When you hear “all-inclusive wilderness lodge,” what do you picture eating?
Maybe a buffet breakfast, sandwiches packed into a cooler for lunch and a basic meat-and-potatoes dinner at the end of the day.
At some wilderness lodges, food is primarily practical. Guests need enough energy for the day’s activities, and meals are simply part of the package.
At Firvale Wilderness Camp, we look at it differently.
If you’ve travelled all the way to the Bella Coola Valley and Great Bear Rainforest for an incredible wilderness experience, we don’t think the experience should stop when you return to the lodge.
The food should be something you remember too.
Here’s what eating at a small, all-inclusive wilderness lodge can actually look like.
First, What Does All-Inclusive Mean?
“All-inclusive” can mean very different things depending on where you’re staying.
At Firvale, our multi-day adventure packages combine your accommodation, meals and scheduled guided experiences into one trip.
That means you don’t need to finish a day of bear viewing or hiking and then start searching Google for somewhere to eat.
Your day has a natural rhythm.
Wake up.
Have breakfast.
Head out on an adventure.
Come back to camp.
Relax.
Have dinner.
For us, removing those little logistical decisions is an important part of the experience.
Breakfast: Fuel for the Day Ahead
Breakfast at a wilderness lodge has a job to do.
Guests may be heading out for a morning of hiking, river floating, wildlife viewing or another adventure, so breakfast needs to provide enough fuel for the day ahead.
But functional doesn’t have to mean boring.
Our breakfasts change throughout the season and can include dishes such as eggs, breakfast meats, potatoes, fresh baking, fruit, granola and other rotating items.
Coffee is obviously important too.
Some mornings begin slowly.
Others begin with everyone eating breakfast while discussing what layers to wear, what to pack and what the weather is doing in the mountains.
Either way, breakfast is the beginning of the day’s adventure.
Lunch Has to Work Around the Adventure
Lunch is where wilderness lodge cooking becomes a little different from restaurant cooking.
Sometimes you’re sitting comfortably at the lodge.
Sometimes you’re not.
You might be halfway through a day exploring the Bella Coola Valley, heading toward a trail or travelling between activities.
That means lunches need to be portable when necessary, satisfying and appropriate for whatever the itinerary has planned.
A wilderness lunch doesn’t need tweezers and edible flowers.
It needs to taste good when you’re hungry.
Dinner Is Where We Slow Things Down
Dinner is different.
After spending much of the day outside, guests return to Firvale with time to relax.
Some head for the sauna. Others have a drink, sit outside or return to their cabin or dome for a while.
Meanwhile, dinner is being prepared.
This is the meal where our culinary program really gets to stretch its legs.
Menus change, but a dinner might include sustainably sourced BC seafood such as salmon, halibut or black cod, slow-braised meats, seasonal vegetables, fresh salads, house-made sauces and a dessert prepared in-house.
Our cooking draws inspiration from the Pacific Northwest, but we don’t restrict ourselves to one style.
A piece of black cod might be prepared with miso and accompanied by seasonal vegetables.
Salmon might be served with a fresh herb and caper sauce.
A braised beef dish might lean more toward classic French cooking.
Vegetables coming from the garden might determine where the entire dish goes.
The important thing is that the food makes sense, tastes great and feels right after a day outside.
We Don’t Run a Fixed Restaurant Menu
One of the luxuries of cooking for a small wilderness lodge is that we don’t need a giant menu.
We know roughly how many people we’re feeding.
We know when they’re arriving.
And we know what they’re doing that day.
That gives us considerably more freedom than a conventional restaurant.
We can change dishes according to the season, weather, available ingredients and the needs of the group.
If something particularly good is coming out of the garden, we can use it.
If our local growers have beautiful produce available, the menu can change.
We would rather cook what’s good right now than force ourselves to serve exactly the same menu all season.
How Local Is the Food?
“Local” is a word that gets used pretty loosely in hospitality.
For us, it’s about being practical.
During the growing season, we use produce and herbs from our own garden and greenhouse whenever possible.
We also source seasonal produce from Winter Sun Farm, an organic farm here in the Bella Coola Valley.
Being on the BC coast also means seafood naturally plays an important role in our menus, and we try to use high-quality, sustainably sourced BC ingredients wherever practical.
Not everything on your plate comes from Bella Coola—and we wouldn’t pretend that it does.
We’re still a remote lodge in a small community.
But when there is a great local or regional ingredient available, we’d much rather build a dish around it.
What About Vegetarians and Vegans?
This is one area where being small really helps.
Dietary requirements are increasingly common, and we don’t believe a vegetarian, vegan or dairy-free guest should receive a stripped-down version of everyone else’s meal.
Removing the meat and leaving three side dishes on a plate isn’t a vegetarian entrée.
Instead, we try to build complete dishes.
That can mean plant-based sauces, cashew-based components, seasonal vegetables, grains, mushrooms, house-made dressings and desserts specifically designed around dietary requirements.
We ask guests to provide dietary information before their trip because sourcing specialty ingredients at the last minute can be difficult in Bella Coola.
The more notice our kitchen has, the better we can prepare.
Is It Fine Dining?
Not exactly.
And that’s intentional.
Firvale co-owner and chef Bobby Sherlock began his culinary career in Vancouver kitchens more than 20 years ago and has since spent much of his career combining food with small-group adventure tourism.
That background influences the food at Firvale, but we don’t want dinner to feel like you’re sitting in a formal fine-dining restaurant.
You’ve probably spent much of the day outside.
You might have just come off a river.
Your hiking boots might still be drying.
Nobody needs a dress code.
We want to take the ingredients, techniques and attention to detail associated with good restaurants and remove the formality surrounding them.
You can eat really well without needing a white tablecloth.
Do You Need to Dress Up for Dinner?
No.
This is Bella Coola.
Clean and comfortable works just fine.
One of the things we love about wilderness lodge dining is that dinner can be special without feeling formal.
You might spend the afternoon watching a grizzly bear fishing along the river and then sit down a few hours later for a carefully prepared meal.
That contrast is part of the experience.
Why Small-Group Dining Is Different
There’s another advantage to eating at a small lodge that has nothing to do with what’s on the plate.
You know the people around the table.
By the second or third night, guests have usually spent considerable time together.
Maybe you floated the river together that morning.
Maybe you all watched the same bear catch a salmon.
Maybe somebody slipped into a mud puddle on the hike and everyone has been making fun of them since.
Dinner becomes the place where the day gets retold.
That’s difficult to recreate in a large hotel restaurant.
At Firvale, you’re not disappearing into a dining room filled with strangers after every activity.
The adventure and hospitality are part of the same experience.
Why Does Food Matter So Much at a Wilderness Lodge?
Because you remember it.
Travel is made up of moments.
Seeing your first grizzly bear.
Standing beneath an enormous cedar.
Watching clouds move through the Coast Mountains.
Soaking outside after a long day.
And sitting down absolutely starving to find something delicious waiting for you.
We don’t think food should simply fill the space between those moments.
It should be one of them.
So, What Will You Actually Eat at Firvale?
The slightly frustrating answer is:
It depends.
Our menus evolve throughout the season.
What’s growing in the garden changes.
Local produce changes.
The weather changes.
Guest dietary requirements change.
And occasionally we simply find something we want to cook.
That’s intentional.
We’re not interested in creating an enormous standardized menu that stays exactly the same year after year.
Firvale is a small, owner-operated wilderness camp.
That allows our food to be a little more personal, seasonal and creative.
You’ll eat well.
You’ll eat plenty.
And after spending the day exploring one of the wildest corners of British Columbia, you’ll probably arrive at dinner hungry.
We’ll take care of the rest.
