Eating well while camping across Canada
Tender steak, juicy sausages, delicious walleye, and more
The promotional blurb for On the Road, Across the Sea says, among other things, that we almost always eat well when travelling.
Even when in camp, we aim for food that is, above all, tasty. We’ve already turned the spotlight on excellent Alberta beef and outrageous pie and divine bacon in Calgary and fresh walleye we hooked ourselves in Northwestern Ontario.
Here’s a sampling of other good eats at camp.
Tortilla wraps are a terrific invention for road trippers and campers. Wraps do not take up as much space as a loaf of bread. Tortilla wraps come in small, medium or large sizes. You can fill a wrap like you fill a sandwich. The filling can be hot or cold. It is easy to handle. Tortilla wrap or a loaf of bread? We travel with both.
One of many wraps during the Rockies trip Mrs. K made with chicken drumsticks baked at home. Shredded and put in a wrap with lettuce, tomato, cucumber and drizzled with a Caesar salad dressing.
The wrap Mrs. K made with smoked salmon maple nuggets from The Fish Shop near Thunder Bay was a huge success.
As we reported earlier, on our way west we stopped to fish for walleye at Dogtooth Lake and very much enjoyed eating our catch. On the way east, we purchased fresh walleye at Consumer Frosted Foods, an old fashioned butcher shop in Kenora, and very much enjoyed the eating that followed at our Rushing River campsite.
Thanks to Mike, the friendly butcher, we tried a different type of sausage, made with wild rice, herbs and pork, a healthier and leaner alternative to a fatty pork sausage.
Incidentally, after nearly 50 years in business, the shop has closed its doors.
We can’t travel without cheese!
This Portuguese semi-soft cheese—creamy and buttery Queijo Vaquinha from Terceira Island—travelled all the way to Canada from Azores, thanks to Sennah and Adrian, and then to the Rockies. Great travelling cheese that was vacuum-sealed and made for a delicious cheese toastie, and an omelette, and even a snack on our Maligne Lake cruise to Spirit Island in Jasper National Park.
Peanut butter and banana sammies, perfect for a quick breakfast on a cold morning in camp. This particular morning in mid-September at Lake Louise Campground in Banff National Park the thermometer read -2 Celsius.
We travel with a few freeze-dried meals in the back of the Subaru, just in case. One such case was when we arrived late at Vermilion Provincial Campground, between Edmonton and Lloydminster, just in time to have a bite to eat and settle in for the night next to a prairie dog colony. The sun was setting and it was dark by the time we finished. Quick comfort food and quite tasty!
The delicious beef pie came from Laggan’s Mountain Bakery in Lake Louise Village. It’s a small bakery/cafe with a variety of baked goods, takeaway items like warm beef pies, chicken pot pies, turkey pies, mac n cheese, sausage rolls, pizza and prepared sandwiches. Limited sitting inside. There are a few tables and benches outside the bakery, or walk a few steps down to the river or the few tables behind the Visitor’s Centre. Very popular bakery, always a lineup.
On occasion, I do enjoy a Newfie breakfast, this one with excellent bologna from Harvest Meats in Yorkton, Saskatchewan. Mrs. K, on the other hand, says she’ll stick to egg on toast.
We prefer real eggs but when we run out, or are in a hurry, we have Mountain House freeze-dried breakfast skillet: hash browns, scrambled eggs, pork sausage, peppers and onions. No cooking involved. Just add hot water. It was another way to use our tortilla wraps for a quick breakfast on the go.
We love our potatoes but when travelling and camping you want an alternative to loading up the car with 10-pound bags of potatoes. Instant mashed potatoes or hash browns are a great alternative. They take up less space in the trunk and are fast and tasty. Idahoan and Golden Grill proved to be game changers for us.
Save the real potatoes for when you get home.
We had our fair share of sausages on our Rockies trip, because they travel well, are easy to make, and Mr. K has never met a sausage he didn’t like. Here we have Farm Boy Smoked Bacon & Cheese Sausage with above noted hash browns and canned peas.
Incidentally, the Cheese Smokies, in the photo at the top of this post, from Lakeside Farmstead are made with whey-fed pork, spices and curds and they are delicious, in barely-there casing.
They are stuffed with huge cheese curds that are bursting to get out. Hands down, the best smoked sausage of the trip—No, of the year!
What to make with canned salmon? Mrs. K makes salmon cakes to serve with a Caesar salad. Delish!
Just before we pulled into Wynyard Regional Park in Saskatchewan for an overnight, we stopped at the town’s supermarket for smoked ham steaks that made for a no-fuss meal with ready to eat Caesar salad and Idahoan mashed potatoes, followed by a delightful pecan caramel cheesecake for a rich and sweet treat.
(Turned out to be our scariest overnight. After we set up camp, we learned on the Internet of multiple stabbings—12 dead and 18 others injured—at James Smith Cree Nation 200 km to the north and the manhunt under way for the killers. We were all alone in the campground, with only one RV at the far end of the park. We did not sleep well, especially after an unidentified vehicle slowly rolled past our tent in the middle of the night.)
Early departures require no-fuss breakfasts such as for our departure from Wynyard. We made hard-boiled eggs the night before and had housemade piragi (Latvian bacon buns) with us from home. The sun was shining bright, so we warmed the piragi on the dash.
The Fish Shop near Thunder Bay never disappoints, whether it be with house-smoked fish or frozen or fresh fish. Here we pan-fry whitefish from Lake Nipigon at our campsite in Rushing River Provincial Park.
After a long day of driving at the beginning of our trip, we would be arriving late at Agawa Bay Campground on Lake Superior so we stopped for a quick walleye dinner at Agawa Fish & Chips.
After we settled in, we made a Crème Brûlée dessert at our campsite which was next to the beach. Perfect location to watch the sunset and for something sweet at the end of the day. Thank you Backpacker’s Pantry purchased at MEC. You could not have made an easier dessert. It was delicious!
Cook’s Smoked Ham made for a quick meal at camp but the sodium content at 50% was way too high for us. Simply too salty. Not recommended.
OUR CAMP STOVE: A Coleman Cascade 222 Camp Stove that generates 22,000 BTU via two adjustable stainless steel burners. We love the stove, especially since the rotary ignition for matchless lighting works as advertised. Two earlier stoves, both Primus, were faulty in that regard.
NEXT STOP: Grasslands National Park