Cheftimony Episode 005 – Cheftimony at Sea.
In the summer of 2015, I had one of the best experiences of my life. That July, I stepped away from office life entirely. I’d already been away from the practice of law for a few years, but I was still working in a related field and definitely still in an office. That beautiful July, I took some time off entirely, and as I think can often happen when we give ourselves time and open ourselves to opportunity, something wonderful happened, something that just would not have happened had I stayed in the office.
My good friend Merri Schwartz, who’s a fantastic pastry chef as well as the founder of a food-related charity I work with called Growing Chefs, let me know that she’d heard of a small schooner on the BC coast that needed a chef for an upcoming trip. The schooner was called Passing Cloud, and I soon learned that she is sailed by the team at Outer Shores Expeditions. They are an impressive group.
Passing Cloud is a gorgeous 70-foot wooden schooner, designed in Halifax by the naval architect William James Roué who is most famous for having designed the Bluenose (see the Canadian dime for an image of the Bluenose). Passing Cloud was built in Victoria in 1974 by local shipwright, Brian Walker. In her time, Passing Cloud has cruised the South Pacific, has won many races and in more recent years, has taken a select few lucky travellers to some of the most amazing places on the coast of British Columbia.
In the summer of 2015, I spoke with Outer Shores captain and president, Russell Markel. Russ is a really interesting guy. He’s got a PhD from the Department of Zoology at the University of British Columbia and he’s studied the coast of BC extensively. Happily, Russ made the decision to trade in typical academic life to start his own business, running thoughtful and exciting eco-tourism expeditions along the coast of British Columbia. Aboard Passing Cloud, Russ shares his passion and knowledge for the wildlife, the ecosystems and the people of the BC Coast.
Shortly after my talk with Russ, I joined the Passing Cloud crew on northern Vancouver Island to set sail for the Great Bear Rainforest. Passing Cloud generally travels with six guests accommodated in three beautiful staterooms and with four crew members – Captain, Mate, Chef and Expedition Specialist. Conservation and environmental protection are very important to Russ and the whole team at Outer Shores, so having specialists along is a key part of the Passing Cloud experience. In my time on the schooner, I’ve been lucky to work with a bear conservancy expert, a professor who specialises in whale acoustics and with an archaeologist who’s spent decades conducting research along the BC coast. In the interviews today, you’ll hear references to Russ (the Outer Shores president and captain) and also to Matt (another of the ship’s captains), to Liam (a first mate) and to Rosie, Passing Cloud’s expert on bears.
It’s hard to describe the beauty of this schooner and the places she sails. But this site - and the podcast - are about food, so I’m going to talk briefly about two places I’ve seen and two experiences I’ve had aboard Passing Cloud, and then get back to cooking. The two places I’ve seen the most aboard Passing Cloud are Haida Gwaii and the Great Bear Rainforest. I highly recommend that you read about them, that you look at pictures from these places and, if you can make it happen, that you visit them. In Haida Gwaii, you really feel that you’re at the edge of the world. It is wild and gorgeous, teeming with wildlife, and it has an indigenous cultural heritage that extends back more than 14,000 years. The Great Bear Rainforest is across the Hecate Strait from Haida Gwaii, in the central coast of BC. The wildlife here is also spectacular. Whales, bears, porpoises, wolves, otters. Look it up, read about it, visit if you can. These areas are both beautiful, and they’re important and vulnerable. Travel lightly, and if you spend any time there at all, I know you’ll want to be part of the effort to protect these wild places.
And those two experiences. The first was in Haida Gwaii, and Captain Matt was in charge of Passing Cloud at the time. We received word by radio from another vessel that there was a huge pod of orcas (or killer whales), not far from us. Maybe 75 of them! Captain Matt’s brow furrowed skeptically. It would be extraordinarily uncommon to see that many orcas together. But we were headed that direction anyway so we kept our eyes peeled. And as we got closer to the area we had heard described on the radio, we started to see big black dorsal fins slicing the water, dozens of them, more! It was an exhilarating moment and as we drew closer, members of the crew who had seen these creatures before got close enough to see that they weren’t orcas at all, but Risso’s dolphins. These are not the dolphins that first come to mind for most of us. These are huge, mostly black creatures, and they generally stay in deeper water out at sea. They were absolutely churning the water as they moved, these creatures that can be up to 13 feet long and 1,100 pounds. They were raw muscularity like I’d never seen before. As we got even closer, I could see white scarring on many of the dolphins’ faces as they breached the water. I learned that this type of dolphin feeds almost exclusively on squid, and they bear the scars of deep-sea battles with squid tentacles on their faces. I was out of the office now.
The second experience was closer to home, at least relatively. We were sailing in Great Bear, and I’d experienced something for the first time that I found to be quite magical. Dall’s porpoises were bow riding, which means they were leaping and jumping and almost surfing in the wake created by the bow of Passing Cloud as she sliced through the water. Again, raw muscularity, albeit in smaller form than the Risso’s dolphins. Not long after I’d seen that bow riding close up, we saw another ship off in the distance, this ship one of the big commercial cruise operations that head from Vancouver to Alaska with thousands of people on board. The first mate and I saw a huge wake at the bow of the cruise ship with a bunch of porpoises jumping and diving giddily in it. But while we could see this spectacular show, no one on the cruise ship could! There was no way to look down from the deck so high above to see these beautiful creatures playing and traveling with the cruise guests. What a shame. Anyway, it drove home to me how lucky I was to be aboard Passing Cloud. Often, smaller is better.
I have two guests on today’s show, both very impressive chefs who have cooked aboard Passing Cloud. The first is a friend and former colleague from Vancouver’s Burdock & Co restaurant, Tasha Sawyer. Tasha has cooked in cities big and small and in the Canadian wilderness from the rockies to Haida Gwaii. After speaking with Tasha, I met up with another friend, Erin Vickars. I first met Erin in 2016 as I was leaving Passing Cloud and she was coming aboard to take over as chef. Erin is a board member of the Chefs’ Table Society of British Columbia and has transformed the food program aboard Passing Cloud, making the experience for guests ever-more local, seasonal and sustainable.
It was such a pleasure speaking with these two talented chefs and reliving some of the challenges and joys of cooking at sea. Now, join us all aboard Passing Cloud, for Cheftimony Episode 005.