Mushroom-picking behaviour, trespassing issues escalate on Skwlāx territory

The message comes after previous calls for mushroom pickers to behave. The band cites an increase in people accessing band land using forest service roads, picking large quantities of the fungi and selling those mushrooms to commercial vendors — sometimes for $50 a pound.

Now, the situation has escalated, as Skwlāx claims threats have been made to community officials when confronting pickers. The band wants the province to step in with regulations and some form of enforcement

“We’ve had mushroom pickers going onto private land, and I’d advocate for those guys, too,” says Tomma. “Threats were being made and all for a few dollars. We won’t suffer that, no more.”

Tomma says he and members of the band’s land guardianship program have experienced volatile, even racist interactions with some of the mushroom pickers they’ve come across.

“He (one picker) used the ‘I’ word. Which I don’t say myself. But (he said), ‘You people think you own everything,’ and all that,” he recalls. “No, we don’t own it.”

Tomma says band members are caretakers of the land and want to protect the ecosystem, especially after the amount of forest burned last summer. As the situation has escalated, so has the potential for environmental damage, and even physical harm to the people coming in from outside the region.

Skwlāx notes the charred landscape isn’t safe to be walking around, and on top of that, there have been large camps set up with campfires, garbage left behind, alterations made to freshet drainage routes and trees chopped down.

Skwlāx elder Molly Tomma spoke to the need for proper caretaking of the land, especially in its delicate state of rehabilitation after wildfire last summer.

“Take care of the land like it should be. Like us going into your home — we don’t throw garbage all over the place and abuse your hospitality,” she reiterates.

Skwlāx te Secwepemcúl̓ecw says not every mushroom picker has been problematic, but wants to see the province step in to support them in addressing the pickers who are causing issues.

Lee Anderson is one of the guardians and says some people are genuinely unaware that they’re on band territory. Guardians try to educate them on the boundary areas.

“Whether it be First Nations or non-First Nations, everybody is a guardian out there. If they see anything, or wrongdoing, they either report it through the RAPP line or DFO or whoever, right?” he said.

The band says it would like to see permitting regulations that could help them, and other communities handle the expected influx of mushroom pickers after a wildfire. Permitting has been used in recent years by multiple Secwepemc bands, such as when mushrooms grew in after the Elephant Hill wildfire, and by the Skeetchestn band after the Sparks Lake wildfire.

“If they were good enough people, they’d have come and asked permission and they’d only take so much,” says band member Ron Tomma. “That’d go a long way. Instead of truckloads and truckloads (of mushrooms) going out of province.”

Moving forward, Skwlāx hopes to see elevated assistance from the province, and Natural Resource Officers, with the goal of encouraging safe, respectful picking.