Tag: eat local

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Cooking with CropBox Greens

By Miche Genest

Greens, greens and more greens. Local. In winter.
I picked up my first Solvest Inc. CropBox subscription order of fresh, local, hydroponically grown greens on January 23 at Baked Café in Whitehorse, located a 10-minute walk from my house (convenient!). For the uninitiated, the CropBox System is a portable, hydroponic greenhouse system, entirely contained in a sea can, developed by Vertical Crop Consultants, an American company based in North Carolina. Solvest Inc., a Whitehorse- and Yellowknife-based company that sells custom solar energy systems, is the Canadian provider and distributor of the CropBox system.

Solvest Inc. has a particular interest in the viability of the system for growing fresh greens in remote northern locations. The company installed its first CropBox unit in Whitehorse in the spring of 2018, and is tweaking the system for optimal production in cold climates. And they are selling the crops — fresh lettuces, kales, chards, herbs — produced in the unit to Whitehorse residents and some restaurants on a weekly or bi-weekly basis. I am a brand new subscriber.

A couple of other subscribers arrived at the cafe at the same time as I. They clearly knew the ropes — one had a clutch of breathable string bags with her and the other a small cooler. (Customers are asked to bring their own bags or containers and transfer their order from the company’s refillable boxes at the pick-up point, part of Solvest Inc.’s effort to be a zero-waste operation. ) Next time I too will bring a cooler, easier than bags because you can lift the whole clump of greens out of the box and put them into the cooler, which insulates the greens if you’re transporting them in cold temperatures, and then sort them at home.

The smell of the fresh greens when I opened the box  was intoxicating — pungent, sweet, peppery — a complex blend of fragrances emanating from  basil, dill and arugula that was utterly uplifting at five o’clock on a winter afternoon. This first box contained butter lettuce, rainbow chard, and the arugula, Thai basil, Genovese basil (the classic pesto basil), and dill that were causing my nose to twitch. The total weight was 400 grams; though the mix of fresh greens varies from week to week the weight remains the same, and so does the price — $15 for 400 grams. That amount is calculated to  be enough to feed one or two people. Tarek Bos-Jabbar, who coordinates the CropBox program and operates the unit in Whitehorse, harvests greens such as chard, lettuce and arugula by cutting leaves from the plant.

With herbs, he generally harvests the entire plant, with the root plug attached. Once you get the CropBox order home, there are a few things to sort out. If the herbs come complete with plug, theoretically you can place them in a jar of water and they’ll continue growing. I haven’t yet tried this, but a Whitehorse friend who has subscribed to Cropbox since December reports anecdotally she hasn’t been successful at keeping the herbs going; they tend to wilt fairly soon.

My herbs came without a plug. I cut a couple of millimetres off the ends of the Genovese basil and dill stems and stood them in cold water, but they wilted in a few hours. I think the old trick of refreshing herbs and greens in ice-cold water, and then wrapping them in a tea towel and putting them in a re-sealable bag in the fridge is the way to go. The lettuce I treated this way is still crisp and crunchy, six days after pick-up.

There were a few wilted leaves among each crop but those went straight into a bag in the freezer and, once the bag fills up with other vegetable ends and trimmings, will contribute to vegetable, fish or meat stock. Nothing wasted! (Well, except a bit of dill. See below.) The flavour of the greens fulfilled all the promise of the first smell: from-the-garden fresh, and to my palate, more intensely alive than the basils and arugulas and lettuces I bring home from the supermarket. This is the crux of the matter: the flavour. In winter, the flavour of greens grown elsewhere and brought up the highway just doesn’t compare.

Here’s a quick rundown of what we did at my house with our first CropBox order, with a rough calculation of number of servings.  

Butter leaf lettuce and arugula: Half the  lettuce and all the arugula went into a mixed salad that fed three people at supper, with seconds all around  (just for interest, the protein was elk smokies and the starch, sourdough buns).

Thai and Genovese basil: On the second day after pick-up my husband turned both basils into pesto, in order to catch the herbs at their best. The pesto was more than enough for 250 grams of linguine, which again, served three people (with no accompaniment except extra grated Parmesan and black pepper).

Rainbow chard and dill: I used all of the chard and a third of the dill in a Colcannon, along with eight large baking potatoes, one large onion and three cups of cheddar and Parmesan, mixed, for a Robbie Burns supper. The dill is not traditional in Colcannon and neither is the chard but it worked; my visiting sister, who is a fine cook, said it was superb. Our Robbie Burns supper was cancelled due to illness, so I froze two-thirds of the Colcannon for later consumption; there are at least 12 servings in the freezer. The remaining third fed three people at two meals and there is still some left over.

The remaining dill: I bought a cucumber in order to make tzatziki with the rest of the dill, but I didn’t get to it on time and the dill wilted and then rotted in its jar on the windowsill.  Entirely my fault. And a lesson for next time. (See section on storage, above.)

Genovese basil stems: The stems were packed with flavour, so I made a basil simple syrup for use in cocktails and anything else I can come up with.

The remaining lettuce: Salad, to come in the next couple of days; there’s enough left to feed two of us one serving each.

In conclusion, I’m in. I have a small household, so the amounts seem to work for me. Still, it remains to be seen whether we will subsist on greens from CropBox alone for the winter (there are options for ordering more frequently), or whether we will need to augment. But I’m excited about what might be coming in tomorrow’s box, and the culinary possibilities that will open up.  And I like that this one $15 investment in 400 grams of greens contributed to dishes that fed many mouths — well, the same three mouths — many times over many days. That is, 26 separate servings of very different dishes. And that’s not counting the cocktails that will emerge from the basil syrup. Ultimate conclusion: Two green thumbs up. (Sorry.)

For information on how to subscribe to the greens program in Whitehorse visit cropboxcanada.ca
Oh, Colcannon! A hearty Scottish or Irish dish combining our winter stalwarts, potatoes and cabbage. Or, in this case, fresh, local rainbow chard and dill.
> Click here to view the recipe for Colcannon
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Meet Your Maker: Connecting Yukon Farmers and Food Businesses

by Miche Genest

In this small territory, it’s sometimes surprising how much we don’t know about what’s going on. A case in point: farmers and food businesses. There are 145 farms in the Yukon, but many of the territory’s chefs, caterers, retailers and distributors aren’t tuned in to who the farmers are or what they’re growing. The same is true of the farmers — they know those chefs, caterers and retailers are out there, but they don’t know who’s interested in local food or what products they’re after. A

ll this not-knowing leads to lost opportunity — the opportunity to feature Yukon foods on local menus, in retail outlets and farmers’ markets, and on our tables, and to build lasting relationships that benefit everyone in the local food chain, including we who want to eat more of that food. Over the past several years Yukon farmers and food businesses have started to find each other, with great results, but there’s more work to be done.

The good news is the Yukon Agricultural Association (YAA) and the Tourism Industry Association of the Yukon (TIAY) are on it. For the second year running, the two organizations co-hosted the Meet Your Maker event, held this year on Monday January 14 at the Gold Rush Inn in Whitehorse, bringing farmers and food businesses together. Imagine the scene: Yukon farmers, producers, chefs, caterers, restaurateurs, distributors and a Who’s Who of agriculture and food sector representatives, including Minister of Tourism Jeanie Dendys and Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources Ranj Pillai, all in one big room, cooking, eating, talking, making new friends and business connections, sharing recipes, tips, and growing techniques.
Chef Berna Donmezer O’Donovan demonstrates cooking with local Arctic Char.
“Farmers and producers were thrilled with Monday’s Meet Your Maker event,” said Jennifer Hall, executive director at YAA. Hall noted there were 100 attendees, evenly split between farmer/producers and buyers, including two large food distributors and a representative from a company that supplies groceries for mining camps in the Yukon. There were product samples and tasters at each of the 20 booths in the room, as well as two cooking demonstration stations where local chefs transformed home-grown products into dishes such as hollandaise sauce, ceviche, gravlax, cranberry fudge and mini, coffee-spiced burgers.

Chef Robert Brouillette of the Gold Panner restaurant and his team produced a selection of appetizers made with products from eight local suppliers, proving that not only is local food abundant, it is delicious.
Fresh Micro Greens from Cropbox Canada.
This year’s event was fifty percent bigger than last year’s, and the number of buyers more than tripled. Next year, look out, said Jennifer Hall: “Several farmers/producers said that they wanted a booth next year so we will have to get a bigger room!”

To learn more about Meet Your Maker, or for ideas on how to participate in agri-culinary events such as the Yukon Culinary Festival, contact the Yukon Agricultural Association or the Tourism Industry Association of the Yukon.
Local free-range, hormone-free beef and pork products from Horse Haven, one of several small-scale farmers at Meet Your Maker focused on ethical animal husbandry.
   
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Transplanted Tomato Jam

by Miche Genest

Tomato jam, cream cheese, locally-made bagel — a great breakfast or snack.
On a recent trip to Portugal my companions and I discovered vegetable jams; they played a role on every breakfast buffet table at our hotels and B&Bs, and sometimes at dinner too. The morning offerings almost always included tomato jam, or carrot jam, or interesting (and delicious) combinations like zucchini and walnut jam.

At our first dinner at a tiny restaurant in Porto we enjoyed an appetizer of a deep-fried cheese croquette drizzled with warm pumpkin jam. It was divine. In winter, when fresh tomatoes in season are no longer available, canned, whole plum tomatoes are the best possible substitute. Fine Cooking explains why. For a person like our friend Suzanne Crocker, who canned a whole lotta tomatoes last year and is now looking at a pantry of several dozen one-litre jars and wondering just how much spaghetti sauce the family will stand, tomato jam suddenly looks very appealing.

We have always heard that tomatoes are not really vegetables, but fruits. Well it turns out that tomatoes are actually berries, as are peppers, kiwis, eggplants, bananas and watermelons. So, if your cranberry yield was small in this poor berry year, consider the tomato as a substitute in your favourite berry-based jam.

For future reference and in anticipation of a great tomato harvest next year, the recipe for tomato jam includes amounts for both fresh and canned tomatoes. I like this recipe, adapted from portugueserecipes.ca, because it’s so simple and most closely replicates the jam we enjoyed in Portugal. But if you’re interested in something more complex, there are many recipes to explore among the usual channels that use cumin, hot peppers, lemon juice and other ingredients.

Serve tomato jam on toast or a locally-made bagel with cream cheese or butter, with scrambled eggs, on charcuterie plates, on moose burgers or to accompany roasted meats. The jam is so versatile it flits back and forth between sweet and savoury with ease.

> View the recipe for Simple Tomato Jam
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Barley Bliss

 

One of Suzanne’s greatest challenges early in her year of eating locally was the problem of grain and flour. Farmers Otto Muelbach and Connie Handwerk of Kokopellie Farm had earmarked rye and barley for Suzanne’s use. But the moose got to the barley first, and weather, busted machinery and road closures almost did in the rye.  Happily, the rye was saved and Otto surprised Suzanne with a secret planting of Red Fife wheat. Baked goods were once again a possibility and so were healthy, whole grains for breakfast and dinner.

But the barley was just a fond memory. This year Suzanne planted several rows of hull-less barley from seeds ordered from Salt Spring Seeds, and farmer Grant Dowdell planted some too. Suzanne’s personal stock is about three bushels of seed heads, according to Gerrard; they don’t yet know how much grain that will translate into until they get around to threshing. But once the threshing is done, a delicious world of barley-based recipes awaits, like this blissful wild mushroom risotto. Mmm, barley!  

> See the recipe for Wild Mushroom and Barley Risotto

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North of 60 Fruit!

Some of the amazing fruits being produced at Klondike Valley Nursery. Photo by Suzanne Crocker.
When you imagine fruit North of 60 you probably think of berries and rosehips.  And you wouldn’t be wrong.  But it’s now time to expand the realm of possibilities. Apples, pears and grapes can also be grown in the Yukon Territory.  At least if you are a master of northern fruit bearing trees, like John Lenart and Kim Melton are. Klondike Valley Nursery, located in Dawson City, Yukon is the most northerly nursery in Canada. And look what they can grow!

John and Kim are dedicated to exploring the boundaries of what can be grown in cold climates at high latitudes. This year, they managed to grow pears and grapes in their greenhouses, as well as apples from their 65 cultivars of apple trees. So if your timing is right on a Fall Saturday at the Dawson City Farmer’s Market,  you may be treated to a local Klondike pear, apple or grape!
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Suzanne’s Blog:  Odd Bits or Special Bits?

Imagine it’s your turn to cook supper.  And this is what the larder holds: pigs lungs, heart, liver, cheeks, feet, a tail, two ears, jowls, lacey caul fat that was once connected to the intestine, pork belly, beef tongue and several litres of pigs blood.  All from Yukon raised pork and beef.  Odd bits or special bits? This was the challenge that four adventuresome Whitehorse chefs faced.  Each had drawn three random ‘odd bits’ to turn into delicious appetizers for sixty paying customers.  They did not disappoint!

Photos by Walter Streit and Suzanne Crocker

I have just returned from three fantastic days at Food Talks in Whitehorse, Yukon celebrating local food and hosted by the Growers of Organic Food Yukon (or GoOFY, as they are affectionately known.) The theme of Food Talks was “All the Bits” – reminding us to value every morsel of our food and to waste less.  Especially when it comes to meat. 

Using all parts of the animals we harvest, from head to tail to hoof, is a concept that is not unfamiliar in many cultures past and present.  Beyond making nutritional and economic sense, it also offers both gratitude and respect for the animal’s sacrifice to nourish us.

Special guest, renowned chef and cookbook author, Jennifer McLagan, travelled from Toronto to attend Food Talks and address the guests. Jennifer reminds us that what we now call the ‘odd bits’, and often toss in the scrap pile, were once the prized bits – parts of the animal that are packed with both nutrition and taste. Why are we more squeamish about eating heart than we are about eating rump roast – both being working muscles?  Bone marrow is packed with iron.  Blood can be substituted for egg.  Jennifer says the combination of blood and milk is the perfect food – containing all the amino acids, vitamins, and minerals that we require.

I had a taste of the ‘perfect food’ at the Odd Bits Tasting Event when chef Jason McRobb created a delicious chocolate blood pudding desert topped with whipped cream, candied blood orange peel and a strip of cinnamon-sugar-roasted pig skin.  It was an inspiration to me to start experimenting with the many ways to cook with blood beyond blood sausage. Even if you are feeling squeamish at the thought of eating the unfamiliar, you would have found yourself drooling at the Odd Bits Tasting Event.  The flavour combinations were out of this world!  

Four amazing chefs, Eglé Zalodkas- Barnes, Karina LaPointe, Jason McRobb and Micheal Roberts served up tastes such as lung dumplings, breaded sweet breads with aioli sauce, pigs’ feet sweet and sour soup, pork belly on a rhubarb compote, honey glazed pig skin, beef tongue tacos… just to name a few.  I tried everything and if I was blessed with more than one stomach I would have returned for seconds of it all! I have eaten many ‘odd bits’ during the past year of eating local to Dawson.

Stuffed moose heart is one of my family’s favourite meals.  But I am now inspired to expand even further.  The pig harvest and the moose hunt are coming soon and I will be ready to gather and make use of even more parts of the animal than before.  (Hard to believe I was once vegetarian.)

If you need some tips or inspiration, check out Jennifer McLagan’s books: Odd Bits, Bones and Fat and be prepared to be inspired!
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Suzanne’s Blog: Oh Wondrous Fall!

 

Fall in the Yukon is just one of the million reasons I love living here.  The spectacular undulating carpet of yellows and reds and greens takes my breath away every year. And it’s cranberry season!

High bush cranberries for juicing and low bush cranberries, also known as lingonberries, for almost anything else – pies, muffins, scones, pancakes, jam, jelly, chutney, and delicious cranberry sauce. I became addicted to the low bush cranberry when I lived in Newfoundland where they are known as partridge berries. They are excellent keepers for the winter as they sweeten, not soften, with freezing.

Last year was a very poor wild berry season.  Thanks to the generosity of many Dawson berry pickers and some careful rationing I had just enough cranberries to get us through.  This year is better and I am rejoicing in the ability to pick buckets full of cranberries once again.

Check out the Boreal Gourmet, Miche Genest’s, recipe for Low Bush Cranberry Toffee touted as “The Best Toffee in the History of the World!” Or Cranberry Birch Syrup Sauce to serve on Token Gesture Custard or ice cream.

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Suzanne’s Blog: Exotic Shiso Grows in the Far North!

In addition to their use as a versatile ingredient, the shiso plant’s large leaves can be used to scoop up food, or as a wrap for fish, meat and sushi. Photo by Suzanne Crocker.

Sometimes it absolutely amazes me what we can grow in the far North of Canada. Artichokes, asparagus, eggplants, golden berries and even occasionally ginger and tumeric …. I now add a new exotic flavour that can be grown in the North – shiso leaves! Until this year I had never even heard of shiso.  I am now a huge fan, thanks to Carol Ann Gingras of Whitehorse, who introduced me to this herb and sent me some of her Yukon-grown plants.

One thing that I missed early on during my of eating local were spices from the Far East – cinnamon, cumin, cloves, nutmeg … Birch syrup and ground juniper berries helped to fill that void, but now I have a new favourite – shiso – to add some Asian spice to a Yukon local diet.

Shiso leaves taste exotic!  To me, it is the taste of cumin combined with a hint of cardomon. For others it has been described as a combination of spearmint, basil, anise and cinnamon. Shiso (pronounced she-so), Perilla frutescens,  is an Asian herb – used commonly in Japan, South Korea, Vietnam and China – and a member of the mint family. It was introduced to North America in the late 1800’s but only introduced to me in 2018! 

Although it flourishes in the southeaster USA, I would never have guessed how well it thrives during a Yukon summer. Its large leaves can be used to scoop up food or as a wrap for fish, meat and sushi. The fresh leaves, sliced in thin strips to bring out the flavour, can be added to soups, stir-fry, rice, scrambled eggs, salads, even fruit – almost anything, really.  The leaves can be air-dried or frozen to use during the winter.   Dried, the leaves can also be used as a flavourful tea.  The leaves are high in calcium and iron. Apparently shiso buds and sprouts are also delicious and the seeds can be toasted and crushed and sprinkled on fish.

If you plant shiso in pots, let the plants go to seed and bring them inside before the first frost, then the plants will self-seed for spring. Here’s hoping my shiso plants will self-seed so they can become a regular part of my on-going Dawson local diet!
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FEAST an Edible Roadtrip Interview

Lindsay and Dana on the road - Photo by FEAST
Lindsay and Dana on the road – Photo by FEAST
FEAST an Edible Roadtrip is a project by Canadian food enthusiasts and writers Dana VanVeller and Lindsay Anderson. These two friends set out to find out what is cooking in kitchens, farms,  markets and all kinds of places all over Canada.  They even stopped by Dawson City on their travels, and sampled some of what the Yukon has to offer.

Their exploits have produced a cookbook that features recipes and stories collected on the road, from home cooks to seasoned professionals alike, including our own Miche Genest.  They not only celebrate Canada’s culinary diversity, but also note how important it is to look at where our food comes from and what we can do to get involved. We had a chance to ask them some questions about their project.

How did the idea originate for your project?  What sparked the whole thing for you? When we were camping this one time we had a long conversation about food and culture, Canadian food culture, and how we had both travelled across the country (we both grew up in different parts of the country) and it turned into a talk about what we point to as Canadian food and we didn’t quite know the answer. We thought, wouldn’t it be interesting if there was a project where we went around for a certain amount of months to specifically talk to people in different regions and see what people were making and what they were eating. And we thought the most efficient way to do it would be on a road trip.

What makes Canadian food Canadian? Canadians tend to think that we don’t have a distinctive culinary culture, it is interesting because there is this mentality that we are an immigrant nation and that the foods we consume are imported from other cultures, but it is in the mixing of those influences that you can find it. There are all these dishes that maybe come from somewhere else, but they are transformed by Canadian-specific ingredients and they become a whole new thing. And there is this feeling of “oh, this is just what we eat. This isn’t Canadian food”, as if we are reluctant to claim a food culture, and the wider sentiment is that we don’t have one. It is almost like the cliché of Canadians, that we are always apologizing for everything, and we are also apologetic for our own culinary culture.

What kind of dishes or cooking techniques that you had never heard of before did you discover on your roadtrip? Did any of them make their way into your everyday cooking? There were almost daily discoveries. One of the coolest discoveries of a cooking technique was when we were on Spring Island on the northwest coast of Vancouver island and we were on a kayak expedition, and cooks from the Kyuquot first nation showed us this traditional cooking method for fish in which they butterfly the salmon and weave it through cedar slats and they roast it vertically over the fire.  And it was the best roasted salmon I‘ve ever had, but it also felt like a whole experience, not just a meal. The trip and the process of writing the cookbook completely opened us up to new cooking techniques and ingredients, like for example I had never cooked wild boar before, and we got this recipe from a Saskatchewan chef for wild boar meatballs and then we started seeing that you could actually get these ingredients around our area. Learning to cook different types of wild game and realizing how different all the flavors are, and that there really is so much variety out there. We definitely expanded our kitchens In P.E.I. a chef gave us a recipe for scallops that combined them with a pear and currant salsa, a combination that you normally wouldn’t think of but they are all super Canadian ingredients that were locally sourced from the area. All the recipes in our cookbook feel Canadian for different reasons, either ingredient based or culturally based. Perhaps a recipe just happens to be really popular in a specific region, or the reason is because of the ingredients that are found there.

What are your thoughts on the issue of food security? It is interesting for people who want to change the way they eat and be more aware of what they consume, I think this is such a much easier time to do so. Food is a topic that has been exploding for the last 10 years or so, the local food movement has expanded so much. In my experience, the best way to get involved is to reach out and talk to different people, ask more questions, ask what everyone is eating and where it comes from. Also we have to think on practical terms, not everyone has the economic means to start spending more money on organic food at farmer’s market or the time to grow their own food all of the sudden, but the fact that things are shifting is very important. Making an effort to be part of the conversation is important. A good way to do this is sharing meals together.      
John Lenafrt canoes Dana VanVeller across the Klondike River.
John Lenafrt shows Dana VanVeller his vegetables.
Miche Genest serving dinner.Dana and Lindsay's Yukon visit included a tour of Klondike Valley Nursery and a special dinner at Miche Genest's house - Photos by FEAST
Salmon roasting with cedar slats, Kyuquot stye - Photo by FEAST
Salmon roasting with cedar slats, Kyuquot stye - Photo by FEAST
Salmon roasting with cedar slats, Kyuquot stye - Photo by FEASTSalmon roasting with cedar slats, Kyuquot stye - Photo by FEAST
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Suzanne’s Blog: Last Day

Suzanne shopping at the Dawson Farmers Market. Photo by Cathie Archbould, Archbould Photography.
It’s the last day of our year of eating local. (Actually of our year plus one day – seemed to make sense to end on the same day we started.  Or was that just me never wanting it to be over!) It has come to an end all too fast from my perspective.

I’m enjoying my morning mug of hot, frothed milk and about to head out to pick Saskatoon berries.  I have some butter culturing and a new batch of kefir on the counter.  The fridge is full of fresh veggies, yogurt, goat’s cheese, eggs and milk.  There are rye crackers on the counter and pumpkin Saskatoon berry muffins in the freezer.  

Our meat and fish stocks are low – but there are still a few meals left to sustain us until salmon fishing and moose hunting seasons begin again.  Grayling is in the river and fresh local chicken is now available again.  Just as we finish up last year’s potatoes, new potatoes are being harvested.

The cycle of life has a whole new meaning to me. My feelings are a mixture of sadness, knowing that grocery store food will inevitably return to the house tomorrow, and celebration at how far I’ve come in the past year. I certainly did not accomplish this on my own.   It takes a community to feed a family!   Amazing farmers, the boreal forest and northern rivers, all the people of Dawson who were lending me gardening space, sharing berries, knowledge, recipes and cheering us on. T

he time for reflection will be tomorrow.   Today there are berries to be picked!  And for the rest of today I’m just going to bask in the joy of another day eating 100% local.        
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Berry Season Has Begun!

Suzanne picking wild strawberries. Photo by Tess Crocker.

The first fresh berries are ripe for the eating! Domestic haskap berries are ripe in gardens and the wild strawberries are now ripe in the fields. The sweet taste of a fresh, in season, strawberry is divine.   In the North, wild strawberries are very small – but their taste is the sweetest of all – making them worth the effort of picking.

Domestic haskaps are now in season. Photo by Suzanne Crocker.

Haskaps, Lonicera caerulea, are a blue honeysuckle.   Native to Russia, they withstand frost and the minus forty cold winters of the North quite well.  They are currently  flourishing in gardens around Dawson City. Also native to Japan,  ‘haskap’ is an ancient Japanese name which translates to ‘berry of long life and good vision.’   Haskaps are packed with Vitamin C and contain more anti-oxidants than any other berry. The haskap berry is grape sized.  They are perfectly ripe when they are dark blue in colour with an obvious dimple in the bottom of the berry.  The taste of a haskap is a combination of sweet blueberry with tart cranberry.

Check out  the Haskap Canada Association for haskap recipes. At Tundarose Garden in Dawson City, a bird found a well-protected area for nesting in the interior of the a thick row of haskap bushes.  Not wanting to disturb, Suzanne and Mary Ann snuck a very quick peek at the eggs and were surprised to find two had just hatched.  They backed off quickly so that mama could attend to her young in peace.

 
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Suzanne’s Blog: Tree Water

Nature is turning off the tap for birch sap. Photo by Suzanne Crocker.
The buds on the birch trees are just starting to turn green, which means it’s coming to the end of birch sap season.  For the past few weeks you could spot a birch tree being tapped in many Dawson City backyards. Most of us have been tapping a tree in order to drink the cold, refreshing and nutrient rich birch water – loaded with thiamine (one of the Vitamin B’s) and manganese, as well as some Vitamin C, iron, riboflavin, zinc, calcium and potassium. 

Birch water tastes like a super fresh and delicious glass of crystal clear water with only a rare hint of sweet if you look for it. When the sap is running, the tree is actually pulling the sap from its roots all the way up to the top of the tree to feed its leaf buds which is an amazing anti-gravitational feat in itself. Birch water goes bad within a couple of days, even in the fridge, so it needs to be consumed fresh.  Alternatively, you can freeze it  (even in ice cube trays) and save some frozen birch water to consume later in the year. 

The tapping of one tree will produce a lot of birch water, so be careful not to tap more than you can consume. Very few of us will boil down the sap we collect to make birch syrup.  We leave that to Sylvia Frisch and Berwyn Larson and their crew who are currently very busy, working around the clock, collecting sap from about 1500 trees and preparing Uncle Berwyn’s Yukon Birch Syrup to supply us all with the sweet stuff for the upcoming year.

My birch syrup supply is down to the last cupful.  We are consuming about 1  litre of birch syrup per week! So I decided to boil down some sap and see if I could supplement our supply until the end of syrup season when we can get our next 12 L bucket from Sylvia and Berwyn’s birch camp. Birch syrup and maple syrup, although both sweet, are quite different in both taste and components.  

Birch syrup contains fructose, the sugar in fruit, and it does not crystallize like maple syrup does.  Maple syrup contains sucrose, the sugar in table sugar.  One of the major differences between the two is the sugar content of the sap. It takes twice as much birch sap to make a litre of birch syrup, compared to making maple syrup.  In fact the ration of birch sap to syrup is an astounding 80:1! What does that look like in real life?  I took my two largest pots and boiled down 14 litres of birch water.  All that sap produced a scant ¾ cup of syrup!

A big thank you to the birch trees for sharing some your sap and to Sylvia Frisch and Berwyn Larson and crew for all the hard work that goes into turning it into syrup! If you haven’t yet tasted birch syrup, you really must.  It is delicious!  When using birch syrup in recipes, I find I don’t miss the absence of other spices such as cinnamon or allspice.  

Check out the many recipes using birch syrup on our Recipe Page. As the leaf buds start to turn green, the sap will take on a bitter taste, marking the end of the tapping season for another year.

> Check out photos of birch camp here
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Suzanne’s Blog: Welcome Waffles

Photo by Suzanne Crocker
Five days a week for 7½ months translates into 150 breakfasts of eggs and mashed potato cakes.   My family has reached their limit.  Gerard can’t seem to swallow another egg.  Sam is done on mashed potato cakes. Breakfast clafouti and crepes are reserved for weekends because they require extra time.  So that leaves smoothies or cooked rye grains as my breakfast alternatives.

That is until now…. Kate and Sam are away, competing at the Arctic Winter Games.  In their absence, there have been fewer dishes to wash which has translated into more time to experiment.  So I thought I would try waffles.  I was not optimistic as I was missing one of the key ingredients – baking powder – and, of course, salt. But what did I have to lose (other than some precious Red Fife wheat flour).

So I pulled out my 1969 Farmers Journal Homemade Bread recipe book and a General Electric waffle maker of about the same vintage (thank you Evelyn Dubois) and gave it a go. Success!

 Crispy on the outside, tender on the inside.  Smothered in homemade butter and birch syrup.  Didn’t seem to miss the baking powder, or the salt, in the least. I will have a welcome breakfast surprise for Kate and Sam when they return! Next challenge will be to try them with rye flour, as the wheat flour is in short supply. > Check out the recipe for 100% local Yukon Waffles
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Suzanne’s Blog: Berry Bounty Boosts Vitamin C

Diana McCready of Emu Creek Farms picking Saskatoon berries. Photo by Suzanne Crocker.
People often ask what we are doing for Vitamin C over the long Northern winter – in the absence of oranges and grapefruit from the south. Worry not.  No scurvy in this family! Besides spruce tips and some precious local apples, it is berries that are providing most of our Vitamin C this year.

Saskatoon berries at Emu Creek Farm, Dawson City, Yukon. Photo by Suzanne Crocker.
We have one freezer devoted entirely to berries! Two of the many awesome women farmers in Dawson are Diana McCready of Emu Creek Farms and Maryanne Davis of Tundarose Garden.  Both produce succulent crops of delicious berries – saskatoons, haskaps, raspberries and black currents.  Emu Creek Farms even grows some northern cherries!  Diana and Ron McCready have the added challenge of having no road access to their farm, it is only accessible by boat.

Northern cherries at Emu Creek Farms. Phto by Suzanne Crocker. From FirstWeEat.ca, the Food Security North of 60 website supporting First We Eat, a documentary by Yukon filmmaker Suzanne Crocker about eating only locally-grown foods in in Dawson City, Yukon, in Canada's North, for one year.
Close up of domestic haskap berries on the bush. Photo by Suzanne Crocker. From FirstWeEat.ca, the Food Security North of 60 website supporting First We Eat, a documentary by Yukon filmmaker Suzanne Crocker about eating only locally-grown foods in in Dawson City, Yukon, in Canada's North, for one year.
Northern Cherries and domestic Haskap berries at Emu Creek Farm. Photos by Suzanne Crocker.

A late June frost wiped out many of the wild berries that we normally count on.   We will be forever grateful to the many Dawsonites who donated some of their precious wild berry stock to help supplement our year.  Wild low bush cranberries are a family favourite! Fortunately, although the wild berry crop was meek, domestic berries thrived!

A bounty of Saskatoon Berries. Photo by Suzanne Crocker.
Berries have become one of our staples: berry sauce on custard, berry  and beet muffins, crepes with berry sauce, steamed berry pudding, breakfast clafouti.  And one of my new favourites:  Saskatoon Berry and Birch Syrup Roast. Imagine a roast moose or roast pork cooked slowly slathered in birch syrup, Saskatoon berries and garlic.  Wicked!

Saskatoon berries and birch sryup  are an awesome combination. Many thanks to the McCready’s and to Maryann Davis for keeping us healthy this winter thanks to their delicious berries. (valorhealthcare.com)

> Check out the recipe for Saskatoon Berry and Birch Syrup Roast.
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Art Napoleon on Food, Cultural Revitalization and the Need for Balance

Art Napoleon tends to a saute of rabbit and ptarmigan at Our Camp is Our Kitchen.

by Miche Genest

When Art Napoleon found he had to cook a selection of wild and cultivated ingredients from a local food “mystery box” over a campfire with three Indigenous Yukon Elders, he said, “Oh no! You’re going to gang up on me.” He had reason to be fearful—Tetl’it Gwich’in Elder Mary Jane Moses, Teetl’it Gwich’in Elder Dorothy Alexie, and Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in Elder Peggy Kormandy are all experienced campfire cooks with many years of cooking on the land behind them.

But as participants at “Our Camp is our Kitchen” learned, when it comes to campfire cooking Napoleon is no slouch. He and the ladies transformed the ptarmigan, rabbit, caribou guts, caribou meat, sheep ribs, wild rhubarb, cranberries, birch syrup and a host of other delicacies into soup, stew, fricassee, viande grillée and pudding that fed anywhere from 75 to 100 people. Their cooking fire burned in an galvanized metal drum with a grill set over top; their camp was a wall tent and a tarp shelter in the parking lot beside the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in Community Hall.

Traditional pudding made with wild rhubarb and cranberries.
The event was part of the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in Myth and Medium Conference, held from February 19 to 23 in Dawson City. Napoleon was a special guest at the conference, and the organizers worked him from morning till night, calling several of his skills into play. He arrived Monday afternoon, gave the opening keynote address that evening, cooked all day Tuesday, performed a concert Tuesday evening, gave a talk on food and nutrition Wednesday morning and flew out Wednesday afternoon.

As Napoleon told the audience Monday night, he juggles several careers–singer-songwriter, educator, conservationist, naturalist. He holds an MA in Language Revitalization from the University of Victoria and is a former Chief of the Saulteau First Nation in north-eastern BC. Most recently, he’s co-host of APTN’s Moosemeat and Marmalade with British chef Dan Hayes — an exploration of two very different approaches to cooking wild game, the Indigenous and the classically trained.

Food and cooking are the sinews that tie much of Napoleon’s life and work together. He first learned how to cook on open fires and woodstoves as a child living in Peace River country, and later grew comfortable in modern cooking facilities. He has always loved cooking for people, and one of his approaches to cooking traditional food is to “gourmet it up.” “It’s given me great pleasure to serve good food to people, especially if I can present traditional food in ways that people haven’t tasted,” he said. “If you want to show the beauty of your culture, food is one way to do that.”

Ptarmigan, rabbit, and thyme.
Napoleon said that at heart he’s an educator, and cultural revitalization is a cornerstone of his life philosophy. “So food is something that fits in there nicely. Food and philosophy and cultural teachings—I don’t really see much difference between those.”

Napoleon, who lives in Victoria, advised people on how to “Indigenize their diet” in an urban context. In his talk on food, nutrition and planning on Wednesday morning he reminded the audience, “If you live in the city there’s lots of ways you can still access your traditional resources.” He goes back to his traditional territory to hunt; he receives packages of wild food from his family; he learns what wild foods grow in his area and goes out foraging.

“I can still be an Indian down there, I don’t have to be a Victorian.” Napoleon also suggested ways of incorporating better nutrition into modern diets, noting that on the land, “People ate clean and they were very active. They were in great shape. Our meats were the original free range organic meats.” Today, he said, “The food industry sucks. It’s all about the money. You’ve got to make it all about health, and make your own choices.”

The reality is that Indigenous people live in two worlds, he added, and even hunters supplement their traditional diet with store-bought foods. “They’ve just become part of the culture.” He laughed. “Red Rose tea is part of the culture!” He admires Suzanne for her efforts to eat only local food for a year, calling her endeavour “either crazy or brave, and maybe a little bit of both. I think it’s a lot of work, and would take great, great discipline.”

But he shares one of Suzanne’s concerns, mentioned in her presentation on Tuesday evening: how sustainable is her diet? Napoleon asked, “If everybody wanted to do it…would things get over-harvested? What kind of impact would it have on the land? Long ago people managed it in a way that was sustainable, but now there are bigger populations.”

These are questions shared and pondered across Canada and around the world: how do we feed ourselves in a sustainable manner? When the population will potentially reach 9.7 billion by 2050? As Indigenous people who live in two cultures, Napoleon said, “There’s no way we can survive as an island. That’s the great thing about the Yukon–the divide is not so wide as it is in Southern Canada.”

He ended his Wednesday morning talk on an emotional note. “You guys are lucky,” he said, near tears. “You guys who are living in territories that are bringing [the traditions] back.” Napoleon said he always likes to contribute food for thought in his work. Asked what he would like people to take away from his participation at Myth and Medium, he reflected for a minute and said, “The need for balance. Always remembering that we walk in two worlds, and there’s ways to return to your cultural integrity while still living in these modern times.”  


 





       
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Suzanne’s Blog: How Do You Like Them Apples?

A mid-winter treat for Suzanne — a locally-grown apple. Photo by Suzanne Crocker.
It is the middle of winter and in my hand I hold a crunchy, juicy, sweet, locally-grown apple.  Yes, that’s right, locally grown – in Dawson City, Yukon – 64 degrees north.  Further north than Iqualuit, Yellowknife and Whitehorse. It is all thanks to the ingenuity of John Lenart at Klondike Valley Nursery, Canada’s northernmost nursery. 

John has spent the last thirty years studying and grafting apple trees in order to cultivate varieties that can withstand the climate of the north.  The nursery now has 65 cultivars and some of those varieties are ‘winter apples’ – meaning that they keep well in cold storage throughout the winter.

2017 was a tough season on the apple trees due to a late frost in the middle ofJune.  But Klondike Valley Nursery has generously been sharing some of their personal apple supply with me for this year of eating local.  And I can tell you that a crunchy locally-grown apple in the middle of winter is a treat beyond all measure!

John Lenart has been cultivating apples n the North for over 30 years. Photo by Suzanne Crocker.
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Yummy Yukon Crêpes

All ingredients  are 100% local to Dawson City, Yukon.

The batter for these crêpes was made from Red Fife wheat flour from Kokopellie Farm, eggs from Lastraw Ranch and Sun North Ventures, milk and butter thanks to the Klondike Valley Creamery, and honey compliments of David McBurney and his overwintered bees.

The berry sauce was made with black currents from Emu Creek Farm, sweetened with birch syrup. Yogurt was made from the milk from Klondike Valley Creamery and cultured with locally made kefir.

Smothered in birch syrup from Birch Hill Forest Farm.

Deliciously local!

> Check out the recipe here.

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Myth and Medium 2018: Food, Culture, Identity

Every second year, the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in First Nation in Dawson City, Yukon, hosts a colloquium/conference entitled Myth and Medium. The theme in 2018 was Food, Culture, and Identity, so not surprisingly, given her First We Eat project, Suzanne was asked to be one of the  contributors to the event.

Suzanne with fellow speaker Art Napoleon (a.k.a. Travelling Sun). A former Chief from the boreal foothills of Northeastern BC, Art is a recognized cultural educator and faith-keeper, and co-host on the popular cooking show Moose Meat and Marmalade. He is also a talented singer-songwriter and humorist with an uncanny ability to improvise and meaningfully engage audiences of all ages and backgrounds. Photo by Miche Genest.
The week-long celebration kicked off on Monday with a potluck dinner, where attendees were invited to bring a dish that helped denote their heritage or identity. (Suzanne’s contribution to the potluck was her 100% locally-sourced garlic chevre on rye crackers.) But the evening’s main course was the collection of food-centered stories that followed by various guest speakers, including Suzanne and her husband Gerard.

The next day the official presentations began, given by a collection of notable speakers, indigenous and non-indigenous alike, including luminaries like Art Napoleon and Lawrence Hill, to name just a couple. Participating in a session entitled The Land Sustains Us, Suzanne paid tribute to those in the local community whose wisdom and aid have made her local-only experience possible. The audience was also treated to a preview snippet from Suzanne’s film, with very favourable crowd reaction.
Famed author and current Berton House Writer-in-Residence Lawrence Hill was among the conference presenters. He described how food and drink enriched his experiences travelling as a young man and volunteer in West African countries of Niger,
Cameroon and Mali, and how it influenced his development as a writer. Photo by Maria Sol.


Other Myth and Medium 2018 sessions touched on a wide variety of subjects, as one would expect from something as fundamental and far-reaching as food. From looking at wild plants for food and medicine — and a way to reconnect with traditional values — to finding what ancient stories can teach us about our food, the speakers were diverse, knowledgeable, and thought-provoking.

The next two afternoons saw Suzanne at a booth and doing hands-on cooking demonstrations and tastings of some of the things she has learned during her journey — from using colts foot ash as a salt substitute, to frying up burbot liver to help boost her Vitamin D levels.

Myth and Medium wasn’t all business. The event, which told attendees to: “Bring your dancing shoes and your appetites,” included lots of feasting, music, laughter, and activities.  One of the highlights was the outdoor campfire, where there was cooking of all manner of wild local meat, including some rarer fare, such as moose nose, lynx, and a local ‘haggis’ made by stuffing a caribou stomach. Ultimately though, the conference proved the old adage (although perhaps on several new levels as well), that we are what we eat.  
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Suzanne’s Blog: Local Sourdough Starter

The dough rising on a batch of 100%-local sourdough bread. Photo by Suzanne Crocker.
My three kids have been desperately missing bagels.   And toast. You might recall that last winter, in anticipation of this, I experimented with sourdough rye and barley bread  – with mixed results. Our first three months of eating local were entirely grain free.  Then, against many odds, a successful crop of wheat and rye was harvested just as winter started to blanket Dawson with snow. 

Shortly thereafter I found a way to grind the grains and the miracle of flour re-entered our diet. I have no yeast.  But sourdough starter has been around the Dawson area for over one hundred years – introduced during the Klondike Gold Rush.  In fact, there are Yukoners who continue to feed sourdough starter from the Gold Rush days.  With regular feeding, you can keep it indefinitely. Therefore, I decided to classify it as a ‘local’ ingredient.

But I wondered – could you actually make a sourdough starter from scratch, from 100% local Dawson fare?  Bev Gray’s “The Boreal Herbal” held a clue – juniper berries.  I thought I would give it a try. I started with 1 tbsp of flour from wheat grown at Kokopellie Farm, added to that 1 tbsp of Klondike River water and about 5 dried juniper berries that I had picked in the Fall. 

I mixed them all in a small clear glass – so that I could easily see any remote chance of bubbling– a successful sign of fermentation.  I covered the glass loosely and let it sit in a warm place.  I wasn’t very optimistic.  When I checked on it later I was rather shocked to see those wonderful bubbles appearing within the mixture!  Now sourdough starter truly is a local ingredient!

I continued to feed the starter for a few days until it seemed quite active and then proceeded to make a loaf of sourdough bread.  For my first attempt, I decided to be decadent and use only freshly ground wheat flour – no rye.  And it worked!  Beginner’s luck perhaps, as it was the best batch I have made to date.  Subsequent batches have varied between bricks requiring chainsaws to slice them and slightly more palatable varieties.

> View the recipe for sourdough starter

Bread dough is like a living organism and sourdough bread even more so.  Every time I make it, it comes out differently.  It has become a luxury (depending if it is a good batch or a brick batch), not a staple.  But great to know that, even starting the sourdough starter from scratch – a 100 % local Dawson bread is possible!

> See the recipe for Yukon Sourdough Bread

A finished loaf of sourdough bread made with completely-local ingredients. Photo by Suzanne Crocker.
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The New Kids In Town

New goat kid Freddie at Sadlier Farm, Dawson City, Yukon. Photo by Suzanne Ccrocker. From FirstWeEat.ca, the Food Security North of 60 website supporting First We Eat, a documentary by Yukon filmmaker Suzanne Crocker about eating only locally-grown foods in in Dawson City, Yukon, in Canada's North, for one year.
New goat kid Fiona at Sadlier Farm, Dawson City, Yukon. Photo by Suzanne Ccrocker. From FirstWeEat.ca, the Food Security North of 60 website supporting First We Eat, a documentary by Yukon filmmaker Suzanne Crocker about eating only locally-grown foods in in Dawson City, Yukon, in Canada's North, for one year.
New goat kid Freda at Sadlier Farm, Dawson City, Yukon. Photo by Suzanne Ccrocker. From FirstWeEat.ca, the Food Security North of 60 website supporting First We Eat, a documentary by Yukon filmmaker Suzanne Crocker about eating only locally-grown foods in in Dawson City, Yukon, in Canada's North, for one year.
New kids Freddie, Fiona, and Freda. Photos by Suzaane Crocker.

There are 3 new kids in town!  Welcome to Freddie, Fiona, and Freda, born 10 days ago at Sun North Ventures in Rock Creek, outside Dawson City, Yukon.

Goats are a marvellous addition to food security in the North. According to the Northern Farm Training Institute in Hay River, NWT, one person needs approximately 1 million calories per year.  The milk from just one goat provides 600,000 calories per year, more than half our calorie needs!  In contrast, the meat from one goat would only provide 40,000 calories.

Goats are multipurpose.  Female goats will provide milk as long as they are breeding and reproducing.  Goat manure can be added directly to a vegetable garden as fertilizer – it doesn’t need to compost first as does horse, cow and chicken manure.   And goats not capable of milk production or not required for breeding can become a local source of meat.

Becky and Paul Sadlier are two of many farmers who are successfully raising livestock in the North, despite the challenges of overwintering, feeding and breeding.

Becky Sadlier with Freddie. Photo by Suzanne Crocker.
Larger animals, like goats, pigs and cows are able to produce enough body heat to keep their barns warm without needing any external heat – even at minus 40° C.  Finding local feed is important, as shipping costs are expensive to bring feed from down south. 

And then there is the breeding – keeping variety in the gene pool to keep the stock healthy without having to import animals from down south. Congratulations to the Northern farmers who are finding ways to make it work. Do you know of other goats being raised further North than Dawson?  Let us know.
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Suzanne’s Blog: Winter Comfort Foods

Dawson City sunset in early January. Photo by Suzanne Crocker.
It is -42°C in Dawson City, Yukon.  At 4 p.m. the sun sets, transforming the sky into rich hues of pink and orange. It is the depths of winter.  The time for comfort food. Brian Phelan, Dawson City chef, shared Rappie Pie with us, a comfort food dish from his Acadian Roots.  Miche Genest, Yukon chef and cookbook author, shared Pork Hock and Rye Casserole another great comfort food. Here is one more wonderful winter comfort food, thanks to Alfred Von Mirbach of Perth, Ontario, who has shared his mother’s Warm Potato Salad recipe.

And, of course, with every recipe comes a story.  This recipe is from Alfred’s German ancestry.  When he was a child it was served every Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve with sausage, mustard and pickles.  Alfred and his  brothers continue the tradition today.  Yet another example of how food connects us with family, tradition, ancestry and, of course, memories.

I have two precious jars of dill pickles successfully fermented, without salt, in celery juice and decided to use half a jar to make an adaptation of Marianne’s Warm Potato Salad.  It was so delicious that the rest of the dill pickles have now been relegated to three more repeat performances.  I will definitely be fermenting more dill pickles in celery juice next year!

> Check out the adapted recipe here
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Suzanne’s Blog: A Local Christmas Feast!

The 100-per-cent-local Christmas turkey dinner. Photo by Suzanne Crocker.
Gerard has been suspiciously silent in his blogs over the past three weeks.  I’m not sure if this is because he is taking a holiday from the computer, or because he has lately been so well fed that he has had nothing to complain about.  I suspect it is the former, although I will choose to believe it is the latter. 

If any of you have been worried that his silence has been due to weakness from starvation, fear not.  We have been feasting well over the Christmas season! Our family tradition is to cook up Christmas dinner on Boxing Day.  That way, we can stay in our P.J.’s all day on Christmas Day and hang out together with no time pressures.  (In previous years, we have even been known to have Kraft Dinner on Christmas Day. 

This year we had smoked salmon, marinated in birch syrup, and left-over moose ribs). On Boxing Day, our Christmas dinner feast was complete with all the trimmings!  And it was wonderful to share this 100% local Christmas feast with friends. Our turkey was raised by Megan Waterman at LaStraw Ranch.  The stuffing was made with celery grown by Becky Sadlier with onion, sage, parsley and cooked whole rye grains grown by Otto at Kokopellie Farm and apples grown by John Lenart at Klondike Valley Nursery. 

We had delicious mashed potatoes grown by Otto and seasoned with butter and milk thanks to Jen Sadlier and her dairy cows at Klondike Valley Creamery.  Carrots and rutabagas grown by Lucy Vogt were mixed with parsnips grown by Grant Dowdell.  The gravy was thickened with home-made potato starch.  The cranberry sauce was made from low bush cranberries from the boreal forest (thanks to the wonderful Dawsonites who have shared some of their precious wild cranberries with us during this very poor year for wild berries) and sweetened with birch syrup thanks to Berwyn and Sylvia.

During this year of eating local, I often find myself discovering gems of knowledge from times past, when food was perceived as a precious commodity — perhaps due to rationing or economic hard times, or just the plain hard work of growing your own.  But, whatever the reason, I am struck by the difference in our perception of food today, at least in Canada, where the bounty of food stocked on grocery store shelves appears to have no limits in either quantity or variety.

Steamed Christmas pudding. Photo by Suzanne Crocker.
One of the English traditions that stems from times past and has been passed down in my family is my grandmother’s steamed Christmas pudding with hard sauce.  What better year than this to pull out her recipe.  In the past, when I have decided to re-live my childhood by making Christmas pudding, I have had to search in the far corners of the grocery store freezers for the key ingredient – suet.  This year, animal fat is a staple in my own freezer so, thanks to some beef tallow from Klondike Valley Creamery, I didn’t need to search far for a local suet!

Christmas pudding adapted itself well to local ingredients and the result was eagerly devoured, despite the fact that I burned the bottom of it by accidentally letting the pot run dry. As a child, I remember the small dollop of hard sauce allocated to each of us and the way it slowly melted on top of our small portion of warm steamed pudding.  Its melt-in-your-mouth sweetness always lured us back to the bowl for extra hard sauce, knowing that we would regret it later for its richness.  

My local hard sauce adaptation this year was partially melt in your mouth – other than the lumps which I optimistically referred to as sugar beet gummies, from sugar beet sugar that wasn’t quite dry enough and clumped together irreconcilably.  But even the sugar beet gummies found fans and were consumed with gusto!

> View recipe for Steamed Christmas Pudding with Hard Sauce > See a recipe for Birch Eggnog

Christmas – a time for giving, a time for sharing, a time for family and friends and a time for feasting.  We have enjoyed all – during our 100% local Christmas.
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Suzanne’s Blog: I Cooked a Steak!

Raw moose steak with its rub. Photo by Suzanne Crocker.
I cooked a steak!  This may not seem like such a big deal, but it is the first time I have ever successfully cooked a steak.  For many years, I was a vegetarian.  Actually this only changed when I hitched up with a moose hunter who liked to cook.  I am probably the only person on the planet who has difficulty roasting a chicken. 

Steak, has also been a mystery to me.  How to cook it so that it is tender and not over done.  Not my forté. Moose steak is particularly daunting, as it is not the tenderest of meats, requiring long, slow cooking or marinating.  So I have always opted to leave the moose steak cooking to Gerard.  He manages to cook it, thanks to marinades and the BBQ (a cooking device that I have also never mastered). Ah, the marinade.  Let’s see – no soy sauce, no vinegar, no wine.  So how to marinade?  Gerard tried marinating in rhubarb juice, but it wasn’t very successful.  Perhaps it just needed more time. 

Dawn Dyce of Dawson City to the rescue!   Dawn marinades her moose (and any wild game) in milk.  I had heard tales of Dawn’s most tender moose roasts, so I decided to give it a try.  In my case I had just made some chevre, so I had whey on hand and decided to marinade the moose steaks in whey.  At Dawn’s suggestion, I put the thawed steaks in a ziplock bag, added some whey, removed the air and set the bag in the fridge for 24 hours, turning it over now and again when I noticed it.

Steak cooking on the grill. Photo by Suzanne Crocker.
Hoping that the whey would impart tenderness to the moose steak, I still had the dilemma of flavour and how to actually cook the darn thing.  Enter Whitehorse chef Miche Genest!  One of the many lessons I had from Miche’s week long visit in my kitchen, was how to cook a moose steak with only the local ingredients I had on hand.  Miche taught me about rubs.  So, remembering her moose rub lesson, I removed the moose steaks from their whey marinade and patted them dry.  

In the  re-purposed coffee grinder (no coffee in this house) I blended together dried juniper berries, nasturtium pods, and spruce tips, and then rubbed the spice mix onto both sides of each dried steak.  Then I wrapped the steaks in plastic wrap and set them into the fridge for a couple of hours. 

Miche also taught me about cooking – hot and fast.  Miche likes her steak rare so she sears it for 1 ½ minutes per side.  I decided to go a little longer – but I did watch the clock. The result?  Yummm!  Tender and tasty.  Drizzled with a moose demi-glaze (made from moose bones – recipe to come later).  Perhaps my ears deceived me, but I think I heard 15-year-old Kate say, “You could open a restaurant after this year, Mom.”  Fine praise indeed for the mother who didn’t like cooking!

> View the recipe for Moose Steak with Yukon Rub
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Suzanne’s Blog: Cut Off!


For two days the North Klondike Highway has been closed due to unseasonably warm weather causing black ice and massive frost heaves.  This means that my community of Dawson City, as well as the communities of Mayo, Fort MacPherson and Inuvik, are all cut off from the rest of Canada.  No road in.  No road out.  No grocery trucks.  No mail.  

Ten days before Christmas. Air North, the only airline that links our communities to Whitehorse and hence, the rest of Canada, has managed to squeeze in extra flights during the short window of December daylight, to help transport the many people who are now unable to drive south. 

But this is not a panacea.  Yesterday the plane couldn’t land in Dawson due to bad weather.  Some folks won’t get a seat on the plane for another four days.  And although the planes can transport people, they can’t supply Dawson  and Inuvik with groceries.

So here it is, another reminder of our particular vulnerability in the North.  It’s not the first time.  It happened on an even larger scale in 2012 when the only road into all of the Yukon was closed due to mudslides – causing the shelves of the many large grocery stores in the Yukon’s capital, Whitehorse, to go bare within a couple of days.

There is no doubt we are seeing the effects of climate change around the world, and especially in the North. Dawson’s average temperature this time of year should be minus 20° to minus 30° C.  For the past two weeks we have had temperatures ranging from plus 2° to minus 10°C.  Whitehorse has had above zero temperatures and rain.

This is the second year that the Yukon River has failed to freeze between Dawson and West Dawson.  Without an ice bridge, the journey to town for West Dawsonites for supplies is now 12 km instead of 2 km – and currently only passable by foot, skidoo, or dog team. These are quickly becoming the new norms in the North.  Another poignant reminder of the importance of increasing our self-sufficiency and our food security. The importance of lessening our dependence on infrastructure that links us to the south. 

The reason why I am putting myself to the test and feeding my family of five only food that can be sourced locally for one full year. I, of course, have enough food to get me through.   Many others have freezers full of moose meat.   Hopefully, the highway will soon re-open and this event will be considered a mild inconvenience in the memories of many. 

But should we pass it off so casually?  Is it actually the canary in the coal mine.  And rather than a temporary inconvenience, a foreshadowing of things to come.  A memory that should inspire adaptation and change. Many studying global food security suggest the answer will be in the development of  more local, small-scale organic farms and growers.  I agree. 

And I believe this will be especially important for Northern Canada along with a renewed understanding of what we can source locally from the land.  The less we need to rely on ‘one road in, one road out’ the better off we will be.
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Suzanne’s Blog: Christmas Experimentation


The Christmas season has arrived –  a season for many wonderful things, not the least of which is Christmas baking.  Holiday baking traditions in my family are melt-in-your-mouth shortbread and rum-soaked fruit cake that has aged for 6-12 months. This year is a little different.

My family recently headed to Whitehorse for various sporting events (and two days of eating contraband!)  So I took advantage of the empty house and settled in for a two-day Christmas baking extravaganza.  Although it might be better described as a two-day Christmas baking science lab. What is unusual about this year’s baking, is that it is all experimental.  No white flour, no white sugar, no icing sugar, no baking powder nor baking soda nor corn starch.  No salt.  No nuts.  No chocolate.  No candied orange and lemon peel.  No raisins.  No currents.  No cinnamon, ginger or cloves.

I pulled out my traditional recipes for short bread, ginger snaps, aspen rocks and fruit cake and attempted to adapt them to the local ingredients I have on hand.  I pulled out old dusty copies of December editions of Chatelaine and Canadian Living and scoured them for recipes that might suit my ingredients.  I have yet to find a recipe for just my ingredients, so adaptations, substitutions and imagination have taken over. I am extremely grateful for the ingredients I do have available.

Thanks to the hard work of Dawson farmers, and the abundance of edibles the Boreal forest can provide, there will be 100%-local Christmas baking in my house this year! I now have flour (thanks Otto) and sugar beet sugar (thanks Grant, Becky, and Paulette).  I also have butter (thanks Jen), eggs (thanks Megan and Becky), birch syrup (thanks Sylvia and Berwyn), honey (thanks David) and berries (thanks Diana, Maryanne, the forest and the many Dawsonites who shared some of their precious wild berries with me this year).  I have potato starch (thanks Lucy, Otto, Tom, Brian and Claus).  I have a few winter hearty apples (thanks John and Kim).  I have dried spruce tips (thanks forest) and dried nysturtiam seed pods (thanks Andrea and Klondike Kate’s).

Of course, experimenting is also limited by quantity.  Every ingredient I have has been hard fought for.  The sugar takes several days to create from sugar beets.  The butter takes several days to make from the cream skimmed off the fresh milk.  And before I have flour, I need to clean the grains and then grind them. 

Whereas I once automatically doubled or tripled recipes for Christmas baking, this year I find myself cutting every recipe in half.  I have become leery of recipes that call for 2 cups of sugar for example – as that would use up almost all the sugar I have on hand before starting the arduous task of processing more sugar beets.

Mixing and matching, substituting, altering quantities – such is the alchemy behind Christmas baking this year. A few recipes have worked out well enough to be shared and repeated – such as Birch Brittle and Yukon Shortbread.

Brittle made with birch syrup and pumpkin seeds. Photo by Suzanne Crocker.
But many have been less than desirable.  My friend Bridget dropped by during my baking frenzy and sampled some of my experiments.  “You can’t call these cookies,” she announced after tasting one of my shortbread trials.  I was deflated.  “But you can call them biscuits.”  She then proceeded to lather some butter onto one of my cookies and declared it quite good. 

After I got over my moment of self-pity, I too tried one with butter and then with cream cheese and had to admit she was right. They taste more like oatcakes (without the oats).   So sweet biscuits they are. 

The recipe included here for Yukon Shortbread did, however, pass the cookie test. My family has now returned from Whitehorse and I will bring out the results of my baking bit by bit to see what they think.  The experimenting will continue – adjusting this and adjusting that.  Trying a few new recipes.  But first … I have to make some more butter, grind some more flour, and peel some more sugar beets.

If you have any Christmas baking recipes that you think might adapt well to my local ingredients, I would be more than happy to have you share them!

> See the recipe for Birch Brittle > See the recipe for Yukon Shortbread
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Suzanne’s Blog: Sugar Beets Sweeten the Deal

Sugar beets can be turned into sugar (in jar, at left) or syrup (right). Photo by Suzanne Crocker.
I love birch syrup and am grateful to Sylvia Frisch and Berwyn Larson who are raising their two daughters in the bush and producing birch syrup commercially.  During the past 4 ½ months of eating only local foods, we have consumed 24 litres of birch syrup.  I have discovered that the flavour of birch syrup alone can substitute for the ‘far east’ spices of cinnamon and all-spice.  I have even been known to down a shot of birch syrup, straight up, during those moments when, in a previous life, I would have grabbed a piece of chocolate – to get me through a moment of emotional or physical despair.

I also love David McBurney’s local honey – it is pure, delicate, and divine.  And it is treated like a delicacy in the family.  It also makes the perfect sweetener to enhance other delicate flavours that would be overpowered by the robust flavour of birch syrup. But there are times, especially in baking, when chemistry is required and a liquid sugar option just doesn’t do the trick. 

Now that I have local flour, and Christmas is coming, baking is on my mind.  So what to do when crystalized sugar is required? Birch syrup, unlike maple syrup, does not crystalize.  I learned this last April while visiting Birch Camp. 

So, with birch sugar no longer an option, I ordered GMO-free sugar beet seeds.  I have never had any luck growing regular beets, so I recruited others to grow the sugar beets for me –  the great gardeners Paulette Michaud and Becky Sadlier.  

Unbeknownst to me, long-time Dawson farmer, Grant Dowdell, also had my year of eating local on his mind and ordered non-GMO sugar beet seeds to see if they would grow in the north.  The sugar beets grew marvelously for all, confirming that they are indeed a reasonable crop for the North.   They like warm days and cool nights – perfect for a Dawson City summer.  

I ended up with 350 pounds worth to experiment with! Sugar beets contain approximately 20% sucrose, the same sugar found in sugar cane.  One quarter of the world’s refined sugar comes from sugar beets. In Canada, Taber, Alberta is the industrial hot spot for growing and processing sugar beets into sugar. 

On a commercial scale, lime (calcium oxide) and carbon dioxide are added to form calcium carbonate which solidifies and pulls out any impurities – thus resulting in familiar white sugar.  No such additions for a local home-made sugar, so the resulting sugar is brown with a richer taste.

There is a paucity of information out there on just how to make sugar from sugar beets at home, so I gave up on research and moved to trial and error.   After all, with 350 pounds of sugar beets, there was room for experimentation and failure. 

And failure there has been!  Although no failure has yet to see itself in the compost.  The family seems more than willing to devour the failures – be they sugar beet toffee, sugar beet gum, sugar beet tea.  Even burnt beet sugar has found a use. (Thank goodness because there has  been a lot of burnt beet sugar!)

In the process, I have also discovered the wonder of the sugar beet – a root vegetable that was previously unknown to me.  Sugar beets are often touted as a food for livestock or a green manure crop so I was expecting the taste of the sugar beet itself to be unpalatable.  But it is just the opposite!   Cooked up, it is a delicious, sweet, white beet. 

The sugar beet leaves are also edible.  And amazingly, even after the sugar is extracted, the sugar beet pulp remains sweet and delicious.  I’m afraid the local Dawson livestock will be getting less sugar beet pulp than previously anticipated this year. One thing is for certain – processing sugar beets into sugar requires time and patience. 

Here are my step-by-step instructions on how to make syrup (easy) and sugar (difficult) from sugar beets. Sugar was first extracted from sugar beets in the mid 18th century.   In the early 19th century, during the Napoleonic wars when French ports were cut off from the rest of the world, Napoleon encouraged wide-scale sugar beet production and processing.  France remains one of the world leaders in sugar beet production and most of Europe’s sugar comes from sugar beets, rather than sugar cane.

Consider adding non-GMO sugar beet seeds to your next seed order.  In Canada, they can be found from Salt Spring Seeds and from T&T seeds.  Sugar beets grow well in the north and are a delicious root vegetable in their own right.  But don’t throw out the water you cook them in, as this water is sweet and can easily be used to make beet syrup and beet syrup candy.   And, if you are brave, sugar! 

If you live in an area populated by deer, be warned that sugar beet tops are a great attractant for deer.  Word is now out to the Yukon moose so perhaps next year Dawson’s sugar beet rows will require fencing!

> View the recipe for Sugar Beet Sugar and Syrup
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Suzanne’s Blog:  Chef Miche Gets Me Into Hock

Pork Hocks, Cabbage and Rye Berry Casserole is another delicious dish Chef Miche Genest helped create for Suzanne with 100% local ingredients. Photo by Suzanne Crocker.
Recently, I had the distinct honour to have Yukon chef, Miche Genest, in my kitchen, devoting a week of her time helping me cook! The week went by all too fast, but we covered a lot of ground – soups, dinners, sauces, desserts.  And we started experimenting with grains (more on the grains later).

I promised to share some more recipes and here is another.  (See also previous posts with Brian Phelan’s Rappie Pie and Token Gesture Custard) One of the favourite supper recipes was Pork Hock Rye Casserole, although it doesn’t have to include pork hocks – it is adaptable to any slow cooking meat.  And the rye could easily be substituted with barley (once I thresh it) and probably even with wheat grains (although I think I will preserve every precious grain of wheat for baking!) This, like Rappie Pie, is another excellent one dish winter comfort food – filling, delicious and 100% Dawson City local!

> View recipe for Pork Hock Rye Casserole
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Suzanne’s Blog: Flour Power and the Ol’ Grind

Gerard and Tess grinding fl;our by hand. Photo by Miche Genest.
Despite a very cold November, with several weeks of -35° to -40°C, it looks like it is going to be a long freeze-up for the Yukon River again this year. I am lucky enough to have 25 kg. of wheat grains and 25 kg. of rye grains that were secured from Otto at Kokopellie Farm just before the ferry was pulled.   But Otto’s wonderful grinder is on the other side of the Yukon River.  So, for now, I am left to my own devices.

I tried to grind the grain with a combination of blender and flour sifter.  It took many, many passes.  It was possible to eke out a small amount of flour, but certainly not very efficient. Although Dawson is small (about 1,500 people), it is the kind of community where you can put out a request for an obscure item, such as flour grinder, on the local Crier Buyer Facebook page and expect to get a response. I was not disappointed.

Within a day, I was very grateful to receive a call from Louise Piché.  She had a hand crank flour grinder, not yet tried, that she had picked up somewhere or other and I was welcome to borrow it.   A flour grinder is a wonderful thing!   A couple of passes through the grinder along with a bit of an upper body workout and voilà – flour! Flour!! 

Flour means the possibility of bread and baking! We have flour! Subsequently, I received another call – this time from Becky Sadlier who has an electric flour mill that we could borrow.  However Becky lives on the other side of the Klondike River, now filled with slush.  But Yukoners are never too daunted by the weather.  Loren Sadlier was making one last canoe trip across the Klondike, through the slush, and the grinder could go with him. 

I had thought the hand grinder was a gift from the heavens.  The electric grinder was able to make an even finer flour! There are still a few obstacles to overcome, such as the lack of yeast, baking soda, baking powder and crystalized sugar.  But where there is a will, there is a way. Let the baking experiments begin!  (And let me remember my lesson in grain moderation! )

Miche Genest sent me this wonderful breakfast option, Breakfast Caflouti, which only requires ½ cup of flour and no leavening agent.  It was a tremendous hit in our family – and a very welcome change from our usual fried eggs and mashed potato cakes.

A close look at the hand flour grinder and its handiwork. Photo by Suzanne Crocker.
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Suzanne’s Blog: Moderation Goes Down the Grain


Grains have now entered my local diet.  And, unfortunately, I did not heed the concept of moderation with their re-introduction. Spending almost four months entirely grain free was very interesting.  Certainly, it was the one food that haunted me.  When I ventured outside my house, the smell or sight of baking was associated with a sense of longing.   Plates of bannock at Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in feasts, the smell of Nora Van Bibber’s cinnamon buns at Fall Harvest Camp, the desert table at potluck dinners, the baking at Christmas bazaars – those were the difficult times.   Those were the times when I realized how important it was that my family agreed to the ‘no grocery store food in the house’ policy.   

I do have will power, but I’m not sure how much. I have also come to realize how much grains contribute to a sense of being full.  Without them, potatoes help fill the gap.  As does a mug of steamed milk.  In the absence of grains, these have become my go-to’s when I need a quick snack.  Mashed potato cakes have become the morning staple to replace toast, bagels, or cereal. I have really become quite fond of them and haven’t yet tired of eating them almost every morning.

At the start of this local diet, there was an almost instant melting away of extra pounds.  Gerard’s weight loss was the most noticeable, losing 30 pounds during the first two months!   Was this due to being grain free? The other unexpected result of eating local was a distinct lack of body odour. Could that also have to do with being grain free?  Have those folks who live a gluten free existence noticed the same phenomena?

When Yukon chef, Miche Genest, came to stay with us last week I had to clean up the grains that had been drying in the loft floor so that Miche would have a place to sleep.  The barley is not yet threshed.   And I haven’t figured out how to de-husk the buckwheat or hull the oats. But thanks to Otto and his combine, the wheat and the rye were threshed and just waiting for me to find a way to grind them.  

So, one evening, when 12-year-old Tess started talking about how much she yearned for a bowl of cereal, I came up with an idea.  Why not boil the whole rye grains!  And so Tess did.  Accompanied by warm milk, the first mouthful was an extremely comforting and satisfying experience. 

All my grain longings seemed to come to the forefront as I ate spoonful after spoonful.  Somewhere in the logical side of my brain was a small voice suggesting that downing a giant bowl of cooked whole rye might not be the best way to re-introduce grains after four months without.  But I couldn’t stop.  So I ate the whole bowl. 

I had a fitful sleep that night.  For the next 2 days, I felt like there was a brick in my stomach. I produced enough gas to power our house.  Short-term gain for long-term pain.   Lesson learned.  I will attempt a more moderate re-introduction once I recover from this one.

> Check out the recipe for Mashed potato cakes
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Bee Whyld Produces “the Champagne of Honey”

Despite its sub-arctic climate, the Yukon is blessed with several apiaries. With care, bee hives can survive the harsh winters, even as far north as Dawson City. This is the profile of one of the Yukon’s honey producers.

Bee Whyld is a small apiary in Watson Lake, Yukon, specializing in producing Fireweed Honey. Owned and operated by Courtney and Joel Wilkinson, Bee Whyld was officially founded in June of 2016, although it had been in the works for a few years prior.
Bee hives around a field of fireweed - Photo Courtesy of Bee Whyld
Bee hives around a field of fireweed – Photo Courtesy of Bee Whyld
Courtney originally had a job as a salesperson for an Alberta honey company, and was working towards keeping her own bees. On a visit to the Yukon to visit her then-boyfriend Joel, she noticed the fields of fireweed common in the territory.  Courtney knew from her experience selling honey that Fireweed is not only one of the rarest honeys, and also one of the best for flavour and medicine, and this sparked the idea to bring bees up to the Yukon and make Fireweed Honey.

Bee Whyld’s hives have managed to successfully overwinter – Photo courtesy of Bee Whyld.
Beekeeping in the North is quite challenging, especially overwintering and maintaining the health of the hives, but through trial and error Courtney and Joel have learned what it takes to successfully produce honey in the Yukon.

This brood frame was attacked by a bear, who killed more than half the population of bees - Photo Courtesy of Bee Whyld
This brood frame was attacked by a bear, who killed more than half the population of bees – Photo Courtesy of Bee Whyld
Their honey bees gather all of the nectar that they turn into honey from the Boreal Yukon forests, with fields of flowers that are untouched by pesticides, and not genetically modified. Their honey is also both unpasteurized and raw, meaning they don’t heat it at all. This ensures all the natural antibiotics, pollen, and Royal Jelly are still intact within the honey,  making it a good choice for medicinal uses (such us helping to heal wounds, helping to fight off infections, helping to reduce allergies, and alleviating sore throats). Bee Whyld’s Yukon Fireweed Honey has been called “the Champagne of honey.” It is a rare honey prized around the world for its medicinal qualities, and its light sweet taste.
Bee Whyld’s Yukon Fireweed Honey – Photo Courtesy of Bee Whyld
     
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Think You Could Eat Only Locally?
Take the First We Eat Local Dish Challenge

It is harvest season and, in Dawson City, the end of the Farmers’ Markets.  It is a good opportunity to get what’s left of the fresh veggies before the winter sets in.  It is also a good time to launch our #FirstWeEatChallenge, a fun way in which everyone can help Suzanne come up with ideas to add to her locally-sourced menu.

Suzanne has been eating only 100% local foods for 51 days now, and it has been a real eye-opening experience. Think you could do it?  Perhaps you already do eat mostly local fare.  If you want to show your solidarity for Suzanne’s year, or just see for yourself how challenging or how easy it really is, we invite you to try preparing just one meal with only foods local to your community.  

Alternatively, check out the list of local Dawson City ingredients and make a “Dawson Local” meal. It would be ideal if you could stick to the same 100%-local-only standard as Suzanne for finding substitutes for salt, oil and spices, but we understand if that’s not feasible.

Either way, we trust that everyone’s creativity will blow us away. Come take the challenge, and share it with us on Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook using the hashtag #FirstWeEatChallenge, or send it to us via email .  

If you want, you can include the recipe for your dish so Suzanne can try it at home, with any necessary adjustments. We’ll then include it on our Recipes Page.    
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Trying Specklebelly Goose from Old Crow

Specklebelly Geese migrate through Old Crow, Yukon every fall and spring on the way to and from their nesting grounds in the Arctic. Photo by Dee Carpenter
Miche here. When you go up to visit Old Crow you never know what that unique and generous community will send back with you — a haunch of caribou traded for some Taku River sockeye, or several pounds of King salmon roe. This year a friend and colleague presented me with a whole, wild, specklebelly goose. I had never tasted a wild goose before. Bringing it home to Whitehorse, I plunked it in the freezer while I decided how to cook it. The specklebelly, or greater white-fronted goose, migrates through Old Crow every fall and spring on the way to and from their nesting grounds in the Arctic. These geese are an important part of the traditional diet in Old Crow. In early May the hunters were out on the Porcupine River, bringing home the birds for the family pot. Every year, the hunter who got my goose gives all the women in his family a bird for Mother’s Day. He tells their men, who cook the goose, to follow the magic formula: 2-2-2. That is, slow-roast the specklebelly with two cups of water for two hours in a 200°F oven. According to Ducks Unlimited, the specklebelly “provides the makings for one of the most delectable wild game meals you’ve ever eaten.” This cook concurs. I followed a modified 2-2-2 formula, and that specklebelly was the best wild fowl I’ve ever tasted. Thank you Old Crow. > Check out the recipe for Specklebelly Goose —Michele Genest, The Boreal Gourmet
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Give tips, get lunch!

Spruce Tips ready to become a delicious syrup - Photo by The North Woods Cookshop
Spruce Tips ready to become a delicious syrup – Photo by The North Woods Cookshop
Your foraging adventures not only can help you stock your pantry with wild goodies, but they could also get you a delicious free lunch! The North Woods Cookshop and Lunchbox, a Dawson City based catering company, is looking for generous foragers to share a bit of their spruce tip loot with them. For every four cups of spruce tips you bring them, they will treat you to a free lunch at their amazing new food truck, located in the lot next to the Westminster Hotel. They have great plans for those spruce tips, including delicious syrups for their homemade sodas, as well as the spice mixes, rubs and gourmet salts they are known for. Hurry up before the picking season ends, and remember to spread your harvest out over many trees to keep them healthy and strong. Georgia and Allie will thank you!
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Vertical Agriculture Coming to Carcross

A vertical agriculture facility is in the planning stages with the goal of having it built in Carcross this fall. This innovative project will be the first  of its kind in the Yukon. Tami Grantham, Natural Resources Coordinator with the Carcross-Tagish First Nation, says:  “What attracted us to this technology is the ability to grow greens year-round. It’s a goal and a mission for the government of Carcross-Tagish First Nation to become food-secure.” Construction would be managed through a new corporation created as a partnership between the Carcross-Tagish First Nation and Northstar Agriculture of which the First Nation will be 51 per cent owner. The system will recirculate water from a fish tank through a vegetable grow bed. Nutrients from the fish waste feed the plants, and the plants filter the water to keep the fish healthy. In normal aquaculture, excretions from the animals being raised can accumulate in the water, increasing toxicity. In an aquaponic system, water from an aquaculture system is fed to a hydroponic system where the by-products are broken down by bacteria into nitrates, which are utilized by the plants as nutrients, and the water is then recirculated back to the aquaculture system. The vertical part of this type of farming will be in the form of stacked layers that could be up to 10 meters high, in order to maximize production, contained in a warehouse-style space. Not only would this mean a possibility for fresh local produce and lower food prices in the community, but also the promise of food security, as this system allows year-round growing of vegetables in a sustainable way. The fish raised would be Tilapia, which is common in farming systems. Vegetables grown would include kale, spinach, and perhaps even strawberries and other vine crops.  
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See the Bees, Eh? Dawson Hive Successfully Overwinters

The bees look healthy despite of the challenges for beekeeping in the North
The bees look healthy despite of the challenges for Apiculture in the North
Photo by Suzanne Crocker
David McBurney’s honey bees have survived the winter!
Bees have been successfully overwintered in southern Yukon, but it has been trickier to achieve in the Dawson area due to big temperature fluctuations in March/April,  when it can be +20C in the afternoon heat of the sun and -20C at night.  David and the bee’s success this winter means Suzanne should be able to add a bit of honey to her local diet for this upcoming year.
Suzanne recently talked about sweeteners, as well as her search for vinegar, on a recent episode of Yu-Kon Grow It on CBC North’s A New Day with host Sandi Coleman.
Are you aware of other honey bees that have been successfully overwintered in Dawson or in areas further North? Let us know.
Suzanne visited David McBurney’s honey bees
Suzanne visited David McBurney’s honey bees – Photo by Suzanne Crocker
David McBurney’s honey bees
David McBurney’s honey bees – Photo by Suzanne Crocker
David McBurney’s honey bees
David McBurney’s honey bees – Photo by Suzanne Crocker
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Sweeeeeeet! A Bucket of Birch Syrup

Suzanne’s main sweetener for her year of eating local will be birch syrup from Berwyn Larson and Sylvia Frisch’s birch camp not far from Dawson. The sap has been running well and Suzanne is starting her year with a 12-litre bucket of delicious Uncle Berwyn’s Yukon Birch Syrup .
Photo by Scott Buchanan
Suzanne recently talked about her experience at the camp on Yu-Kon Grow It on CBC North‘s A New Day with host Sandi Coleman.
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Pemmican – Wild Kitchen Style

Another great pemmican recipe! This “Traditional Raspberry Pemmican” recipe comes from the show and blog “Wild Kitchen”.  Wild Kitchen is a project based in the Canadian sub-arctic about people who harvest wild food. 100% of the cast and crew are from the Northwest Territories and they work with what is available on the land to prepare nutritious recipes with a distinct wild flavor. You can watch Wild Kitchen episodes here and on their website you can find their awesome recipes.
Traditional Raspberry Pemmican recipe by Wild Kitchen
Traditional Raspberry Pemmican recipe by Wild Kitchen
 
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Pemmi-can-do with Ch’itsuh

Ch’itsuh or pemmican - photo by Mary Jane Moses from Old Crow
Ch’itsuh or pemmican made by Mary Jane Moses from Old Crow
Suzanne is looking for ways to keep her ever-hungry 17-year-old son, Sam, full next year.  Sam suggested that pemmican might be a reasonable locally-sourced snack food that will help him get through the year, especially since he spends lots of time doing physical activity.  After all, Canada was practically built on pemmican. Trading posts would seek this high-protein and high-energy food from the natives, and it was used to sustain the voyageurs, especially in winter,  as they traveled long distances. Mary Jane Moses of Old Crow shared some of her ch’itsuh (pemmican) with Suzanne.  Click here for a couple of classic pemmican recipes: Have a recipe for pemmican for Suzanne to try?  Please share here.        
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“Le Refuge” – France Benoit’s charming farm in Yellowknife

France Benoit in Le Refuge - Photo by Up Here Magazine
France Benoit in Le Refuge – Photo by Up Here Magazine
In a beautiful article by Up Here Magazine, France Benoit opens the gate to her home and farm “Le Refuge“, which she has lovingly built and tended to for the past 25 years. On this property, by the shores of Madeline Lake in Yellowknife, France grows a variety of vegetables to feed herself as well as to sell in the local farmer’s market, of which she is a founding member. France has been kind enough to share many growing and homesteading tips with Suzanne, which we have featured on FWE, and her creative and smart solutions for northern greenhouses keep us inspired. Thanks, France!
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Vadzaih: Cooking Caribou from Antler to Hoof

The Caribou cookbook has arrived!  Learn how to use all parts of the caribou. Traditional recipes such as ch’itsuh (pemmican), head cheese, and Caribou Bone Broth combined with new recipes such as Caribou Wonton Soup and Mushroom and Caribou Brain Ravioli.
Vadzaih: Cooking Caribou from Antler to Hoof" published by The Prcupine Caribou Management Board
“Vadzaih: Cooking Caribou from Antler to Hoof” published by The Porcupine Caribou Management Board
Continue reading “Vadzaih: Cooking Caribou from Antler to Hoof”
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Yu-kon Grow It – Brian Lendrum: Goat farming pioneer

In this episode of Yu-kon Grow It,  Sandi Coleman interviews Brian Lendrum and Susan Ross, who have been goat farming outside of Whitehorse for decades and producing delicious goat cheese. Pioneers in the dairy business around Whitehorse, Lendrum and his wife found that their area around Lake Laberge had perfect conditions for raising goats, with rolling hills and lots of different vegetation for the goats to enjoy. On a regular basis, they would produce about 30 litres of milk a day, which translates to around 3 to 4 kg of cheese. Every week, they would take around 10 kg of their freshly made goat cheese to the local market, and sometimes sell out within the hour. They also experimented with goat milk yoghurt and sold bottled goat milk. Continue reading “Yu-kon Grow It – Brian Lendrum: Goat farming pioneer”
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Celery Flavor All Year Round

One way to have celery year round from the garden is to grow celeriac root. Weird looking but quite flavorful, celeriac root is edible raw or cooked, and tastes similar to the stalks of common celery.  It grows well in the North, keeps well in cold storage all winter, and apparently can have a shelf life of approximately six to eight months if stored properly. You can serve it roasted, stewed, blanched, or mashed, or added to your favorite stews or casseroles.  Peel it and chop it and use it in place of fresh celery in cooking.  Excellent combined with potatoes when cooking mashed potatoes! 
Celeriac Root - Wikimedia Commons
Celeriac Root – Wikimedia Commons
 
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Don’t Judge a Vegetable By Its Cover!

Another tasty, although not so pretty vegetable that grows well in the Yukon is the root called salsify.  Don’t let the hairy dark exterior intimidate you. Peel it, and it tastes similar to a very sweet parsnip, and you can eat it raw or you can cook it as you would cook most root vegetables.
Salsify, peeled and unpeeled - photo by Suzanne Crocker
Salsify, peeled and unpeeled – photo by Suzanne Crocker
Salsify might not be easily found in the average grocery store, but it actually grows wild in many places in the world, especially the Americas.
Purple Salsify flower- Wikimedia Commons
Purple Salsify flower- Wikimedia Commons
But not everything is under the ground: the flowers from the salsify root are gorgeous to look at, and also edible! The shoots can be used like asparagus, either raw or cooked, and the flowers can be added to salads.    
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Ginger in the North?

Louise Piché is experimenting growing ginger this year – by planting a piece of ginger root from the grocery store.  So far it’s doing well!
Louise Piché's ginger is looking great! Photo by Louise Piché
Louise Piché’s ginger is looking great! Photo by Louise Piché
Did you know you can re-grow other vegetables from what you buy in the grocery store? Apparently, you can re-grow celery, romaine lettuce and even herbs like mint and basil. All it takes is a little patience! Have you re-grown any store bought veggies at home? How did it go?
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Early Leafy Greens in a Cold April Greenhouse?

Asian Greens - Photo by Wikimedia Commons
Asian Greens – Photo by Wikimedia Commons
Take advantage of your greenhouse in April and May,  before you plant your tomatoes and cucumbers, to give you an early crop of spinach or Asian greens! Riley Brennan, of Dawson City, direct seeds spinach in her greenhouse as soon as the soil thaws in April.  She leaves the greenhouse unheated and the seedlings don’t require any covering.   By the time she goes to plant her greenhouse proper in late May, she has a crop of baby spinach to harvest. Continue reading “Early Leafy Greens in a Cold April Greenhouse?”
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Seedy Saturdays and Birch Syrup workshops in Dawson

Next weekend, Dawsonites will have a chance to participate in two amazing workshops! Seedy Saturdays will be held on Saturday March 25th at the Recreation Centre, and it will include presentations by Karen Digby and Grant Dowdell about northern gardening and by Scott Henderson about mushroom cultivation. The following day on Sunday the 26th, there will be a Birch Syrup workshop in which participants will meet at the Rec Centre and then go hunting for Birch sap. There are limited spaces on both, so make sure you sign up soon!
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Peanuts and Ground Cherries Growing in the North!

Ground cherries in their husk - wikimedia commons
Ground cherries in their husk – ph. Wikimedia commons
If there is something exotic you wish to grow in the North, ask Louise Piché of Rock Creek, Dawson City, Yukon.  Louise is a well known gardener in Dawson and a frequent ribbon winner at Dawson’s annual Discovery Days Horticultural Fair.  She loves experimenting with new and colorful varieties.  She has successfully grown peanuts and ground cherries (aka golden berries) as well as asparagus, giant pumpkins and buckwheat. Louise has generously shared her ‘tried and true’ cultivars that grow well in Rock Creek, which you can view on our seed page.   This year she is experimenting with ginger, turmeric, artichokes and pink potatoes. We will keep you posted! Continue reading “Peanuts and Ground Cherries Growing in the North!”
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Hear it on the radio: CBC Yukon’s “A New Day” catches up with Suzanne

Great news! The CBC morning radio show “A New Day” hosted by Sandi Coleman on CBC Yukon, has started a  new regular column called “Yu-kon Grow It”, which will air every other Wednesday morning between 7 and 7:30 am. On this segment,  Sandi will check in with Suzanne about her “First we Eat: Food Security North of 60” project, as well as featuring other Yukoners involved in local food issues such as Miche Genest and other guests. Sandi Coleman will next check in with Suzanne on Wednesday March 8th, between 7.00 and 7.30 am on CBC Radio Yukon. Don’t forget to tune in! You can listen to the first interview with Suzanne and Elyn Jones here,  
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Northern Food Network’s 1st Webinar – Dawson’s TH Working Farm School and Shirley Tagalik from Arviat, Nunavut

If you are interested in issues of Northern Food Security, consider signing up for webinars with the Northern Food Network. Their First Webinar is taking place Monday, Feb 27 from 10-11 am. It will feature Dexter MacRae & Darren Bullen,  from Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in Teaching and Working Farm and Shirley Tagalik and team, from Arviat Wellness and Arviat Greenhouse. The Northern Food Network (NFN) is co-hosted by the Arctic Institute of Community-Based Research (AICBR) and Food Secure Canada (FSC) as a space for people working in and interested in northern food security to share, learn about best practices across the North and advance collective action on food security. Sign up here for this great opportunity.
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Local Fertilizer in Arviat, Nunavut

When you live in a fly-in community in the North, shipping by plane can be very expensive, especially for heavy items such as soil and fertilizer. The people behind the community greenhouse  in Arviat, Nunavut, have taken on the very important issue of food security by devising a strategy to grow their own produce. And one of the biggest obstacles they have found is that the local soil lacks nutrients. Commercial soil works fine, but it is costly and it needs to be flown in, which impacts the sustainability of the project.
Arviat's Greenhouse, Photo by Arviat Goes Green
Arviat’s Greenhouse, Photo by Arviat Goes Green
Continue reading “Local Fertilizer in Arviat, Nunavut”
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Arviat Goes Green

Many northern Canadian communities do not have the luxury of the rich soil found in southern Yukon.  This is the case for the fly-in community of Arviat, (population 2,800) – the second largest community in  Nunavut.

Arviat Map, Nunavut, Canada
Arviat Map, Nunavut, Canada
In 2014 Arviat built a greenhouse beside the school to see if they could grow their own vegetables with local soil and local fertilizer. And they have been very successful! Continue reading “Arviat Goes Green”
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