Wildcrafted Wellness: Foraging Herbs and Mushrooms on Vancouver Island

by Melissa Horrell

There’s a special kind of alchemy that happens when you let the Island lead you — through moss-covered trails, forest light, and the scent of cedar smoke and salt air. On a recent trip to Victoria, I found myself drawn to a little shop called Spiral Scents, its door tucked between cafés and galleries. Inside, shelves overflowed with wild herbs, oils, and mushrooms — a reminder that wellness here begins with what the land gives us.

The air was thick with the aroma of lavender and sweetgrass. The store clerk and I talked about how everything in that tiny room — from the golden calendula oil to the clusters of dried mushrooms — had been gathered with intention. I left feeling inspired to reconnect with the source of healing itself: the forests and fields of Vancouver Island.

 The Art of Wildcrafted Wellness

Wildcrafted wellness is more than a trend here — it’s a way of life. Islanders have long understood that nature provides both medicine and meaning. To walk through these forests is to walk through an open-air apothecary: yarrow lining the paths, nettle leaves reaching out from damp soil, cedar branches holding the scent of rain.

Each season brings its own rhythm. Spring offers tender greens like nettle, chickweed, and dandelion — cleansing herbs that wake up the body after winter. Summer fills baskets with wildflowers, berries, and aromatic plants like lavender and mint. Autumn brings the earthy abundance of mushrooms — chanterelles, reishi, turkey tail — and winter teaches stillness, the time for roots and conifers, when we gather cedar tips and pine needles for teas.

The visit to Spiral Scents stayed with me long after I left Victoria. The herbalist and I spoke about foraging, about how much of Vancouver Island’s magic lies not just in its forests, but in knowing how to walk them. There’s an etiquette to gathering: take only what you need, thank the land, and leave enough for the next season — and for the wildlife who depend on it.

Mushrooms: The Island’s Hidden Healers

It’s no surprise that Vancouver Island has become a haven for mushroom enthusiasts. The mild, damp climate is perfect for fungi, and the diversity here is astonishing. On a single morning hike, you might find oyster mushrooms growing from alder trunks, coral fungi rising from mossy logs, and clusters of medicinal reishi glowing a deep rust-red.

A few weeks after my visit to Spiral Scents, a friend invited me to join her in Campbell River for a weekend of foraging. We set out early, baskets and thermoses in hand, the air cool and misty with that unmistakable autumn scent of rain and cedar. She showed me her favourite spots — secret groves tucked away off forest service roads — where chanterelles peeked through moss like little suns, and reishi mushrooms clung to the sides of decaying logs, deep and glossy as lacquer.

We spoke softly as we walked, both out of reverence and focus. There’s something meditative about scanning the forest floor, attuning your eyes to subtle shapes and colours. My friend taught me how the land changes through the year — where to look for early spring shoots, how to read the forest for summer berries, and which tree roots signal the arrival of fall mushrooms. Each season, she said, offers its own kind of healing, if you learn to listen.

By the end of the day, our baskets were filled, our hearts even more so. That trip to Campbell River reminded me how much of wildcrafted wellness is about connection — to the land, yes, but also to one another. Foraging becomes a way of remembering that community and nature are never separate.

From Forest to Apothecary

After my walk through the woods, I returned home with a basket full of inspiration — and a few precious bottles I’d picked up from Spiral Scents. The labels told stories: “Wildcrafted Cedar & Rose Mist,” “Reishi Immune Elixir,” “Mushroom Tonic for Vitality.” Each was made from locally gathered plants, infused slowly with care and intention.

Unpacking them, I realized how beautifully the cycle completes itself. The herbalist gathers from the forest, the apothecary bottles that wisdom, and we carry it home — not just as a product, but as a piece of the land’s spirit. Wildcrafted wellness isn’t only about what we take; it’s about how we listen.

I thought of that conversation in Spiral Scents — about mushrooms and meaning, and how healing isn’t something we buy, but something we cultivate through connection. When we work with the land instead of against it, our wellness deepens.

 A Practice of Presence

Foraging invites slowness. You can’t rush through the woods if you want to see what’s really there. You have to notice the subtle — the shift in scent when you step near mushrooms, the shimmer of dew on a wild mint leaf, the hum of bees near a patch of yarrow.

There’s a humility to it. You kneel, you observe, you wait. It’s a meditation disguised as movement. And when you bring those ingredients home — to dry, to steep, to blend into your own tinctures or teas — you carry the forest with you.

It’s not about perfection or expertise; it’s about presence. The same courage it takes to explore new trails is the courage it takes to trust your intuition, to craft your own path to wellness.

Returning to the Source

When I think back to that afternoon at Spiral Scents, the scent of cedar and lavender still lingers. It felt like a doorway — a reminder that nature is always offering her medicine if we slow down long enough to receive it.

On Vancouver Island, wildcrafted wellness isn’t just a practice; it’s a relationship. Between forest and heart. Between herbalist and healer. Between the seen and unseen.

And so, I keep wandering — basket in hand, senses open — guided by the belief that the simplest things, gathered with love, hold the deepest magic.