Take a look at this article written last fall about a cooking class with Helen Webber.  Webber’s Lodges founder, and co author of the best selling cook book series Blueberries & Polar Bears

On a visit to Churchill last summer I signed up for a cooking class. Strange choice perhaps, in the land of belugas and polar bears. Most people make the long trek from Winnipeg (two days on the train) to see wildlife. But I thought cooking in this small community on the shore of Hudson Bay would be an insider experience à la Inuit. I imagined roasting seal blubber and baking bannock over an open fire. I couldn’t have been more wrong.

I found myself, with four other chef wannabes, in the sophisticated kitchen of Helen Webber, a trim, lively 60ish woman with wavy white hair and an engaging personality. She is a chef, cookbook author, wilderness-lodge owner, mother, grandmother and wife who has lived in this sub-arctic town all her life. Her grandfather came here from Iceland and was one of the first non-aboriginals to settle in the area.

The house that Webber shares with her husband Doug is just off Churchill’s main drag. It’s the one she lived in as a child and it also functions as headquarters for Webber’s Lodges – the family’s two fly-in wilderness camps on Hudson Bay. Her homey kitchen has every imaginable gadget and the latest appliances — a far cry from my expected campfire.

Helen became famous for her cooking at the family-owned fishing and hunting lodges. Her guests are mainly European and American. One of them, a Texan, encouraged her to write a cookbook. The first was published in 1994 and now there are nine of them, all with quirky names like Icebergs and Belugas, Blackcurrants and Caribou. When she’s not at the lodges or travelling to promote the business, she’s at home here in her welcoming kitchen, the social hub of Churchill. When actor Ralph Fiennes came to town to scout movie locations she cooked for him. “He was wonderful,” she coos, pointing to a photo on her kitchen wall of the two of them.

On this cool windy morning in August, while other tourists are out braving the elements in tundra buggies and zodiacs looking for wildlife, we have gathered in Helen’s kitchen to cook things that have come from the wild. Fresh produce is a luxury here but Helen has zucchini and tomatoes from her sister’s greenhouse. Everything else must come by train (and often late) so storage space is key. She keeps labeled Tupperware bins in oversized drawers. 

Helen has organized every step of this four-course luncheon. Her arctic-inspired menu includes appetizers made from small chunks of snow-goose breast topped with cream cheese and jalapeno pepper and wrapped in bacon. There’s also almond crusted arctic char with leek and lemon cream and caribou tenderloin with mushrooms and red wine. To top it all off, she’s planned a blueberry cream cheese tart made with blueberries which she picked just hours earlier.

Within minutes she has us slicing and dicing, sautéing and stirring. She moves about like a TV chef carving snow goose breast on one counter, chopping cranberries on another, and gently adjusting our bumbling efforts. Who knew there was a proper way to press crumbs into a caribou tenderloin? In between her deft manoeuvres she recounts hair-raising tales of her family’s life here on the shores of Hudson Bay — including a close encounter with an aggressive polar bear. Her life is an endless adventure.

A trip to Churchill is an adventure in itself, a surprising journey into the unexpected. Although I didn’t get to cook seal blubber, I did cook and dine with the indomitable Helen Webber – a delicious experience to be sure. If you get to Churchill in the summer you just might catch her at her stove. But be sure to call first. She may have ‘gone fishing.

www.webberslodges.com

www.blueberriesandpolarbears.com

www.travelmanitoba.com

www.churchill.ca

Judy Ross is a Collingwood-based writer who’s still cooking with Helen’s recipes.

Photo Credits: VisualCommunications, Judy Ross, graphicjackson, Webber Lodges

For information on the Award Winning Cook Book series Blueberries and Polar Bears call 1-800-490-2228 or check out their website www.blueberriesandpolarbears.com