Tincup Wilderness Lodge
by Don Genova

People don't usually think of fine dining when they think of Canada's north. Isolated fly-in fishing lodges are a long way from the high-end restaurants of cities like Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. But on my first-ever trip to the Yukon, I discovered a northern gourmet experience hours away from anything resembling a fancy restaurant.

As I walked into the kitchen of the Tincup Wilderness Lodge on the morning after my arrival, I was greeted by Jose Janssen, chef and co-owner. "We have sourdough waffles for you this morning, with sourdough starter we have here at the lodge, and raspberry syrup," she sang out. "Did you see the raspberries outside your cabin this morning?" I did see the raspberry bushes, and was heartened to know the fruit would make up part of the meal, along with the waffles. Sourdough waffles are just what I would have expected from a Yukon Lodge, since sourdough bread starters became one of the staples of the northern diet. They arrived with the early settlers who came up during the gold rush years. The starters allowed them to bake bread on the journey, and could be replenished for another use just by adding more flour and water. With proper care, they can last for years. "Once upon a time I had a sourdough starter that came from Juneau, Alaska," says Jose. "It was a hundred years old! But then I lost it somewhere, but part of it could still be out there somewhere with someone else, maybe I'll find it again."

Sourdough waffles, smoked trout from Tincup Lake, and moose bourbignon are common items on the Tincup Lodge menu, but Jose has a European culinary background and a worldly view of cuisine. That meant subsequent meals at the lodge included spicy Thai fish soup, and a savoury East Indian curry. The curry even came with naan bread cooked in a small tandoori oven installed this year in the kitchen by Jose's partner Larry Nagy. Larry's also in charge of catching and smoking the lake trout, which can run up to 45 pounds at Tincup Lake. "Sometimes I just gut them, salt them and let them dry before I smoke them," says Larry. "But for the batch I'm making today I'm adding some demerara sugar along with the salt, and a bit of spices, so the fish comes out a little sweeter."

Larry says he and Jose aren't big on recipes at the Lodge, which is a one and a half hour float plane ride west of Whitehorse. "We might use a recipe as a starting point, then we play with it. If we like it, then we'll do it again. If we don't like it, we try something else!"

Larry is an avid pilot, flying many of his guests to the lodge in on his 1960's vintage float plane. Running a wilderness lodge for four months a year is a change of pace for him. The geologist is used to flying around the world doing exploration for mining companies, but enjoys life at the lake just a little more: "Oh, well, it's a lifestyle choice. It's a beautiful place to live for a few months every year, we make and solve our own problems, and just try to enjoy life.

Tincup Lake is a long way from Jose Janssen's home in the Netherlands. She came to the Yukon in 1986 and established the Chocolate Claim, a wildly popular cafe in Whitehorse. After she met Larry Nagy she sold the cafe and hasn't looked back: "Now I have the opportunity to enjoy the north a little bit more. At the Chocolate Claim, especially in the summer, I was so busy, and managing about 18 people, and watching everybody come in who was on their way to go hiking and fishing, all the things I wanted to do. Now I'm back in the kitchen cooking, enjoying myself, and I hope I can do this for at least another five years if all goes well."

I'm sure she'll get those five years, thanks in part to some publicity from Martha Stewart. The homemaking queen paid a visit to Tincup to shoot one of her TV programs. Jose admits to experiencing a few jitters before Martha and her crew touched down on the lake: "There was of course about 18 crew members, and all the pilots who flew them in, and I didn't really know what to expect. In the days before hand it was like getting ready for a wedding or some other special event. But when she arrived, all was calm, we were well prepared and the shoot went very well. We only had a few hours with her, so we had to work quickly, just like on a movie set, when their schedules can change all the time."

My schedule changed one morning at Tincup Wilderness Lodge as I was about to make my way from my cabin to the main lodge. A magnificent bull moose was wandering just in front of the cabins, stopping to browse on the vegetation. While I quietly watched him, I thought it was the perfect start to a wilderness morning. But then that was BEFORE I ate the sourdough waffles and the smoked trout-wild mushroom-goat cheese omelette.

Next week I'll have more from the Yukon, including the challenges of trying to grow enough backyard produce to feed an inn full of hungry travelers