- Up next on "Borealis."

(upbeat rock music) The thrill of whitewater paddling.

Maine's racing community is trying to grow their sport with the help of a new river park planned for Central Maine.

Maine is famous for its registered Maine guides but only a small fraction are women.

We'll meet a few trainees hoping to boost their numbers and you don't have to go far to find edible mushrooms.

We head into the woods with an expert mushroom forager.

Stay with us.

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From our forest to our rivers to the Gulf of Maine, learn more at nature.org/joinmaine.

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Over the past two decades, investing more than $12 million in the place that we call home.

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- You guys ready to hike?

(upbeat rock music) ♪ I wanna get lost in the wilderness of you darling ♪ ♪ I wanna get lost in the rivers and the roads ♪ ♪ Get you up on the mountainside ♪ ♪ And we can just climb ♪ - Hello, I'm Aislinn Sarnacki and this is "Borealis."

I love paddling, whether it's kayaking, canoeing, or standup paddle boarding but I usually stick to pretty calm water like this section here on the Penobscot River in Hampton.

However, there are people all over the state that love seeking out whitewater and big rapids and they've been working hard to expand their sport.

(bright funky music) - Thanks everybody for coming out.

Well, we're gonna have, for safety, a couple folks in dead moose eddy below the staircase so if you come outta your boat at exterminator or below, we'll pick you up in the eddy below.

Have fun and take chances.

Paddle fast.

Hope everybody has a safe race.

(water rushing) - [Aislinn] At the Maine Whitewater Championships, the Ripogenus Gorge on the Penobscot River, Maine's most experienced kayakers race down class four whitewater.

(water rushing) The championships are actually a series of races that take place over two weekends on Maine's two most popular rivers.

The first races take place on the Kennebec.

The second set here on the Penobscot feature the iconic rapid known as the Cribworks.

(water rushing) (kayakers cheering) The water is relatively warm in the Penobscot in August.

That is by Maine whitewater standards.

(viewers cheering) (upbeat rock music) But back in April on the Souadabscook Stream in Hampden, it was a different story.

Waters were frigid for the Eliot Lamb memorial race, which kicks off Maine's competitive whitewater paddling season.

- I think just showcasing the great whitewater that Maine has.

A lot of people don't even know about these two streams that are right here in Bangor.

Today we're paddling the Souadabscook.

Tomorrow we're paddling the marsh.

They're both really nice quality class two, three whitewater, so really nice streams.

- It's always a blast.

I love it.

I love this race.

This is one of my favorites for sure.

- [Aislinn] Chris Sawyer looks forward to this race all winter long.

- I mean, you definitely, little bit of an adrenaline junkie, I'm sure.

It still gets my heart going, that's why I'm still doing it.

It's a whole lot funner than a lot of other things and like reasonably cheap too.

Once you have your gear, all you gotta do is get to the river.

- I started as a raft guide when I was in college which is a great summer job.

It's- - Alex Horne is an eye doctor and also a professional sponsored kayaker.

She first learned how to paddle here on the streams and rivers in Central Maine.

- All right, we have six safety spots today.

- [Aislinn] Now she's one of the race organizers for the Maine Canoe and Kayak Racing Organization which puts on a dozen down river whitewater races each year.

(viewers cheering) - Maine has this great community of kayakers and canoeists that really took me in when I was starting to kayak and they taught me how to go downstream and do all of this.

And I kind of think about it in that way, like, how can I get the younger generation to get really involved in this.

If you need somebody to kind of take you under their wing and show you what to do.

So the Maine community is awesome and I just think that we have so much to offer with whitewater here.

I really just wanna spread awareness about it.

- [Aislinn] Many recreational whitewater paddlers get started as raft guides, including John McDonald, or Johnny Mac who's a legend in this world.

At this race, he's acting in the role of safety.

- Basically, I'm standing on the side of the river watching for people swimming and boats going over and giving them a hand, pulling them ashore with a throw bag.

- [Aislinn] This race is a tricky one with two major sets of rapids.

- [Johnny] The fast racers, they came through here no problem.

The rest of the crew that paddled the dead water and then we had two boats that they had a little bit of a swim.

- [Aislinn] Even experienced racers like Chris Sawyer emerged with stories to tell.

- [Chris] I knew the approach that I wanted to take.

I wanted to be slightly more to the right and I wasn't.

And I was like, okay, well here we go.

And I got swamped on that first wave where I hit.

It just swapped me and then the next wave turned me and the next wave flipped me over.

I already knew I was going over before it happened.

- It gets my adrenaline going.

It's an addiction.

I don't know what else to say.

It is an addiction and everyone you saw out there today, they're hardcore.

- Local paddlers are eager for their sport to grow in Maine and they've got big plans, including the construction of a whitewater park in Skowhegan.

- [Kristina] In Skowhegan, our river park will enable you to actually kayak or surf right in our downtown river gorge.

So essentially the river park plan is to enhance the whitewater that we already have in the Kennebec River and make it usable and turn it into a kayak hole or a surfable green wave right in our downtown river gorge.

- [Aislinn] Kristina Cannon is the president and CEO of Maine Street Skowhegan.

She helped raise more than $7 million for the construction of the park.

- It's a huge project.

It has taken about 20 years to get to where we are right now, starting with a feasibility study in 2005, a economic impact study in 2016.

And now we're in the permitting process.

- [Aislinn] Not only will this river be transformed but the landscape around it will be too.

Right now the river here is largely inaccessible.

This project will make it easier to reach with accessible paths that can be used by wheelchairs.

- We're really lucky in Skowhegan to have land adjacent to our downtown that is wooded and has some trails on it already.

So we were like, let's just expand our trail network and we're anticipating about 50 miles of trails, all accessible via our downtown.

- [Aislinn] Cannon believes the river park will transform Skowhegan, the region, and the sport of whitewater paddling.

- There's a great market in this area for whitewater paddling in general.

We are so close to some of the best whitewater rafting on the east coast and a couple of really great whitewater rivers, the west branch of the Penobscot and the Kennebec River and the forks.

And I think that we're just gonna see the whitewater sport grow in Maine overall.

- The unique thing about our park is we're halfway down the Kennebec River.

We have so much drainage upstream of us that we're gonna be, I think, the highest volume Whitewater Park built, at least around here.

The other one that is similar is in Georgia, it's pretty high volume, but we'll be higher volume than probably 95% of the whitewater parks ever built.

- When we can get 'em paddling when they're young, usually they end up being lifelong paddlers.

It has picked up, you know, there's a lot of enthusiasm.

If they ever developed that whitewater park in Skowhegan which I think is really gonna be done, that's gonna attract a lot of people, a lot of business, and it'd be just great for the whole whitewater community.

- Whitewater competitors believe their sport is about to take off and can't wait to see the future homegrown champions setting the pace on the Penobscot, Kennebec, and other thrilling waterways of Maine.

Fun fact, the Penobscot River is the longest waterway entirely in the state of Maine.

Maine's other major waterways spend some time in New Hampshire or along the border of Canada.

A few years ago I achieved a long-term goal of becoming a registered Maine guide.

And did you know the first registered Maine guide was a woman, Cornelia Fly Rod Crosby.

However, today, only about one in six guides are women but our numbers are growing thanks in part to a training program in Mattawamkeag.

Patty Wight takes us there.

(light gentle music) - [Patty] If you wanna lead people on trips in the woods and waters of Maine, you have to be ready for any situation, including rescuing a capsized canoe.

This is a practice scenario, but knowing how to respond is critical for a registered Maine guide.

It's one of the many skills taught at Maine's Outdoor Learning Center in Mattawamkeag where these women start their day.

- Registered Maine guide testing is probably the toughest outdoor test in the nation.

- [Patty] John Rogers runs the center with his wife Tami.

It's one of about two dozen organizations in Maine that offer guide training.

The eight women here are going for their recreational certification and to earn it, they'll have to pass a 100 question written test and an intense oral exam.

- You sit before an oral board.

An oral board that's gonna question you probably for a good hour on map and compass skills and a lot of scenarios.

- [Patty] To prepare for the exam, they spend a week training from breakfast to bedtime.

As they sit down to French toast, Rogers quizzes them on everything from naming the Maine state flower to what a red buoy indicates.

- It's on the left side of the channel.

- What side of the channel?

I'm not a big fan of asking questions that I know you know the answer to, quite the opposite.

- Because that won't make good guides, he says.

It requires deep knowledge and experience.

These women are more than halfway through their training.

They've been practicing navigation, knot tying, and first aid.

Today they're gonna head to the river to practice canoeing and rescues.

They take advantage of calm water at the beginning of the trip to work on different paddle strokes.

(water sloshing) - This is the backwards J.

- [Patty] And learn poling, a traditional technique that tests their balance.

- Just get a feel for how it's standing in a canoe.

- [Patty] This is the first time some have ever tried it but Lillian Frank of Ellsworth says being with a group of women makes it less intimidating.

- It does take some of the pressure off when you're just surrounded by all of these super empowering women who are just, you know 100% like they're cheering you on and you don't get that always, you know, with co-ed groups.

- [Patty] Frank is studying oceanographic science at Bowdoin College where she's also active in the outing club.

She hopes to combine her interests into a career and she convinced her mom Gretchen Weisner to sign up too.

- I'm more cautious as I've gotten older and I think this will give me some confidence.

- [Patty] Other women are making or contemplating a career switch from jobs in real estate and accounting so they can spend more time outside.

Nikki Lewis of Bangor is an artist.

She wants to lead art trips that help people reconnect with nature.

- We get further from it every day.

The more technological advances we have, the less time we spend outside, the more uncomfortable we get.

- [Patty] These women all want to help others feel comfortable in the outdoors, but to do that, they first need to step out of their own comfort zones.

- I've spent a lot of time on the water in boats.

I'm actually a marine scientist, that's my profession, but I haven't run a river in a canoe.

- [Patty] As the women run a set of rapids, they practice reading the river, recognizing patterns that indicate where to go and obstacles to avoid.

They navigate the rapids successfully including Casie Frederick of Skowhegan.

She's an avid backpacker but was apprehensive about her abilities with other skills.

- I think what I've liked most about this week is feeling empowered.

There's been a lot of things that I was really nervous and intimidated about coming in.

So specifically map and compass and a lot of the skills that we had to execute today.

- You know, a lot of people come and they expect like it's gonna be, oh, this grilling and it's gonna be this drill sergeant type mentality.

- [Patty] Master Maine guide Greg Sarnacki has been teaching at the center for nearly 20 years.

- You know, the hands-on portion makes everything fun and you start to learn things without even realizing that you're learning them.

- [Patty] Karen Mairs says some practical experiences that are initially exasperating are ultimately the most satisfying.

What's been the hardest part about this week?

- Stupid fire.

Making a fire from scratch with birch bark and a flint was extremely hard.

Yeah.

But we did it and we all did it.

- [Patty] What's been the best part?

- Making the stupid fire work.

- [Patty] They cap off this river day with another challenge, T rescues.

(water splashing) - Whoa.

- [Patty] Where they right a capsized canoe and help its occupants get back in.

- I love that.

- Isn't that awesome?

(viewers cheering) (viewers applauding) - [Patty] Beyond the technical skills, Tami Rogers says this week-long training instills in these women something else that's essential to being a Maine guide.

- They're all together for a whole week and I think that camaraderie instills what a guide needs to be with all walks of life.

So you're stepping in with people that you don't know just as you would as a Maine guide.

And you learn to know the ins and outs of a person.

- I think it's a connection with people.

You have to be able to go out and bond with people and you know, control what you can control.

You can't control the weather, you can't control the resource.

You can control the food.

You can control your personality.

You can control the fun that you have.

- [Patty] So what do these women say it takes to become a registered Maine guide?

- Grit.

- Yeah, I think grit and curiosity.

- [Patty] And one more thing says Karen Zimmerman of Otter Creek, who's coming out of retirement to become a guide.

- Passion.

Just wanting to do it.

I think the skills are things that anybody can acquire but wanting to share this amazing planet that we live on with other people and have them appreciate it, maybe.

- [Patty] For "Borealis," I'm Patty Wight.

- Guide schools!

(all laughing) - Did you know there's a new statue of Fly Rod Crosby on display at the Maine department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife Building in Augusta.

It was carved by New Hampshire artist, Brian Stockman.

(light gentle music) You don't have to go far in Maine to come across one of nature's edible wonders.

Mushrooms are bound all over, even in towns and suburbs.

One example is Vaughan Woods in Hallowell.

Esta Pratt-Kielley takes us on a field trip.

(light gentle music) - [Esta] We're in the Vaughan Woods in Hallowell foraging for mushrooms.

(leaves crunching) After traversing only about 30 yards or so off the trail, we've already hit the jackpot.

- The thing about black trumpets, they can blend in so well to the leaf litter.

And when you see them, it's just like a, I jump up and down with joy.

- [Esta] Our guide Greg Marley harvests a few, dropping them into a paper bag.

He plans to cook with them and bring some to an upcoming class he's teaching - [Greg] Those I leave, they're getting too mature.

- [Esta] Marley has been teaching and leading foraging workshops for more than 30 years and he's written two books about mushrooms.

- Mushrooms mean so much to my life in terms of my accessing nature in a really healthy way, in terms of delicious food.

It's an intellectual pursuit, you know, to engage my mind in research.

It's a way of sharing passions around the world.

It's a way of pulling together a community, a community of people that are interested in mushrooms here in Maine, here in the United States, across the world.

More than anything else, it's a way into nature.

- [Esta] Maine is home to more than 2,000 different species of mushrooms and more are discovered every year.

- So when you compare that to the several hundred birds or the three or 400 plant species, the abundance and the diversity is huge.

- [Esta] The mushrooms found poking out of brush or on the underbelly of dead trees are just the tip of the wild mostly underground and largely mysterious universe of fungi.

- [Greg] All mushrooms are fungi, but not all fungi, in fact, most fungi are not mushrooms.

- [Esta] Fungi and mushrooms are essential for the health of forests.

And as the most forested state in the country, they play a big role in Maine's natural world.

- There's a lot of mushrooms that we call sapros.

They rot things and it's their job to rot the dead leaves and needles and twigs and logs to recycle the nutrients that get bound up in the plant tissue.

So they're undertakers for plants.

There's hundreds of mushrooms that grow symbiotically with trees and other plants.

More than 90% of our green plants require those symbiotic relationships.

They're called mycorrhizal.

And without them our forests would languish.

- [Esta] This mycorrhizal network communicates, exchanges nutrients, and allocates resources through mycelium, tiny threads that wrap around roots and connect individual plants and trees together.

Some researchers compare this network to the human brain's neural pathways or the Internet's connectivity.

- We are finding great mushrooms in just a very small area.

- [Esta] Marley discovers oyster mushrooms growing on a nearby tree and yellow foot chanterelles popping outta the brush.

Marley says these mushrooms are a great starting point for beginner foragers in Maine.

- I think everybody should look and discover the foolproof few for their area and across all of Maine and New England, golden chanterelles and the yellow foot chanterelles, the black trumpets, the oyster mushrooms, the larger puff balls, those are easy, foolproof mushrooms.

- [Esta] Foragers can find around 200 edible mushrooms in Maine but another 200 or so are known to be toxic, Marley says.

- And some people unfortunately have said, oh, a mushroom that beautiful must be good to eat.

And they've gotten very, very ill.

So no shortcuts.

Learn your mushrooms.

- Mushrooms are growing in popularity in Maine.

People forage them in the woods, cook tasty meals.

Some are even growing their own and others are exploring the potential health benefits.

- [Louis] See that?

- [Esta] In Westbrook, Louis Giller is foraging for a pheasant back mushroom to bring back to the lab where he works, a company called North Spore.

- Yeah.

All right.

Oh wow, my knife slides right in, which is a great sign.

It means this mushroom is totally good for eating.

That cut really easily.

It's very moist.

Stage one complete.

We've harvested our cerioporus squamosus, pheasant back mushroom.

The specimen is just perfect.

- [Esta] North Spore produces and sells kits to companies, farmers and individuals who want to grow their own mushrooms.

Back at the lab, Giller carefully collects a sample from the mushroom.

- [Louis] You don't need much, more than enough right there.

- [Esta] The process will eventually create mycelium which will be expanded on grain, sawdust or logs that are then used to grow mushrooms.

- And we're taking that mycelium and we're growing fruiting bodies.

And so the fruiting bodies are just that reproductive organ.

Those are the mushrooms.

Welcome to the mycological world.

- [Esta] North Spore started in 2014 and it's grown significantly as mushrooms get more popular in the state.

- I think mushroom culture in Maine is really strong.

We've got a lot of nature here.

We are a state that is really independent thinking and forward thinking and being part of the new like mushroom zeitgeist is right up our alley.

- You can find many mushroom lovers foraging in the woods but we also caught up with a few at the annual Fungi Fest in Portland.

(bright upbeat music) - We're here because we love mushrooms.

Yeah, showing off this beautiful piece of chaga that was gifted to me by a fellow maner.

I feel like mushrooms play a huge role in kind of reconnecting us as a human species back to the earth.

- Anything mycelium related, I'm very interested in not only for the aesthetic, but the medicinal benefits of it.

So it speaks to my core self.

- [Esta] Here's how popular mushrooms are in Maine.

Fungi Fest drew a crowd of nearly 1,500 people this year.

The keynote speaker, author and mycologist Christopher Hobbs believes everyone should incorporate more mushrooms into their diet.

- They are really a nutritional powerhouse and one of the most complete foods that we can eat.

- [Greg] We've known as a culture, and historically for hundreds of years, that mushrooms are good for you.

We know that people who integrate mushrooms into their diet on a regular basis live longer.

- [Esta] Marley hikes out of the woods after what he says was a successful day, gathering plenty of mushrooms to cook with and use in his upcoming classes.

- Attitudes about collecting and using mushroom is totally cultural.

America for a long time was mycophobic, we feared mushrooms.

And we're on this trajectory very fast to embracing them for food, for medicine, for expansion of the mind.

So there's this excitement that's out there that is palpable.

- [Esta] And we can catch a small glimpse of this energy if we just take a stroll through the Maine woods.

For "Borealis," I'm Esta Pratt-Kielley.

- I rarely go anywhere without my camera.

You never know what you're gonna find out in the wilderness.

And one of my favorite things to photograph is mushrooms.

Recently I came across some amazing mushrooms at Branch Lake Public Forest in Ellsworth.

This mushroom is a violet coral.

And here are some beauties I found near Little Wilson Falls on the Appalachian Trail in Elliotsville Township.

And check out these amazing mushrooms on the forest floor of Ferry Landing Natural Area in Brooksville.

My tips for getting good shots of mushrooms are first slow down.

You won't see them if you're zipping along.

And second, get low, right on the ground if you want the best perspective.

So if you see me out on the trail lying on the ground, that's probably the reason why.

And you don't have to have a positive ID if you're just photographing mushrooms.

It's not like foraging.

Some of my favorite are of the amanita genus which is actually a bit toxic for people.

But you might recognize it as a Super Mario mushroom.

And you don't need the fanciest camera to photograph mushrooms.

In fact, I often use my cell phone and turn it upside down to get the best view from the stalk of the mushroom.

(light gentle music) On the next "Borealis."

We catch waves in Kennebunk with some special surfers.

(surfers cheering) Mountain bike enthusiasts build a network of trails in Greenville.

- We think it's gonna be a big benefit to get the youth and the community riding.

- [Aislinn] Researchers in Booth Bay Harbor unlock some of the mysteries of phytoplankton.

- But a lot of people don't realize the importance of these organisms.

- [Aislinn] And we join the irrepressible Enock Glidden on one of his favorite days of the year.

- I like to get people outside who are like me and tell them that these places exist.

- For more "Borealis," head over to Maine Public's YouTube page.

You can find this episode there as well as others you might have missed.

And there's special YouTube only content too.

You can see how a Maine fishing guide ties his fly onto a line with a clinch knot.

The head of the Maine Appalachian Trail Club shows us the tools he uses to maintain a section of the trail.

And videographer Rebecca Conley gets close enough to record a loon vocalizing several different distinctive cries.

(loon crying) As we say goodbye, we leave you in the skies over Gardiner.

Thank you for joining us for "Borealis."

We hope you'll come back.

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