GOLDEN KNIFE –
From rosehip ketchup to wild boar fat, food businesses across Northern Canada are finding unique ways to use local ingredients.
Niki Mackenzie is the chef and owner of Fishy People, a restaurant and slaughterhouse in Yellowknife that uses fish from nearby Great Slave Lake, among its locally harvested foods.
“There’s so much food here in front of us, and with the way the world is running, I find it strange that we don’t use more,” Mackenzie said.
Mackenzie says she takes everything the local fisherman catches and uses every part. Among her specialties are fish sausage, fish ham, salmon pastrami, fisheye fries and “northern squid” made from the stomach of white fish. She also makes bacon with birch syrup and fennel seeds, capers from spruce tops, peppercorns from roasted juniper, and ketchup from rosehips.
“Now I have regular clients who come here every week and are always excited to see the weird and wacky things I have created.”
Indigenous peoples of the North have long lived off the land, harvesting foods like reindeer, berries and fish. But many residents of the territories depend on imported food and experience unusually high rates of food insecurity. That is attributed to limited transport networks, socioeconomic inequalities, legacy of colonial policies, climate change and environmental pollution.
Many food producers in the region are hoping to change that.
France Benoit, who runs Le Refuge Farm in Yellowknife, grows a variety of vegetables and herbs. She uses them in products like soups and sauces, and sells them at home and at farmers markets.
“For me, it’s about taking on environmental responsibility for what I’m doing,” she said.
“Having locally grown produce here helps reduce climate change and our greenhouse gas emissions ΓǪ It’s about trying to build food security and food sovereignty as much as possible.”
Bush Order Provides, run by Marie Auger-Thomas and Kyle Thomas, is a garden market, bakery and farm store in Yellowknife.
Vegetables and greens are sold directly to the consumer and used in baked goods. They also sell products from other Northern food producers such as jams, condiments and fish.
Anything they don’t use or sell is composted.
“If we can offset our reliance on trucking food, even a small amount, that would be a boon for our entire food system,” says Thomas.
The couple is also inspiring others to produce their own food. That includes working with students who run a cafe in the Tlicho community in Whati northwest of Yellowknife, where they hope to make their own bagels.
The 2021 Agricultural Census says there are eight farms in the Northwest Territories.
Various trees and berries also grow naturally throughout the territory, and residents can hunt animals such as elk and bison.
After Mike Mitchell learned to collect birch sap and turn it into syrup from Metis Elder Frederick Beaulieau in Hay River, he and Craig Scott started Arctic Harvest in 2010. Since then, they’ve harvested the trees right away. outside Yellowknife each spring, with permission from the Yellowknives Dene First Nation, to produce the Sapsucker Birch Syrup and teach others the practice.
“Food security is a big issue in the North,” Scott said, noting that there is only one road in and out of Yellowknife. “I’m not saying birch syrup is going to feed everyone in the NWT or anything, but we have to learn to feed ourselves.”
The 2021 census says there are 88 Yukon farms that produce crops, milk, eggs and meat.
The Landed Bakehouse in Whitehorse uses wheat and barley grown by Yukon Valley Farms, milk from Sunnyside Farms, eggs from Mandalay Farms, and meat from The Farm Gate.
Simone Rudge, her husband and son own Tum Tum’s Black Gilt Meats, a butcher and charcuterie in Whitehorse that supplies meat from Yukon farms. Along with the usual cuts of meat, they also offer offal, bone broth and products like wild boar butter, meat crackers and biltong, a South African-style dried meat.
“Raising cattle in the North is expensive,” said Rudge, who also owns and operates Mount Aurora Ranch. “To get the maximum value out of an animal, you need to use all of them.”
In Nunavut, there are no farms but many Inuit people hunt and fish. Local foods such as musk, seal, arctic coal and whale skin and whale fat can also be purchased at Nunavut Country Food in Iqaluit or Kitikmeot Foods in Cambridge Bay.
Warren de Bruin, food and beverage consultant for Nova Hotel Group, says his team tries to make use of the local cuisine at The Discovery in Iqaluit. The hotel’s restaurant, the Granite Room, offers dishes featuring seasonally available items including arctic coal and reindeer from the territory’s hunters.
“It’s extremely popular, especially with the local community in Iqaluit.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published on May 22, 2023.
This story was produced with the financial support of Meta and the Canadian Press News Scholarship.
