Edible Canada offers a culinary tour of Canada’s north

When you think of foodie hotspots, the cities that come to mind are probably the old standbys: Paris, New York, Tokyo. But a Vancouver company has created a food tour exposing the cuisine of a lesser-known food hotspot: the Canadian North.

Edible Canada is a food tourism organization that puts on events showcasing culinary techniques and sampling food from different Canadian locales, and their “Across the Top of Canada” tour may be their biggest enterprise yet. The trip takes guests on a private 737 jet to northern hot (or is that cold?) spots to check out the local culture and cuisine, with stops in St. John’s, Iqaluit, Churchill, Yellowknife, and Whitehorse.

So what kind of food can you expect to eat if you hop on Edible Canada’s plane? A surprising variety, it turns out.

The tour begins in Vancouver, where guests drink signature cocktails and snack on liquid nitrogen ice cream, then heads to Whitehorse (probably the most cosmopolitan of the northerly cities), where there are served signature dinners of wild boar belly, venison, Arctic char, and foraged greens. There are also cocktails made from candy cap mushrooms, which live up to their name, offering a hint of sweetness.

Next, the group jets on to Yellowknife, where guests feast for two days on fresh-caught Northern Pike, chilled fiddlehead soup, reindeer with blueberries and mustard greens, and plenty of other locally sourced fish and game.

Iqualuit is next. This city in Nunavut has a population of just 7,740 and is a place of rare and wild beauty. Marine mammals are a large part of the traditional diet in Nunavut, so Edible Canada guests are treated to a meal that includes fish chowder, snow goose eggs, and seal (plus hot apple cider to ward of chilliness).

The furthest east of all the destinations is St. John’s, Newfoundland, where the bounty of the sea is put on maximum display. Meals of scallops, snow crab, roasted cod, and mussel broth abound. And what’s a trip to the Maritimes without a lobster bake?

The final, brief stop is Churchill, Manitoba, where guests have a quick lunch and partake of the region’s amazing whale-watching opportunities.

All of the meals served on this tour of the North are informed by local history and indigenous cultures, and many of them are enjoyed in the company of locals. Edible Canada wants to introduce people not only to local food, but also local culture and ways of life.

In Edible Canada’s world, it’s all about food for thought — and just food, of course.

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