Neil Cook, a student in an outdoor education class at Many Faces Education Centre, shows off freshly harvested chaga. Photo by Craig McIntosh
Chaga
Natural remedy of the North
story by Shannon Smadella
Wellness writer Shannon Smadella takes a look at a local forest product that is gaining popularity in our region . . . and around the world My interest in the unique chaga mushroom came about one sunny afternoon while I was sitting down for a cup of tea with Al and Johanna McLauchlan at their Rocky Lake East home. As I was drinking my tea, I realized the aroma and taste was completely new to me. “It’s called chaga,” Al said. “So,” I asked, “What exactly 30 cottagenorthmagazine.ca
is chaga?” Al left the room and returned with a piece of birch with an odd black growth on it. “This is chaga.”
A fruitful forest find If you’ve been out for a walk in any forest in the North, or even your own backyard, and noticed a birch tree with a large
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black lump growing out of it, you have come across the chaga mushroom. Chaga, or Inonotus obliquus, is a growth which propagates naturally on the birch tree over five to seven years. Chaga is hard and woody, bearing no resemblance to most mushrooms. Instead, it looks more like a fractured piece of burned charcoal. Its dark colour is due to a concottagenorth