Poutine

Word association time: Canadian food.

You said poutine, right? 

I know you said poutine. No way do you think anything else when you hear "Canadian food". The most recent season of Top Chef (best show on television, by the way) was staged in Canada and when the chef contestants were asked what they thought when they heard "Canadian food", they all (to a person) said poutine. 

Poutine is it. Poutine = Canadian food. And I know it's a bit insulting to Canada but it just it what it is.

Before we headed up north to Canada in late June, I did some snooping on menus in the two towns we were staying on this trip (Golden, BC and Calgary) and it seemed to me that there was a lot of poutine on the menus of a lot of restaurants that we might entertain going to. You can even upgrade your side of fries or salad or whatever comes with your meal to poutine at most places. I was looking at Canada as poutine wonderland. Plain and simple, I was pretty darned stoked for this experience.

Maybe some words about poutine are in order? In case the cover picture (which of course is a dish of poutine) of this post doesn't speak for itself.

Poutine is not a complicated dish in any way. It's French fried potatoes topped with gravy and cheese curds. Sure...I get it, these days you can get it with all sorts of other toppings but if you boil it down to its essence, it's fries with gravy and cheese curds.

The dish was invented in Quebec in the late 1950s. Of course, like most food origin stories (the Philly cheesesteak and the French dip sandwich come to mind here), there is a healthy amount of debate about the one true originator of the dish. So sure, Le Roy Jucep in Drummondville, QC has a copyright registration certificate for the dish issued by the Canadian Intellectual Property Office but that might just mean the owner of the place got to the Office first. 

It appears that the earliest appearance of poutine on a menu may have been at Le Lutin Qui Rit in Warwick, QC but that place apparently didn't add gravy until a few years after they put in on the menu. So is it really poutine, then? There's a third restaurant in the mix but suffice it to say for the purposes of this blog post poutine is a dish from Quebec. No real debate there. If I ever make it to Quebec, maybe I'll do a more exhaustive examination than just lazily checking Wikipedia.

I have had amazing poutine before our trip this summer. I had some incredible poutine with pastrami in some restaurant that I can no longer remember the name of in Toronto and I had some awesome straight up poutine (maybe with some chives added) at The Vanguard in Milwaukee a few years later. But a whole week in Canada to explore poutine? Surely this would add to my appreciation of this Canadian dish immensely.

Lebanese poutine? Topped with chicken shawarma. At Beirut Street Food, Calgary.

Now, I can concede that one issue I might have run into here is that British Columbia and Calgary are really nowhere near Quebec and that the quality and authenticity of poutine might diminish as you get from from its point of origin. Now, granted...Toronto and Milwaukee aren't really that close to Quebec either but they are a whole lot closer than Calgary, not to mention points west.

On the fourth day of our trip, I was four dishes of poutine into my 2025 poutine quest and I was not particularly impressed. I'd eaten poutine in everything from a Lebanese restaurant to a dedicated poutinerie. I'd eaten it topped with chicken shawarma and hot peppers intentionally and with green onions accidentally despite mostly trying to stick to pure simple poutine. I'd had poutine served twice in aluminum foil dishes that are way too big (and are also the small size). And I'd had poutine with lightly battered French fries and with gravy that looks congealed but was actually pretty tasty (see picture below). 

As an aside, why do people lightly batter fries? Why? Just leave them alone. They are fine as just fried potatoes. 

The part that was just not impressing me on my poutine food tour on day four was the gravy. And it's really a pretty simple issue: why is it always so salty? All those variations of poutine noted a couple of paragraphs before this one...really, really salty gravy. And that honestly sort of ruined every dish. I'd say maybe in a pinch, if I was really, really in need of some poutine and didn't mind the heavy-ish amount of salt in the gravy, I'd cave and order some poutine from The Wolf's Den in Golden (cover picture). But the rest? Not particularly interested.

The Wolf's Den is the place with the battered fries, if that tells you anything about my opinion of the other three dishes I'd eaten to that point.

It was at this point that I took a poutine break. It wasn't intentional. We just ended up at some places to eat where I wanted something that didn't go particularly well with poutine or one place may have just been a bit too fancy. And by the time I really realized it, I found myself down to my last full day in Canada and I still hadn't had some poutine that I would consider as good. This was not going well.

Our last full day in Canada was spent at the Calgary Stampede, a rodeo / agricultural fair / amusement park / celebration of heritage / biggest thing all year in Calgary that is way better than all those things put together. Maybe they would have a poutine stall? Other than breakfast at the hotel and lunch in an airport lounge, this would be my last poutine shot of this trip. And yes, they did have a form of poutine on the breakfast menu but that dish was conspicuously absent from the reduced-but-totally-free menu for Hyatt Globalists. And there's no way I'm spending money on breakfast when there are other free options that are likely just as good.

So sure enough, when it got to about lunch time at the Stampede, we looked for the word poutine on a food stall in the food area. And sure enough, right there next to a burger place that also sold poutine was a place called La Poutinerie. This had to be it. This was the place I was getting my last poutine of the trip. I guess it was encouraging that it sounded French. Maybe.

One order of "poutine" please. No hot dog poutine or Greek poutine or maple bacon poutine or shepherd's pie poutine. Just straight up poutine. Fries. Gravy. Curds.

La Poutinerie's poutine. Calgary Stampede.

You know what? This worked. This was what I needed. It was hot. The fries were correctly cooked and not battered in any way. The cheese curds were melty enough around the edges, even on top of the dish. And the gravy was beefy and not overly salty. There! How difficult was that? I mean, just look at the color and consistency of that gravy in the picture above. The best poutine I had in a week in Canada (admittedly far, far from Quebec) was from a stall at the Calgary Stampede. 

If I'm going to gripe at all, I could have used some more cheese curds. The guys working in the La Poutinerie stall were just placing them on top of the dish so by the time I got to the bottom half it was just fries and gravy. Maybe that's my fault for not mixing them in if that's the way I wanted it.

This is for sure one of the least scientific and casual food quests I have ever been on but I'm satisfied. Thank you, Calgary stampede. Next year we are heading to Winnipeg and other parts Manitoba for a week. I'm not going to be as fanatical about the poutine next year but you know I'm having it somewhere.

This is my "this is some good poutine" face.

O Canada

Before I hit the "Publish" button on this post today, I had written exactly one piece in the last 12 years about time that I had spent in Canada. That post was in 2017, and we were really only in Canada because that's where our cruise ship to Alaska was departing from. 

Where did all the other posts about Canada go to, you might ask? Where are all the words and paragraphs about the country that shares the longest land border with the United States of America?

There aren't any. 

Know why? Because I've never intentionally planned a vacation to Canada. Never. I went to Montreal for a couple of Thanksgivings with my parents in high school but that wasn't me planning the vacation. I just went along, having been afforded no real choice in the matter. And sure, I've wandered to Toronto a few times since I turned 18 to see a basketball game and go to a baseball game (that wasn't really the intent but that's what I did) and go to the Toronto Zoo, but those didn't count really either. Nor really do the less than 24 hours we spent in Vancouver in 2017. I mean, if the boat had departed from Seattle, I would still not have visited Vancouver.

That trip to the Zoo, by the way, was the only time I have ever spent the night in a car in a parking lot. In the middle of winter. In Toronto. It was actually one of the warmest nights I've ever spent in my life. I had blankets and slept in my clothes, what can I say?

The first of two Tim Hortons we visited in Golden, BC (population 3,986-ish). The other Tims is better.

So all that stops today because here is a post that's completely and unabashedly about Canada. Why, you may ask? Well...because right after my 57th birthday at the end of June, I finally took a trip to Canada that I planned. Not for a day on the way to catch a boat. Not for an accidental or intentional weekend away. A real, honest to God vacation in Canada. Eight nights! And behold: there will be blog posts about Canada this year. 

And maybe, just maybe...next year as well (our next Canada trip is already booked!).

Why Canada in 2025? Well, I guess it started when it came time to add a fourth weeklong trip to our 2025 travel itinerary, I thought Rocky Mountains and back to Yellowstone National Park. But...I didn't really want to spend time in the center of the United States. I mean, not really. Not this year. Then I had a thought. Or an inspiration maybe. I remembered the Rockies actually go all the way north of the border and into Canada. So I looked to the Great White North and found our fourth trip. Just like that, we decided to go to Canada. 

Was it just like the Rocky Mountains in the United States and Yellowstone National Park? Nope! No it wasn't. It was like the Canadian Rockies. They are different places in so many ways. We'll get to all that just soon enough including all sorts of stuff about mountains, birds, bears, kayaking, hiking, waterfalls, early sunrises, late sunsets, pine trees, trout, sheep, flowers, chairs, lakes, glaciers, crazy-colored water and lots and lots of French fries with gravy and maybe some Tim Hortons coffee with a Canadian maple donut or two (so good...). OK, so maybe I won't cover all of that. We'll see.

And as an aside...what's the deal with apostrophes at Tim Hortons? I thought the place was founded by a dude named Tim Horton and because they are his stores, the "s" after Horton is is some sort of possessive denotation. Yes? Or no? Because there's no apostrophe. Also when they shorten the name to Tims, it's also missing an apostrophe. So confused here. Why isn't it "Tim Horton's" and "Tim's"?

Avalanche warning sign in Yoho National Park. Lots of avalanche signs in the Canadian Rockies.

Our entry point for this trip was Calgary, Alberta. I suppose Calgary is likely on the plains of Canada but hop in a car and drive an hour or maybe a bit more west and you'll be on the edge or really into the Rockies depending on how fast you feel like rolling down the Trans-Canada Highway. I'm not sure Canadians are big speeders. I felt like we were most often the fastest car on the road and I by no means usually have a lead foot. 

When we visited Rocky Mountain National Park in 2020, we flew to Denver, stopped there for a night but did literally nothing else except eat dinner and sleep and then split for the mountains the next morning. We did something similar when we visited Yellowstone later that same year: flew to Salt Lake City, landed and then drove straight through Idaho to Jackson, Wyoming.

We didn't do that with Calgary on this trip. After six nights in eastern British Columbia, we spent the last two nights of this vacation in downtown Calgary. And as luck would have it, we checked in to our hotel in that city the day before the start of the Calgary Stampede, which is like the biggest event of the year and it's not even close in Southern Alberta.

Let me say this about the Calgary Stampede and the city of Calgary in general: it's awesome!

Calgary Stampede parade. Shania Twain was the grand marshal.

I have to say that the skyline of Calgary is not much to look at. It's not New York or Chicago or Los Angeles (yes...LA has a skyline!!) or Las Vegas or some of our more famous and iconic cities in the United States. But the downtown is compact, dense, lived in, full of stores and hotels and restaurants and just 15 minutes or so outside of town you can find a fish hatchery or a park packed full of yellow warblers in the summer. And you know...if you spend about 90 minutes driving west you are in the Rockies surrounded by some of the most gorgeous country I've ever been in.

Let me say for the record that I've wanted to visit a fish hatchery for several years now. I saw one somewhere in some wooded area in the United States a few years ago and thought maybe it would be cool to go check one out. By the time I'd processed that thought, we had moved on from whatever hatchery inspired that idea but in Calgary I couldn't resist. It's basically like a fish farm where they grow fish. Trout in Calgary. Fascinating stuff. But that's not what this post is about.

Let me also say that those warblers I wrote about at the end of last year as migratory attractions in Virginia spend their whole summer in Canada and there is a park called Inglewood Bird Sanctuary in Calgary that is like yellow warbler central. We'd never seen one of these birds in person before and we managed maybe eight or nine in a couple of hours one morning and heard many, many more.

About 64,000 trout and one yellow warbler. I'm rounding up on the fish.

So about that Stampede. Every July, Calgary hosts a 10 day event which can only be described as a celebration of all things horse and agricultural and cowboy and Native American. I don't know how else to put it. Rodeo? Sure, they got that. Pavilions with farm animals? Oh yeah. A Native American camp with displays about indigenous life? Yep, got that too. Parade with Shania Twain as grand marshal? Yes, sir! Although not every year on Shania. Chuck wagon races? Unbelievably, absolutely. Rides, food stalls and more cowboy hats than you have ever seen in your life? Yahoo!!!!!

Have you ever seen an indigenous relay race? I hadn't either. I suggest if you ever get a chance to do so that you check one out and get as close to the relay exchange point as possible. We saw two heats of these things as part of the opening night Evening Show (there's one each of the ten nights of the Stampede) which features a twin bill of these races and some chuck wagon races, which is exactly what it sounds like...a chuck wagon being pulled around a race track by four horses in front of each wagon.

These relay races...I knew they were on horseback so I figured there would be four or so horses with riders who would each do a lap and then hand a baton to the next mounted teammate and so on until all the laps were done and someone finished first. Not so. It's one dude racing against three other dudes riding a horse bareback around a track; dismounting and getting on a second horse (also bareback); then switching to a third horse after the second lap; and finishing the third and final lap on a third horse, and of course no saddle on that one either. 

I don't know that I've seen an athletic contest more incredible and I've seen my fair share of athletic events in my life. I didn't know someone could jump from the ground onto a horse's back with no help or hands and then take off on said horse less than about a second after he landed on the horse's back. We saw messed up horse transfers, we saw someone fall off a horse and we saw a horse handler (someone holds the horses in place waiting for transfer) or two get knocked over during a horse exchange. But when this was done right...just amazing. The speed which these guys come into the exchange is just wow! They basically fly off one horse and leap right onto the next. I don't know what to say. I didn't expect something like this out of the Stampede Evening Show. I'm still stunned.

I don't know if I'll ever make it to a second Stampede but I have to tell you (and I'm shocked to be writing this), I'm not ruling it out.

Chuck wagon races and Native American hoop dancer. Calgary Stampede. Lots of cowboy hats.

Our opening day Stampede visit was on July 4, which of course is Independence Day in the United States. We knew there would be fireworks after the evening show. We didn't know exactly how long we'd have to wait for them (the Evening Show starts at 7:30 pm but sun doesn't set until after 10) but we knew there would be some. We hoped that these fireworks would be our second of this trip, expecting some on Canada Day (July 1) only to be denied by threat of wildfire. That's cool. I've been near enough to one wildfire in my life already and I'm good not being near one again.

I have never been to a fireworks show like we saw that night. It was absolutely spectacular. There were more fireworks for longer than I can ever remember seeing in one place at one time. The cover picture of this post is one shot from the end sequence that night. It looks like an artist's rendering but I assure you, it's totally and completely real. Canada gave me my best July 4 fireworks ever. Go figure!

I've been reading books this year. I try to read a book or two about new places we visit to get myself psyched up for the experience and maybe to learn a thing or two before I arrive someplace new. One of the two books I read before this trip was about a solo trip across Canada with a canoe that author Adam Shoalts made in 2017. It's called "Beyond The Trees" and it kept me occupied for a few weeks this winter and spring. There's one part of the book that reads as follows:

"I enjoy returning to old haunts as much as the next person, but they don't have quite the same magical allure as unknown places..."

We travel a lot more than a lot of people we know. We for sure have some old haunts we love to go back to. We spend time in New York City every year and we've already spent a week this year re-visiting Tokyo, which I can see us visiting many times in the future if we have time and enough resources to keep knocking off new places and going back to places we love. Canada was not new to us, but Calgary and the mountains of Alberta and British Columbia sure were unknown places and they both definitely had a lot of magical allure. Who knows...maybe one day we might consider that corner of the globe as an old haunt. 

Blog posts about mountains and other stuff to follow.

Happy Canada Day! (July 1) from Jasper National Park.