Last year Vancouver was struggling with poor air quality as a result of wildfires burning through hectares of forest in the province. The year before was a dreadful wildfire season for Alberta. Both provinces did have wildfires this year, but smaller than in previous years, their size making them more controllable though there were some isolated town evacuations before the fires were brought under control.

But 2020 has so far spared those provinces, partly due evidently, to unseasonal rain events and partly as a result of COVID-19 calling for unusual measures such as restricting quad machines in forested areas and fewer people permitted to go out camping, resulting in fewer human-caused fires.

But there's still been foul atmospheric conditions in Vancouver for the past week. Dense smoke brought by high winds have disrespected the border between Canada and the U.S., bringing dense clouds of saffron-coloured smoke into British Columbia. Our son went canoe-camping for the weekend with a few of his biology grad students over at Sechelt on the Sunshine Coast and the visibility there was about a kilometre, the acrid odour of smoke prevailing.

Many years ago, northern Ontario had a similar situation with fire crews battling to control fierce wildfires and the acrid, dense smoke that resulted was visible in the Ottawa Valley and over to Algonquin Park. It isn't pleasant, but it's nothing compared to the experience of people struggling to escape the wildfires and faced with the prospect of destroyed towns and burnt-down homes in Oregon, Washington State and California.

No such dramas here, thank heavens. We awoke to another cool morning, albeit sunny while also windy. And off we went to the ravine with Jackie and Jillie towing us along. The forest has been well and truly penetrated by our ongoing  rain situation. It had rained without stop yesterday but for a brief early-in-the-day window allowing us to get out for a shorter circuit, after which the rain was unrelenting. Until late afternoon when the sun surprised us by visiting and remaining, a welcomed appearance, until nightfall.

And it stuck around for today, no rain in the near prospect. Even so, the saturated ground will take a lot more than a day or two of sun and wind to dry out. But it's fall, and fall means mushrooms popping up everywhere on the forest floor. Many of them are edible, but you've got to be really confident in your ability to identify which is and which are not harmful. 

New beautifully yellow Amanita muscaria keep appearing, the latest ones with fully rounded caps glowing yellow and often with a tinge of central orange, then the patterned little delicate bumps, while the matured mushroom caps often invert, becoming bowl-like. Invariably we come across flattened caps that had been nibbled not just tentatively but with gusto, so they're serving a purpose for some animals appreciative of the psychotropic properties, indifferent to their toxins, or not suffering from the latter and simply enjoying the former.

 We saw oyster mushrooms maturing on an old tree stump. And dozens of common fungi littering the forest floor in a symbolic vision of a fall forest. Just as well that Jackie and Jillie are disinterested in mushrooms. Kind of odd for two little dogs whose favourite food happens to be a wide variety of raw and cooked vegetables and fruits.