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We’re Living in a Mushroom Kingdom
It wouldn’t be wrong to say Sam Shoemaker crossed the ocean on a mushroom. This August, the Californian artist launched his 14-foot kayak off Catalina Island and paddled for 12 hours across the 26.5-mile Catalina Channel to San Pedro. He says when he lost strength during the last miles, a fin whale appeared and accompanied him. But even more astonishing is the brownish-white boat itself: “a boat made entirely from a single mushroom growing outside my studio,” Shoemaker explains — the world’s largest mushroom boat.
Sam Shoemaker in his mushroom boat on August 5, 2025. Credit: Jordan Freeman / Fulcrum Arts.
He built it from wild Ganoderma polypore collected near his LA studio, propagated in a hemp-and-sawdust substrate for about four weeks, molded into kayak form and dried until it became “a strong, hydrophobic and inert, cork-like material.” Mycelium, the interconnected root network of a fungus such as Ganoderma polypore, can grow to hundreds of acres. The boat was sealed with locally sourced beeswax, using no synthetic materials or hardwood.
Shoemaker’s multiyear project wasn’t commercial — he is simply interested in demonstrating mushrooms’ potential. His invention is part of AquaFung, a term coined — and a movement inspired — by artist Phil Ross that hopes to one day replace Styrofoam and other materials that go into water with fungi, as part of the nonprofit Open Fung. In their quest, Shoemaker and Ross are members of a sprouting global community of artists, engineers, high-end designers and environmentalists, intent on producing sustainable inventions from mushrooms.
The mushroom boat in development. Credit: Sam Shoemaker.
For Ross, mycelium is not just a material but a mystery and companion. “I literally live with the mushrooms,” he says, pulling out examples in his home in the woods near Santa Cruz, including brown surfboards he shaped from mycelium. “Mushrooms are in my house, in bags on the counter. I take them on walks to rivers and beaches.”
Fungi, he argues, are inherently democratic. “They’re everywhere. They eat garbage at room temperature. If we can formalize that information, you’ll be able to grow vital things out of what you now throw away, without shipping it around the world.”
The post We’re Living in a Mushroom Kingdom appeared first on Reasons to be Cheerful.
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