While detailed oral histories of First Nations use of indigenous herbs, plants and trees for medicine and nutrition are pervasive, very little detail of North American aboriginal uses of mushrooms is available. The reasons for this seem self-explanatory.

First, most mushrooms and fungi have little taste, sparse nutritional value and limited availability due to their short seasons. Because they did not provide remedy for ailment, their rarity did not provide a stimulus to search them out as medicinal aids. In fact, because such a wide variety of fungi and mushrooms are poisonous, they were more likely to be avoided than sought after.

Second, most mushrooms, including morels, need to be cooked to be palatable. Bordering on bland, even bitter, raw mushrooms would not have been desirable for most natives. In fact, many of the mushrooms have a mild adverse reaction when raw, and can only be eaten when cooked. During hunting or while in transit, First Nations people preferred "fast food" on the fly.

Third, most morels and other mushrooms do not handle well in transit. They crush easily, bleed into a soupy mess, or dissolve into nothing in hours in the heat.

Nonetheless, many of the woodland and upland tribes of North America have some history of using early spring crops of morels, hens of the woods, and other quick-blooming mushrooms as a supplement to their meals. For example, northern Cree, Sioux, Ojibwa and Iroquois tribes used morels by drying and powdering them to carry with them. There are documented cases of use of certain mushrooms in rituals and sweat lodge events (probably to trigger out-of-body types of imaginings and hallucinations).

The first extensive use of morels in Canada occurred as settlers moved west, with the courier du bois of the Hudson Bay Company and the early Scottish, land later Ukrainian settlers of northern Ontario and Manitoba using morels and other mushrooms as they had in Europe. In the USA, the history of morel harvesting and other mushroom hunting extends back to early Virginia settler days, but is more commonly found in American history with the westward settlements from the north-eastern states.

Although the natives of Canada's western regions and border states of Montana, Dakotas and Minnesota have a generous history of aiding white settlers with disease and winter survival strategies, this cooperation is not documented in a passing of information on harvests of morels and mushrooms until the late 1800s and early 20th century. In fact, many of the uses to which morels are currently put by First Nations people come from white influence!

Native Americans were adept at using almost any element of their surroundings to assist in survival. No doubt, use of morels in meals occurred, but the documentation of this practice is limited.