As shafts of rare winter sunlight shoot through the tree canopy, Charles Lefevre is roving through an orchard of hazelnut trees, the small blemishes and mini-topography of the soil locked in the crosshairs of his gaze. He’s in search of the forest’s buried treasure, the highly sought after Oregon truffles that grow in symbiosis with the roots of the trees. But he doesn’t bother to dig. Instead he scans the surface for the tiniest permutations and undulations. Voles, squirrels and other varmints, drawn to the siren song of the truffles’ aroma, leave behind tiny vestiges of their foraging, traces few people other than Lefevre can detect.

Like an astrologist who sees the future in the vapors of the stars, Lefevre has a sixth sense for truffles. On this day, however, he’s concerned his intuition might have failed him.

Lefevre’s a mycologist (or mushroom scientist) by training and a laboratory rat by nature, but at this moment he’s more of a tour guide or an MC. It’s a role he admits he doesn’t relish.

Every year he hosts the Oregon Truffle Festival as a way to celebrate the local truffles, improve their status in the culinary world and to meet potential customers, Some eventually dole out thousands of dollars to buy his truffle trees with the intent of starting their own farm

For the first time this year, he found a vineyard that agreed to let the festival attendees participate in a bona-fide truffle foray with trained truffle dogs. He sees the dogs as a key to the growth of the Oregon truffle industry and planned the foray to highlight their truffle-detecting skill.

 “I was just out here a week ago, and there were plenty of truffles,” Lefevre says, concern in his voice as he sniffs an impostor mushroom someone has unearthed by mistake. “We might have missed the season.”

He’s surrounded by some forty truffle hunters who are scattered among the hazelnut trees located on the grounds of a vineyard just south of Salem, Oregon. Most are middle-aged, graying and dressed in high-end adventure clothing, though a few wear polished leather loafers that are quickly becoming covered in dirt.

Darting around the bare trunks of the trees is the golden retriever Rousek, followed by his handler Pierre Rivard, a burly, bearded trainer from Bergin University of Canine Studies. The California school has long trained seeing eye-dogs, but just recently became the first North American institution to specialize in truffle dog research.

Rivard blows bubbles to test the direction of the wind, and Rousek wags his tail as he trots from tree to tree, apparently uninspired by any of their scents.

Even though the dogs are supposed to be doing the work, the spongy, easily punctured soil and the allure of truffles prove too irresistible. The festival attendees are crouched on all fours, their hands among the trees’ roots, panning for organic gold, the white truffle. Considered more provincial by top chefs, Oregon truffles usually sell for $200 a pound, while European varieties such as the French Perigord can fetch as much as $1,000 or more. This continental divide in truffle value amounts, in Lefevre’s mind, to little more than fungal bigotry, and Lefevre’s annual festival could be seen as sensitivity training.

However, Lefevre is a bit duplicitous in this regard. As one of North America’s few sellers of truffle trees, Lefevre only inoculates his tree roots with spores from European species. Until the Oregon truffle is more highly valued, he has to live this schizophrenic life to make his business profitable.

He has lived in Oregon for most of his life and found solace, meaning and endless curiosities in its refulgent woodlands. He sees himself as inextricably linked to its soil, its rocks and its air.

“I’m of this place, and the perception of this place can affect me,” he says. “The people in southern France are that place. They’re a product of the earth just like the wine. It’s a sense that Americans have totally lost, but I think we can have that again.”  

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