standing amidst trees laden with fruit, I sip The Prospector, a cider made from 24 varieties of apples, including several heirloom varieties. It's tart and fragrant. There's also The Hostler, made with a combination of dessert apples and crabapple – complex yet light. It's named after the men who, in the 1860s, cared for the stagecoach horses of Barnard's Express Stagecoach company (the cidery's namesake), when Vernon was just a stop along the Cariboo Wagon Road. David Dobernigg opened the cidery in 2013, upping the apple varieties to 30 from the eight of his grandfather's days and building on an orchard that had been in his family since 1946.